“When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law.”

Source: The Law (1850)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update July 7, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or …" by Frédéric Bastiat?

Frédéric Bastiat33

French classical liberal theorist, political economist, and… 1801–1850

Related quotes

“We must never lose sight of the fact that the law has a moral foundation, and we must never fail to ask ourselves not only what the law is, but what the law should be.”

Anthony Kennedy (1936) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Quoted in [Richard C. Reuben, Man in the Middle, California Lawyer, October 1992, 35]

“We respect law, when the law respects our needs. Whenever legality clashes with morality, legality should be opposed and morality should be upheld.”

Goparaju Ramachandra Rao (1902–1975) Indian activist

I Learn

“Justice is the constitution or fundamental law of the moral universe, the law of right, a rule of conduct for man in all his moral relations.”

Theodore Parker (1810–1860) abolitionist

Ten Sermons of Religion (1853), III : Of Justice and the Conscience https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ten_Sermons_of_Religion/Of_Justice_and_the_Conscience <br class="br">Context: Justice is the constitution or fundamental law of the moral universe, the law of right, a rule of conduct for man in all his moral relations. Accordingly all human affairs must be subject to that as the law paramount; what is right agrees therewith and stands, what is wrong conflicts and falls. Private cohesions of self-love, of friendship, or of patriotism, must all be subordinate to this universal gravitation towards the eternal right.

“From early childhood his moral principles had struggled blindly with his interests, but he was certain of one law that ruled all others — masses of men invariably follow interests in deciding morals. Morality is a private and costly luxury.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

“In his own way each man must struggle, lest the moral law become a far-off abstraction utterly separated from his active life.”

Jane Addams (1860–1935) pioneer settlement social worker

As quoted in The MacMillan Dictionary of Quotations (1989) by John Daintith, Hazel Egerton, Rosalind Ferguson, Anne Stibbs and Edmund Wright, p. 374.

“One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963)
Source: Letter from the Birmingham Jail
Context: One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."