“Law is whatever is boldly asserted and plausibly maintained.”
Reported in Burton Stevenson, Home Book of Proverbs, Maxims and Familiar Phrases (1948).
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Aaron Burr 4
American Vice President and politician 1756–1836Related quotes

Direct Action (1912)
Context: Every person who ever thought he had a right to assert, and went boldly and asserted it, himself, or jointly with others that shared his convictions, was a direct actionist. Some thirty years ago I recall that the Salvation Army was vigorously practising direct action in the maintenance of the freedom of its members to speak, assemble, and pray. Over and over they were arrested, fined, and imprisoned; but they kept right on singing, praying, and marching, till they finally compelled their persecutors to let them alone.

Notice sur les Titres et Travaux scientifiques de Pierre Duhem rédigée par lui-même lors de sa candidature à l'Académie des sciences (mai 1913), The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory (1906)

J. S. Mill, Dissertations and discussions: political, philosophical, and historical, Volume 2 http://books.google.gr/books?id=FyfPAAAAMAAJ&dq=, H. Holt, 1864, p. 11.

“The law of gravity thus asserts itself when a house falls about our ears.”
Vol. I, Ch. 1, Section 4, pg. 86.
(Buch I) (1867)

“Such was law; and it has maintained its two-fold character to this day.”
Source: Law and Authority (1886), II
Context: Legislators confounded in one code the two currents of custom of which we have just been speaking, the maxims which represent principles of morality and social union wrought out as a result of life in common, and the mandates which are meant to ensure external existence to inequality.
Customs, absolutely essential to the very being of society, are, in the code, cleverly intermingled with usages imposed by the ruling caste, and both claim equal respect from the crowd. "Do not kill," says the code, and hastens to add, "And pay tithes to the priest." "Do not steal," says the code, and immediately after, "He who refuses to pay taxes, shall have his hand struck off."
Such was law; and it has maintained its two-fold character to this day. Its origin is the desire of the ruling class to give permanence to customs imposed by themselves for their own advantage. Its character is the skillful commingling of customs useful to society, customs which have no need of law to insure respect, with other customs useful only to rulers, injurious to the mass of the people, and maintained only by the fear of punishment.

Reported in The Episcopalian: Volume 138 (1973), p. 12.