“There is no better way of exercising the imagination than the study of law. No poet ever interpreted nature as freely as a lawyer interprets the truth.”

— Jean Giraudoux , The Trojan War Will Not Take Place

Tiger at the Gates (1935)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "There is no better way of exercising the imagination than the study of law. No poet ever interpreted nature as freely a…" by Jean Giraudoux?

Jean Giraudoux photo

Jean Giraudoux 14

French novelist, essayist, diplomat and playwright 1882–1944

Related quotes

“Men begin to reject simple things, and to write tracts, interpretations, and philosophical studies. They also begin to feel that they know a better way.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: Unsourced

“A Poet is needed to fully interpret a poet”

Andrew Thomson (1814–1901) British writer

Samuel Rutherford Unwin Bros, Gresham Press, London 1891

“The Interpretation of the Laws of Nature in a Common-wealth, dependeth not on the books of Moral Philosophy.”

Thomas Hobbes book Leviathan

The Second Part, Chapter 26, p. 143.
Leviathan (1651)
Context: The Interpretation of the Laws of Nature in a Common-wealth, dependeth not on the books of Moral Philosophy. The Authority of writers, without the Authority of the Commonwealth, maketh not their opinions Law, be they never so true.

“The Judge has not organs to know and to deal with the text of the foreign law, and therefore requires the assistance of a foreign lawyer who knows how to interpret it.”

Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux (1778–1868) English barrister, politician, and Lord Chancellor of Great Britain

Sussex Peerage Case (1844), 11 Cl. & F. 115.

“Man is the interpreter of nature, science the right interpretation.”

William Whewell (1794–1866) English philosopher & historian of science

Aphorism 17.
Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences (1840)

“The words of truth are naturally simple, and justice needs no subtle interpretations, for it has a fitness in itself”

Euripidés The Phoenician Women

ἁπλοῦς ὁ μῦθος τῆς ἀληθείας ἔφυ,
κοὐ ποικίλων δεῖ τἄνδιχ᾽ ἑρμηνευμάτων
Source: The Phoenician Women, Lines 469–470

“All things are subject to interpretation. Whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

“Quite honestly, we get one new civil case every business day of the year. We spend so much of our time reading the law and interpreting the law, that that does not leave much time for consideration of whether the law is prudent or might be written in a better way. I spend all of my time, with the assistance of my law clerks, trying to read the law and interpret it and apply it to the facts presented in any particular case. So I cannot say that I have spent much time at all considering the propriety of the laws that I have had occasion to interpret.”

Thomas Hardiman (1965) American judge

Judicial and Executive Nominations (November 14, 2006)

“Now the power to interpret is the power to establish; and if the people are not to be allowed finally to interpret the fundamental law, ours is not a popular government.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, California's Policies Proclaimed (Feb. 21, 1911)

“[The poet] must write as the interpreter of nature and the legislator of mankind, and consider himself as presiding over the thoughts and manners of future generations, as a being superior to time and place.”

Samuel Johnson book The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia

Source: The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759), Chapter 10

Related topics