„What? I thought you came down right on the side of go directly to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars. 'The Law is the Law, Isabelle.' What was all that you were spouting?“
Jace to Alec, pg. 313
The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes (2008)
Cassandra Clare2041
American author 1973Related quotes
„What's going on? … What you are doing is not allowed in Islamic law [halal]. What you are doing is forbidden in Islam [haraam]! … Do you know right from wrong?“
— Muammar Gaddafi Libyan revolutionary, politician and political theorist 1942 - 2011
Remarks to captors minutes before death, quoted in msnbc.com (2011 October 21) "Even stashed in a meat locker, Gadhafi divides Libya" http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/44986347/ns/today-today_news/t/battle-over-body-delays-gadhafis-burial/
„But what are you supposed to do in a society that’s corrupt? Are you supposed to obey corrupt laws? Is it a crime to break a law that’s a rotten law, or an oath that’s rotten?
“It’s a crime,” Cartwright admitted slowly. “But it may be the right thing to do.”
“In a society of criminals,” Shaeffer offered, “the innocent man goes to jail.”
“Who decides when the society is made up of criminals? Benteley demanded. “How do you know when your society has gone wrong? How do you know when it’s right to stop obeying the laws?“
— Philip K. Dick, book Solar Lottery
“You just know,” Rita O’Neill said fiercely.
Source: Solar Lottery (1955), Chapter 14 (pp. 156-157)
„I mean did we take the law, the ‘LAW’ in our hands by playing in college? What were they going to do, put a charge on us under Indian Penal Code?!“
— Gaurav Sharma (author) Author and novelist 1992
Gone are the Days (2016)
„There is no need for him to call on me. I am not about to be a party to anything having to do with the law that is going to destroy individual freedom and liberty in this country. I am having nothing to do with enforcing a law that will destroy our free enterprise system. I am having nothing to do with enforcing a law that will destroy neighborhood schools. I am having nothing to do with enforcing a law that will destroy the rights of private property. I am having nothing to do with enforcing a law that destroys your right --and my right -- to choose my neighbors -- or to sell my house to whomever I choose. I am having nothing to do with enforcing a law that destroys the labor seniority system. I am having nothing to do with this so-called civil rights bill. The liberal left-wingers have passed it. Now let them employ some pinknik social engineers in Washington, D. C., to figure out what to do with it.“
— George Wallace 45th Governor of Alabama 1919 - 1998
Speech http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/documents/1951-/speech-by-george-c-wallace-the-civil-rights-movement-fraud-sham-and-hoax-1964-.php (4 July 1964)
1960s
„There have been times throughout American history where what is right is not the same as what is legal. Sometimes to do the right thing you have to break the law.“
— Edward Snowden American whistleblower and former National Security Agency contractor 1983
Snowden's first U.S. television interview, to NBC's Brian Williams; Snowden: "Sometimes To Do The Right Thing You Have to Break a Law", Gawker (29 May 2014) http://gawker.com/snowden-sometimes-to-do-the-right-thing-you-have-to-b-1583145785
„The government can't change the weather. I said that in the speech. We can pass a bunch of laws that will destroy our economy, but it isn't going to change the weather. Because, for example, there are other countries that are polluting in the atmosphere much greater than we are at this point, China, India, all these countries that are still growing. They're not going to stop doing what they're doing. America is a country, it's not a planet. So we can pass a bunch of laws or executive orders that will do nothing to change the climate or the weather but will devastate our economy. Devastate it!“
— Marco Rubio U.S. Senator from state of Florida, United States; politician 1971
Fox & Friends, Fox News, , quoted in * 2013-02-13
GOP ‘Savior’ Marco Rubio Mocks Climate Change
Adam
Peck
Think Progress
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/02/13/1588411/gop-savior-marco-rubio-mocks-climate-change/
Referring to a statement in his State of the Union response, "When we point out that no matter how many job-killing laws we pass, our government can't control the weather — he accuses us of wanting dirty water and dirty air."
2010s, 2013
„Please be peaceful. We believe in law and order. We are not advocating violence, I want you to love your enemies… for what we are doing is right, what we are doing is just -- and God is with us.“
— Martin Luther King, Jr. American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement 1929 - 1968
„I supposed if you were going to make a career of breaking laws, you might as well know them.“
— Richelle Mead, book Last Sacrifice
Source: Last Sacrifice
„We must reverse this psychology (of needing guns for home defense). We can do it by passing a law that says anyone found in possession of a handgun except a legitimate officer of the law goes to jail- period!“
— Carl Rowan American journalist 1925 - 2000
1981 column.
Quoington Star article entitled "Has President Nixon Gone Crazy?"
„“You could rule the nation—and yet you don’t seem to go after that power.”
The mayor frowned. “Power, Mrs. O’Hare? You mean the chance to make laws and compel others to do what you want them to? Why, good heavens, Mrs. O’Hare, who in his right mind would want that?”“
— Frederik Pohl American science fiction writer and editor 1919 - 2013
Servant of the People (p. 254)
„Roper: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law!
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you — where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast — man's laws, not God's — and if you cut them down — and you're just the man to do it — d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.“
— Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons
Act I
A Man for All Seasons (1960)
„What do these feminists want? What do you want? You say equality. Oh! I don't want to seem rude, but …you're equal in the eyes of the law but not, excuse my saying so, in ability.“
— Mohammad Reza Pahlavi Shah of Iran 1919 - 1980
Oriana Fallaci (December 30, 1973), The Mystically Divine Shah of Iran (interview), Chicago Tribune
Interviews
„Chris Matthews: Let me ask you this: the '64 civil rights bill. Do you think a [em]ployer, a guy runs his shop down in Texas has a right to say, "If you're black, you don't come in my store". That was the libertarian right before '64. Was it the balanced society?
Ron Paul: I believe that property rights should be protected. Your right to be on TV is protected by property rights because somebody owns that station. I can't walk into your station. So right of freedom of speech is protected by property. The right of your church is protected by property. So people should honor and protect it. This gimmick, Chris, it's off the wall when you say I'm for property rights and states' rights, therefore I'm a racist. I mean that's just outlandish. Wait, Chris. Wait, Chris. People who say that if the law was there and you could do that, who's going to do it? What idiot would do that?
Chris Matthews: Everybody in the South. I saw these signs driving through the South in college. Of course they did it. You remember them doing it.
Ron Paul: Yeah, I but also know that the Jim Crow laws were illegal and we got rid of them under that same law, and that's all good. Government —
Chris Matthews: But you would've voted against that law.
Ron Paul: Pardon me?
Chris Matthews: You would've voted against that law. You wouldn't have voted for the '64 civil rights bill.
Ron Paul: Yes, but not in — I wouldn’t vote against getting rid of the Jim Crow laws.
Chris Matthews: But you would have voted for the — you know you — oh, come on. Honestly, Congressman, you were not for the '64 civil rights bill.
Ron Paul: Because — because of the property rights element, not because it got rid of the Jim Crow law.“
— Ron Paul American politician and physician 1935
2011
„Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles. He saved hundreds of thousands of lives, are you going to convict Jack Bauer? Say that criminal law is against him? 'You have the right to a jury trial?' Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer? I don't think so.“
— Antonin Scalia former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States 1936 - 2016
Citing the television program 24 to support torture. Last Week Tonight http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/06/15/john-oliver-and-helen-mirren-take-the-u-s-and-24-s-jack-bauer-to-task-over-torture.html
2000s
„No matter how honest and decent we are in our private lives, if we do not have the right kind of law and the right kind of administration of the law, we cannot go forward as a nation.“
— Theodore Roosevelt American politician, 26th president of the United States 1858 - 1919
1910s, The New Nationalism (1910)
Context: No matter how honest and decent we are in our private lives, if we do not have the right kind of law and the right kind of administration of the law, we cannot go forward as a nation. That is imperative; but it must be an addition to, and not a substitute for, the qualities that make us good citizens. In the last analysis, the most important elements in any man’s career must be the sum of those qualities which, in the aggregate, we speak of as character. If he has not got it, then no law that the wit of man can devise, no administration of the law by the boldest and strongest executive, will avail to help him. We must have the right kind of character-character that makes a man, first of all, a good man in the home, a good father, and a good husband-that makes a man a good neighbor. You must have that, and, then, in addition, you must have the kind of law and the kind of administration of the law which will give to those qualities in the private citizen the best possible chance for development. The prime problem of our nation is to get the right type of good citizenship, and, to get it, we must have progress, and our public men must be genuinely progressive.
„If it should happen some day that a man, having in his hand the five hundred thousand officeholders who constitute the government, and the four hundred thousand soldiers composing the army, if it should happen that this man should tear up the Constitution, should violate every law, break every oath, trample upon every right, commit every crime, do you know what your irremovable magistrates, instructors in the right, and guardians of the law, would do? They would hold their tongues.“
— Victor Hugo French poet, novelist, and dramatist 1802 - 1885
Napoleon the Little (1852), Book VIII, IV
Napoleon the Little (1852)
„I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.“
— Abraham Lincoln 16th President of the United States 1809 - 1865
First Debate with Stephen Douglas in the Lincoln-Douglas debates http://www.bartleby.com/251/ of the 1858 campaign for the U.S. Senate, at Ottawa, Illinois (21 August 1858). Lincoln later quoted himself and repeated this statement in his first Inaugural Address (4 March 1861) to emphasize that any acts of secession were over-reactions to his election. During the war which followed his election he eventually declared the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the slaves in those states in rebellion against the union, arguably as a war measure rather than as an entirely political or moral initiative.
1850s