“The true laws of God are the laws of our own well-being.”

— Samuel Butler

God's Laws
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part II - Elementary Morality

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Samuel Butler 232

novelist 1835–1902

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“Being true is different from being taken as true, whether by one or by many or everybody, and in no case is it to be reduced to it. There is no contradiction in something's being true which everybody takes to be false. I understand by 'laws of logic' not psychological laws of takings-to-be-true, but laws of truth. …If being true is thus independent of being acknowledged by somebody or other, then the laws of truth are not psychological laws: they are boundary stones set in an eternal foundation, which our thought can overflow, but never displace. It is because of this that they have authority for our thought if it would attain truth. They do not bear the relation to thought that the laws of grammar bear to language; they do not make explicit the nature of our human thinking and change as it changes.”

Gottlob Frege (1848–1925) mathematician, logician, philosopher

Introduction, Tr. Montgomery Furth (1964)
Grundgesetze der Arithmetik, 1893 and 1903

“"Just and true liberty, equal and impartial liberty," in matters spiritual and temporal, is a thing that all men are clearly entitled to by the eternal and immutable laws of God and nature, as well as by the law of nations and all well-grounded municipal laws, which must have their foundation in the former.”

Samuel Adams (1722–1803) American statesman, Massachusetts governor, and political philosopher

The Rights of the Colonists (1772)

“We are too apt to erect our own little and narrow notions of what is right and just, into the law of justice, and to insist that God shall adopt that as His law; to measure off something with our own little tape-line, and call it God's law of justice. Continually we seek to ennoble our own ignoble love of revenge and retaliation, by misnaming it justice.”

Albert Pike book Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry

Source: Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), Ch. III : The Master, p. 70
Context: Justice in no wise consists in meting out to another that exact measure of reward or punishment which we think and decree his merit, or what we call his crime, which is more often merely his error, deserves. The justice of the father is not incompatible with forgiveness by him of the errors and offences of his child. The Infinite Justice of God does not consist in meting out exact measures of punishment for human frailties and sins. We are too apt to erect our own little and narrow notions of what is right and just, into the law of justice, and to insist that God shall adopt that as His law; to measure off something with our own little tape-line, and call it God's law of justice. Continually we seek to ennoble our own ignoble love of revenge and retaliation, by misnaming it justice.

“...the prince is not subject to his law, nor to the laws of his predecessors, but well to his own just and reasonable conventions.”

Robert Filmer (1588–1653) English writer

Source: The Power of Kings, p. 318

“The moral law is the expression of our inmost nature, and when we live in consonance with it we feel that we are living out our true being.”

Felix Adler (1851–1933) German American professor of political and social ethics, rationalist, and lecturer

Section 6 : Higher Life
Founding Address (1876), Life and Destiny (1913)
Context: An ideal is a port toward which we resolve to steer. We may not reach it. The mere fact that our goal is definitely located does not suffice to conduct us thither. But surely we shall thus stand a better chance of making port in the end than if we drift about aimlessly, the sport of winds and tides, without having decided in our own minds in what direction we ought to bend our course.
The moral law is the expression of our inmost nature, and when we live in consonance with it we feel that we are living out our true being.

“The laws are with us, and God on our side.”

Robert Southey (1774–1843) British poet

On the Rise and Progress of Popular Disaffection, Essay viii, Vol. ii (1817).

“It was the error of Israel to put the law in God’s place, to make the law their God and their God a law.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Source: Discipleship (1937), The Righteousness of Christ, p. 122.

“(Gail A. Cobb) has our lasting admiration for the cause of law enforcement and the well-being of our society, a cause for which she made the highest sacrifice.”

Gerald Ford (1913–2006) American politician, 38th President of the United States (in office from 1974 to 1977)

Conference of the International Association of Police Chiefs http://www.mcjackie.com/cobb.html (24 September 1974).
1970s

“There is no human law or law of God or national law that states that any healthy being has to permit the snake to eat the mouse - but on the other hand, it is perfectly justified to defend the mouse.”

Ernst Kaltenbrunner (1903–1946) Austrian-born senior official of Nazi Germany executed for war crimes

To Leon Goldensohn, 6/6/46, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - Page 151 - History - 2004

“I am placing this book before our people, as I did so many others, simply because I want to be true to my own impulse for action in terms of my own lights. Rest is in the hands of Him who sends Saviours as well as Scourges according to His own inscrutable Law.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Genesis and Growth of Nehruism (1993)

“The true laws of God are the laws of our own well-being.”

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