“All things obey fixed laws.”
Book I, line 479.
Astronomica
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Marcus Manilius18
Roman writerRelated quotes
Catherine the Great (1729–1796) Empress of Russia
And this is the Origin of every Kind of Subjection; which feels itself more or less alleviated, in Proportion to the Situation of the Subjects.And, consequently, as the Law of Nature commands Us to take as much Care, as lies in Our Power, of the Prosperity of all the People; we are obliged to alleviate the Situation of the Subjects, as much as sound Reason will permit. And therefore, to shun all Occasions of reducing People to a State of Slavery, except the utmost Necessity should inevitably oblige us to do it; in that Case, it ought not to be done for our own Benefit; but for the Interest of the State: Yet even that Case is extremely uncommon. Of whatever Kind Subjection may be, the civil Laws ought to guard, on the one Hand, against the Abuse of Slavery, and, on the other, against the Dangers which may arise from it.
Proposals for a New Law Code (1768)
“To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.”
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) Suffragist and Women's Rights activist
Address to the Tenth National Women's Rights Convention on Marriage and Divorce, New York City, May 11, 1860; as published in Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Feminist as Thinker: A Reader in Documents and Essays edited by Ellen Carol DuBois and Richard Cándida Smith.
“Obeying an inalienable law, things grew, growing riotous and strange in their impulse for growth.”
Brian W. Aldiss book Hothouse
Source: Hothouse (1962), Chapter 1 (first line)
Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex (1485–1540) English statesman and chief minister to King Henry VIII of England
Source: Letter to Henry VIII (30 June 1540), quoted in Roger Bigelow Merriman, Life and Letters of Thomas Cromwell, Volume II: Letters from 1536, Notes, Index (1902), p. 273
“That which is not just, is not Law; and that which is not Law, ought not to be obeyed.”
Algernon Sidney (1623–1683) British politician and political theorist
Ch. 3, Sect. 11 http://www.constitution.org/as/dcg_311.htm <br class="br">Discourses Concerning Government (1689)
Rudyard Kipling book The Second Jungle Book
The Law of the Jungle, Stanza 19.
The Second Jungle Book (1895)
“The essential principle of totalitarianism is to make laws that are impossible to obey.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist
Source: god is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
“There are times when the law jeopardizes those who obey it.”
Kathy Acker (1947–1997) American novelist, playwright, essayist, and poet
Source: Pussy, King of the Pirates