“There is no difference in the law. But so long have they quarreled concerning the origin of law that the law itself has fallen more and more into abeyance.”

—  Felix Adler

Founding Address (1876)
Context: The Hebrew prophets said of old, to serve Jehovah is to make your hearts pure and your hands clean from corruption, to help the suffering, to raise the oppressed. Jesus of Nazareth said that he came to comfort the weary and heavy laden. The Philosopher affirms that the true service of religion is the unselfish service of the common weal. There is no difference among them all. There is no difference in the law. But so long have they quarreled concerning the origin of law that the law itself has fallen more and more into abeyance. For indeed, as it is easier to say. "I do not believe," and have done with it, so also it is easier to say, "I believe," and thus to bribe one's way into heaven, as it were, than to fulfill nobly our human duties with all the daily struggle and sacrifice which they involve.

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 difference in the law. But so long have they quarreled concerning the origin of law that the law itself has…" by Felix Adler?
Felix Adler photo
Felix Adler 99
German American professor of political and social ethics, r… 1851–1933

Related quotes

Samuel Butler photo

“The written law is binding, but the unwritten law is much more so.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

The Law
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part VII - On the Making of Music, Pictures, and Books
Context: The written law is binding, but the unwritten law is much more so. You may break the written law at a pinch and on the sly if you can, but the unwritten law — which often comprises the written — must not be broken. Not being written, it is not always easy to know what it is, but this has got to be done.

John Coleridge, 1st Baron Coleridge photo

“As long as we have to administer the law we must do so according to the law as it is. We are not here to make the law.”

John Coleridge, 1st Baron Coleridge (1820–1894) British lawyer, judge and Liberal politician

Reg v. Solomons (1890), 17 Cox, C. C. 93.

“The common law of England must direct the determination of a common law question. By common-law determinations we are bound; and to them we must always adhere: for, these are the proper constitutional declarations of the law of the land. They are so considered, even by the Court of Chancery itself. When any doubt arises in a cause of equity concerning a point of common law, it is usually referred to the determination of a Court of Common Law.”

Joseph Yates (judge) (1722–1770) English barrister and judge

4 Burr. Part IV., 2377.
Dissenting in Millar v Taylor (1769)

Émile Durkheim photo

“When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary. When mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable.”

Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) French sociologist (1858-1917)

Attributed from postum publications
Source: Jeffrey Eisenach et al. (1993), Readings in renewing American civilization, p. 54

Abraham Lincoln photo

“Wherever slavery is, it has been first introduced without law. The oldest laws we find concerning it, are not laws introducing it; but regulating it, as an already existing thing.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1850s, Speech at Peoria, Illinois (1854)

Albert Einstein photo

“The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the Prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
Paul Carus photo

“Pythagoras says that number is the origin of all things, and certainly the law of number is the key that unlocks the secrets of the universe. But the law of number possesses an immanent order, which is at first sight mystifying, but on a more intimate acquaintance we easily understand it to be intrinsically necessary; and this law of number explains the wondrous consistency of the laws of nature.”

Paul Carus (1852–1919) American philosopher

"Reflections on Magic Squares" in The Monist, Vol. 16 (1906), p. 139

Marcus Annaeus Seneca photo

“Some laws are not written, but are more decisive than any written law.”
Quædam iura non scripta, sed omnibus scriptis certiora sunt.

Marcus Annaeus Seneca (-54–39 BC) Roman scholar

Book I, Chapter I; slightly modified translation from Norman T. Pratt Seneca's Drama (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983) p. 140
Controversiae

César Vallejo photo

“Aviation in air, in water and in spirit. Its laws are different in all three cases. The spirit soars the more it weighs and sinks into itself. The heavier the spirit, the higher and farther it flies.”

César Vallejo (1892–1938) Peruvian writer

Source: Aphorisms (2002), p. 51

Related topics