law

The fountains mingle with the river, And the rivers with the ocean; The winds of heaven mix for ever With a sweet emotion; Nothing in the world is single; All things, bya law divine, In one spirit meet and mingle. Why not I with thine?

—Shelley, Percy Bysshe

The uglier a man's legs are, the better he plays golf. It's almost a law.

—Wells, H(erbert) G(eorge)

On s'ennuie de tout, mon Ange, c'est une loi de la Nature; ce n'est pas ma faute. One gets bored of everything, my Angel, it's a law of nature; it's not my fault.

—Laclos, Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos de

   The most basic law of economics†that one cannot get something for nothing.

—Harrod, Sir Roy

Marriage is the only actual bondage known to our law. Thereremainno legalslaves,exceptthemistress ofevery house.

—Mill,John Stuart

Poetry in this latter age hath proved but a mean mistress to such as have whollyaddicted themselves to her, or given their names up to her family. They who have but saluted her on the by, and now and then tendered their visits, she hath done much for, and advanced in the way of their own professions (both the law and the gospel) beyond all they could have hoped, or done for themselves without her favour.

—Jonson, Ben

Whether the nymph shall break Diana's law, Or some frail china jar receive a flaw, Or stain her honour, or her new brocade, Forget her pray'rs, or miss a masquerade.

—Pope, Alexander

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose Wild tongues that have not Thee in aweö Such boasting as the Gentiles use, Or lesser breeds without the Law.

—Kipling, (Joseph) Rudyard

No brilliance is needed in the law. Nothing but common sense, and relatively clean finger nails.

—Mortimer, SirJohn Clifford

The business of the law istomake sense of the confusion of what we call human lifeöto reduce it to order but at the same time to give it possibility, scope, even dignity.

—MacLeish, Archibald

Idon't much care for your law, but, bygolly, this bourbon isgood.

—Truman, Harry S

Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: Iamnotcometo destroy, buttofulfil.For verily I say unto you,Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

—Bible (NewTestament)

The Conservatives, as being by the law of theirexistence the stupidest party.

—Mill,John Stuart

Who trusted God was love indeed And love Creation's final lawö Though Nature, red in tooth and claw With ravine, shrieked against his creed.

—Tennyson

Man, her last work, who seemed so fair, Such splendid purpose in his eyes, Who rolled the psalm to wintry skies, Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer, Who trusted God was love indeed And love Creation's final lawö Though Nature, red in tooth and claw With ravine, shrieked against his creed.

—Tennyson

The criminal law is no use to decent people.

—Shaw, George Bernard

Custom that is before all law, Nature that is above all art.

—Daniel, Samuel

'I dinna ken muckle about the law,'answered Mrs Howden; 'but I ken, when we had a king, and a chancellor, and parliament-men o'our ain, we could aye peeble them wi'stanes when they werena gude bairnsöBut naebody's nails can reach the length o' Lunnon.'

—Scott, Sir Walter

Every law is a contract between the king and the people and therefore to be kept.

—Selden,John

Every law is an evil, for every law is an infraction of liberty.

—Bentham,Jeremy

Reason to rule, but mercy to forgive: The first is law, the last prerogative.

—Dryden,John

Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour.Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.

—Bible (NewTestament)

A decision of the courts decided that the game of golf may be played on a Sunday, not being a game within the view of the law, but being a form of moral effort.

—Leacock, Stephen Butler

Si l'on recherche en quoi consiste pre¤  cise¤  ment le plus grand bien de tous, qui doit e"  tre le fin de tout syste'  me de le¤  gislation, on trouvera qu'il se re¤  duit a'   ces deux objets principaux, la liberte¤   et l'e¤  galite¤  . If we enquire wherein lies precisely the greatest good of all, which ought to be the goal of every system of law, we shall find that it comes down to two main objects, freedom and equality.

—Rousseau,JeanJacques

God is thy law, thou mine: to know no more Is woman's happiest knowledge and her praise. With thee conversing I forget all time.

—Milton,John

'Slavery's a thing thet depends on complexion, It's God's law thet fetters on black skins don't chafe; Ef brains wuz to settle it (horrid reflection!) Wich of our onnable body'd be safe?'

—Lowell,James Russell

Salus populi suprema est lex. The good of the people is the chief law.

—Cicero full name MarcusTullius Cicero

Jesus said unto him,Thou shalt love the Lord Thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it,Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

—Bible (NewTestament)

The worst your malice can, Is but to say the greatest of mankind Has been my slave. The next, but far above him In my esteem, is he whom law calls yours, But whom his love made mine.

—Dryden,John

There can be no higher law in journalism than to tell the truth and shame the devil. See Shakespeare 742:17.

—Lippmann,Walter

Hofstadter's Law: It alwaystakeslonger thanyouexpect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.

—Hofstadter, Douglas R(ichard)

Ignorance of the law excuses no man; not that all men know the law, but because 'tis an excuse every man will plead, and no man can tell how to confute him.

—Selden,John

Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.But his delight is in the law of the L; and in his law doth he meditate dayand night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in hisseason; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodlyare not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.

—Bible (Old Testament)

We best avoid wars by taking even physical action to stop small ones. Everybody knows that the United Nations isnot ina position to dothat† We must facethe fact that the United Nations is not yet the internal equivalent of ourown legal systemand rule of law.Police action must be to separate the belligerents and to prevent a resumption of hostilities.

—Eden, Sir (Robert) Anthony, 1st Earl of Avon

The invariable law of the newspaper is to be interesting.

—Dana, Charles Anderson

How long soever it hath continued, if it be against reason, it is of no force in law.

—Coke, Sir Edward

Drink a health to the wonders of the western world, the pirates, preachers, poteen-makers, with the jobbing jockies; parching peelers, and the juries fill their stomachs selling judgments of the English law.

—Synge,John Millington

Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he. 100

—Bible (Old Testament)

Keep ye the lawöbe swift in all obedienceö Clear the land of evil, drive the road and bridge the ford. Make ye sure to each his own That he reap where he hath sown; By thepeaceamongourpeopleslet men know weserve the Lord!

—Kipling, (Joseph) Rudyard

I know the law since I have spent my entire life in its flagrant disregard.

—Milius,John

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.

—King, Martin LutherJr

Naturehasgivenwomensomuchpower thatthelaw has very wisely given them little.

—Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson

'If the law supposes that,'said Mr Bumble†'the law is a assöa idiot.'

—Dickens, CharlesJohn Huffam

Law is a bottomless pit.

—Arbuthnot,John

Le droit des gens est naturellement fonde¤   sur ce principe: que les diverses nations doivent se faire, dans la paix, le plus de bien, et, dans la guerre, le moins de mal qu'il est possible, sans nuire a'   leurs ve¤  ritables inte¤  re"  ts. Law is naturally founded on this principle: that different nations should do, in peace and as far as best as they can in war, the least harm as possible, without harming their true interests.

—Bre'  de et de

I am ashamed the law is such an ass. See Dickens 267:96.

—Chapman, George

Nous savons tous ici que le droit est la plus puissante des e¤  coles de l'imagination. Jamais poe'  te n'a interpre¤  te¤   la nature aussi librement qu'un juriste la re¤  alite¤  . We all know here that the law is the most powerful of schools for the imagination. No poet ever interpreted nature as freelyas a lawyer interprets the truth.

—Giraudoux, (Hippolyte) Jean

  The Law is the true embodiment Of everything that's excellent. It has no kind of fault or flaw, And I, my Lords, embody the Law.

—Gilbert, Sir W(illiam) S(chwenck)

There are not enough jails, not enough policemen, not enough courts to enforce a law not supported by the people.

—Humphrey, Hubert Horatio

Another law of academic life: it is impossible to be excessive in flattery of one's peers.

—Lodge, David John

While the law [of competition] may be sometimes hard for theindividual, it isbestfor therace, becauseit insures thesurvival ofthefittest ineverydepartment. Weaccept and welcome, therefore, as conditions towhichwe must accommodate ourselves, great inequality of environment, the concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of a few, and the law of competition between these, as being not only beneficial, but essential to the future progress of the race.

—Carnegie, Andrew

The deceased Gentlemanwas, weare informed, a native of Ashbourn, Derbyshire, at which place he was born in theYear of Grace, 217, and was consequently in the 1643rd year of his age. For some months the patriotic Old Man had been suffering from injuries sustained in his native town, so far back as Shrovetide in last year; he was at once removed (byappeal) to London, where he lingered in suspense till the law of death put its icy hand upon him, and claimed as another trophy to magisterial interference one who had long lived in the hearts of the people.

—Anonymous

Votre plaisir g|"t de¤ s honorer les femmes, et votre honneur tuer les hommes en guerre; qui sont deux points formellement contraires a'   la loi de Dieu. Your pleasure lies in dishonouring women and your honour lies in killing men at war; two acts which stand in contradiction to the law of God.

—Marguerite d'Angoule"  me

Car loi d'Amour est de l'un captiver, L'autre donner d'heureuse liberte¤  . The law of love is to captivate one, And to give another joyous freedom.

—Sce'  ve, Maurice

The law of Moses is harsh and severe, as for an enslaved and stubborn people, but it punishes theft with a fine, not death. Let us not think that in his new law of mercy, where he treats us with the tenderness of a father,God has given us greater license to be cruel to one another.

—More, SirThomas

See we not plainly that obedience of creatures unto the law of nature is the stay of the whole world?

—Hooker, Richard

   Here, even the law of the jungle has broken down.

—Jumblatt,Walid

Now this is the Law of the Jungleöas old and as true as the sky; 471

—Kipling, (Joseph) Rudyard

   A man-cub isa man-cub, and hemust learn all the Lawof the Jungle.

—Kipling, (Joseph) Rudyard

An unalterable and unquestioned law of the musical world required that the German text of French operas sung by Swedish artists should be translated into Italian for the clearer understanding of English speaking audiences.

—Wharton, Edith Newbold ne¤  e Jones

   This is the law of theYukon, that only the Strong shall thrive; That surely theWeak shall perish, and only the Fit survive.

—Service, Robert William

Cruelty is the law pervading all nature and society; and we can't get out of it if we would!

—Hardy,Thomas

The law seems like a sort of maze through which a client must be led to safety, a collection of reefs, rocks, and underwater hazards through which he or she must be piloted.

—Mortimer, SirJohn Clifford

Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.

—Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans

For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves.

—Bible (NewTestament)

Then the law to him Is like a foul black cobweb to a spider; He makes it his dwelling, and a prison To entangle those shall feed him.

—Webster,John

Oh happy state! when souls each other draw, When love is liberty, and nature, law: All then is full, possessing, and possessed, No craving void left aching in the breast.

—Pope, Alexander

Love workethno ill tohisneighbour: therefore love isthe fulfilling of the law.

—Bible (NewTestament)

Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them.

—Bible (Old Testament)

Men of sound sense have Law for their god, but men without sense Pleasure.

—Plato

Zwei Dinge erfu«  llen das Gemu« t  mit immer neuer und zunehmender Bewunderung und Ehrfurcht, je  o« fter und anhaltender sich das Nachdenken damit besch a« ftigt: der bestirnte Himmel u«  ber mir, unddas moralische Gesetz in mir. Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within.

—Kant, Immanuel

Hail, wedded love, mysterious law, true source Of human offspring, sole propriety In Paradise of all things common else. 583

—Milton,John

  Possession is nine points of the law.

—Anonymous

Iadmit it ismore funto puntthanto be punted, and that a desire to have all the fun is nine-tenths of the law of chivalry.

—Sayers, Dorothy L(eigh)

There can be no law if we were to invoke one code of international conduct for those who oppose us and another for our friends.

—Eisenhower, Dwight D(avid)

That damnable woman's trick of heaping obligations on a man, of placing yourself so entirelyand helplesslyat his mercy that at last he dare not take a step without running to you for leave. I know a poor wretch whose one desire in life is to run away from his wife. She prevents him by threatening to throw herself in front of the engine of the train he leaves her in. That is what all women do. If we try to go where you do not want us to go there is no law to prevent us; but when we take the first step your breasts are under our foot as it descends: your bodies are under our wheels as we start. No woman shall ever enslave me in that way.

—Shaw, George Bernard

No man can point to any law in the U.S. by which slavery was originally established. Men first make slaves and then make laws.

—Washington Bailey

   All people seem to be divided into'ordinary'and 'extraordinary'. The ordinary people must lead a life of strict obedience and have no right to transgress the law because†theyare ordinary.Whereas the extraordinary people have the right to commit any crime they like and transgress the law in any way just because they happen to be extraordinary.

—Dostoevsky, Fyodor Mikhailovich

Sowill Igo in untothe king, which isnot according tothe law: and if I perish, I perish.

—Bible (Old Testament)

One God, one law, one element, And one far-off divine event, To which the whole creation moves.

—Tennyson

Order is Heaven's first law.

—Pope, Alexander

Labour is the Party of law and order in Britain todayötough on crime and tough on the causes of crime.

—Blair,Tony (Anthony Charles Lynton)

People crushed by law have no hope but from power. If laws are theirenemies, they will be enemiesto laws; and those, who have much to hope and nothing to lose, will always be dangerous, more or less.

—Burke, Edmund

   Mahomet made the people believe that he would call a hill to him, and from the top of it offer up his prayers for the observers of his law. The people assembled: Mahomet called the hill to come to him again and again; and whenthehill stoodstill hewasneverawhit abashed, but said,'If the hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill.'

—Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans

The one great principle of the English law is, to make business for itself. There is no other principle distinctly, certainly, and consistently maintained through all its narrow turnings.

—Dickens, CharlesJohn Huffam

Let them bring me prisoners, and I'll find them law.

—MacQueen, Robert, Lord Braxfield

Prisons are built with stones of Law, brothels with bricks of Religion.

—Blake,William

I dislike almost all dogs, but Alsatians, I do truly believe, should be prohibited by law in any civilised country† The more I see of dogs, the more I admire men.

—Levin, (Henry) Bernard

   Every man who comes to England is entitled to the protection of the English law, whatever oppression he may heretofore have suffered, and whatever may be the colour of his skin, whether it is black or whether it is white.

—Mansfield,William Murray, 1st Earl

He brought an eye for all he saw; He mixed in all our simple sports; They pleased him, fresh from brawling courts And dusty purlieus of the law.

—Tennyson

I am born of the conquerors, you of the persecuted. Raped by rum and an alien law, progress and economics, are you and I and a once-loved land peopled by tribes and trees; doomed traders and stock-exchanges, bought by faceless strangers.

—McKinney

   For the rational study of the law the blackletter man may be the man of the present, but the man of the future is the man of statistics and the master of economics.

—Holmes, Oliver Wendell,Jr

The one point on which all women are in furious secret rebellion against the existing law is the saddling of the righttoa child with the obligationto becometheservant of a man. 780

—Shaw, George Bernard

Persecution is not an original feature of any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all law- religions, or religions established by law.

—Paine,Thomas

Religious law is like the grammar of language. Any language isgoverned by such rules; otherwise it ceases to be a language. But within them, you can say many different sentences and write many different books.

—Sacks,Jonathan

By numbers here from shame or censure free, All crimes are safe, but hated poverty. This, only this, the rigid law pursues, This, only this, provokes the snarling muse.

—Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson

It is procedure that spells much of the difference between rule by law and rule by whim or caprice.

—Douglas, (George) Norman

Ifelt my heart strangely warmed.I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given methat hehad taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.

—Wesley,John

   All moanday, tearsday, wailsday, thumpsday, frightday, shatterday till the fear of the Law.

—Joyce,James Augustine Aloysius

Ich solle niemals anders verfahren, als so, dass ich auch wollen k o« nne, meine Maxime solle ein allgemeines Gesetz werden. I ought never to act except in such a way that I can also will that my maxim should become a universal law.

—Kant, Immanuel

Yours the lawlessness of something simple that has lost its law.

—Lowell, RobertTraill Spence,Jr

So long as the law considers all these human beings, with beating heartsand living affections,onlyassomany things belonging tothemasteröso long asthefailure, or misfortune, or imprudence, or death of the kindest owner, may cause them any day to exchange a life of kind protection and indulgence for one of hopeless miseryand toilöso long is it impossible to make anything beautiful or desirable in the best-regulated administration of slavery.

—Stowe, Harriet (Elizabeth) ne¤  e Beecher

We the Peoples of the United Nations, determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, whichtwice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to 873 mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignityand worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom, and for these ends, to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one anotherasgood neighbours, and tounite our strengthto maintain international peace and security, and to ensure by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples, have resolved to combine our efforts to accomplish these aims.

—United Nations Charter

Este natural impulso que Dios puso en m|¤†su Majestad sabe por que¤   y para que¤  ; y sabe que le he pedido que apague la luz de mi entendimiento dejando so¤  lo lo que baste para guardar su Ley, pues lo dema¤  s sobra, (seg u¤ n algunos) en una mujer; y aun hay quien dice que dan‹  a. This natural impulse which God has implanted in me†only His Majesty knows whyand wherefore and His Majesty also knows that I have prayed to Him to extinguish the light of my mind, only leaving sufficient to keep His Law, since any more is overmuch, so some say, in a woman, and there are even those who say it is harmful.

—Cruz, SorJuana Ine¤  s de la

I should have been glad to have humanity forget all about strayalcoholic drinks†but in the present stage of human progress, this vehicle of joy could not be generally suppressed by federal law.

—Hoover, Herbert Clark

Poetry is the supreme fiction, madame. Take the moral law and make a nave of it And from the nave build haunted heaven.

—Stevens,Wallace

Souviens-toi que leTemps est un joueur avide Qui gagne sans tricher, a'   tout coup! c'est la loi. Remember! Time, that tireless gambler, wins on every turn of the wheel: that is the law.

—Baudelaire, Charles

Nullius liber homo capiatur, vel imprisonetur, aut dissaisiatur, aut utlagetur, aut exuletur, aut aliquo modo destruator, nec super eum ibimus, nec super eum mittemus, nisi per legale judicium parium suorum vel per legem terrae. No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or dispossessed, or outlawed or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him, nor will we send against him except by the lawful judgement of his peers or by the law of the land.

—Magna Carta

The lawofthesurvival ofthefittest wasnot made by man and cannot be abrogated by man.We can only by interfering with it, produce the survival of the unfittest.

—Sumner,William Graham

   To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin That makes calamity of so long life; For who would fardels bear, till Birnam Wood do come to Dunsinane, But that the fear of something after death Murders the innocent sleep, Great nature's second course, And makes us rather sling the arrows of outrageous fortune Than fly to others that we know not of. There's the respect must give us pause: Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

—Twain, Mark pseudonym of  Samuel Langhorne Clemens

A fig for those by law protected! Liberty's a glorious feast! Courts for Cowards were erected, Churches built to please the Priest.

—Burns, Robert

Nature is nowhere accustomed more openly to display her secret mysteries than in cases where she shows tracings of her workings apart from the beaten paths; nor is there any better way to advance the proper practice of medicine than to give our minds to the discovery of the usual law of nature, by careful investigation of cases of rarer forms of disease.

—Harvey,William

'That sounds like nonsense, my dear.' 'Maybe so, my dear; but it may be very good law for all that.'

—Scott, Sir Walter

If we have violated any law, it was not done intentionally. We have injured no man's reputation, character, person, or property.We were meeting together to preserve ourselves, our wives, and our children from utter degradation and starvation.

—Loveless, George

We're not lawbreakers, we're law reformers.

—Humphry, Derek

When I was a boy the Sioux owned the world; the sun roseand set on their land; they sent ten thousand men to battle.Where are the warriors today? Who slew them? Where are our lands? Who owns them?† What law have I broken? Is it wrong for me to love my own? Is it wicked for me because my skin is red? Because I am a Sioux; because I was born where my father lived; because I would die for my country?

—Sitting Bull real name Tatanka Iyotake

Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression.

—Bible (NewTestament)

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

—Crowley, (Edward) Aleister

Who to himself is law, no law doth need, Offends no law, and is a king indeed.

—Chapman, George

Just to the windward of the law.

—Churchill, Charles

It is the maxim of every prudent master of a family never to attempt to make at home what it will cost him more to makethantobuy.Thetaylordoesnot attempttomakehis ownshoe†All ofthemfind itfor their interestto employ their whole industry in a way in which they have some advantage over their neighbours and to purchase with a part of its produce†whatever else they have occasion for† What is prudence in the conduct of every private family, can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom† Would it be a reasonable law to prohibit the importation of all foreign wines, merely to encourage the making of claret and burgundy in Scotland?

—Smith, Adam