When law becomes despotic, morals are relaxed, and vice versa.[Quand le despotisme est dans les lois, la liberté se trouve dans les mœurs, et vice versa.]
We’ve got so many laws you can’t breathe without breaking something.
We are more inclined to hate ourselves, because we have not yet shown ourselves worthy of being entrusted with the laws.[Eher hassen wir uns selbst, weil wir noch nicht des Gesetzes gewürdigt werden können.]
Until you break the law nobody will take any notice of you, and you can go to pieces as you could not possibly do in a place where you had neighbours who knew you.
Two types of people laugh at the law: those that break it and those that make it.
Those who are too lazy and comfortable to think for themselves and be their own judges obey the laws.
There are two kinds of laws, laws of nature and laws of right.
There are times when even the most potent governor must wink at transgression, in order to preserve the laws inviolate for the future.
The universal law of justice is: act externally in such a way that the free use of your will is compatible with the freedom of everyone according to a universal law.[Das allgemeine Rechtsgesetz: handle äußerlich so, daß der freie Gebrauch deiner Willkür mit der Freiheit von jedermann nach einem allgemeinen Gesetze zusammen bestehen könne.]
The shallow consider liberty a release from all law, from every constraint. The wise man sees in it, on the contrary, the potent Law of Laws.
The one great principle of the English law is to make business for itself.
The law’s a necessary evil—we canna be doing without it—but do ye not think it a poor substitute for conscience?
