The more corrupt the state, the more numerous its laws.
—Tacitus, c. 110However harmless a thing is, if the law forbids it, most people will think it wrong.
—W. Somerset Maugham, 1896Necessity knows no law except to conquer.
—Publilius Syrus, c. 50 BCThe law is far, the fist is near.
—Korean proverbThe law looks at no one’s face.
—Gabriel Okara, 1964Avoid the law—the first loss is generally the least.
—Hannah Farnham Sawyer Lee, 1844In a court of fowls, the cockroach never wins its case.
—Rwandan proverbAll law is of necessity defective in the beginning.
—Han Yu, c. 800Kings and fools know no law.
—German proverbNo great idea in its beginning can ever be within the law.
—Emma Goldman, 1917If we do not maintain justice, justice will not maintain us.
—Francis Bacon, 1615The greatest veneration one can show the law is to keep a watch on it.
—Nadine Gordimer, 1971The more laws, the more lawbreakers.
—Tao Te Ching, c. 500 BCThe law’s made to take care o’ raskills.
—George Eliot, 1860To live outside the law, you must be honest.
—Bob Dylan, 1966Resorting to the law to resolve a dispute is a declaration of spiritual bankruptcy.
—Quentin Crisp, 1984Law makes long spokes of the short stakes of men.
—William Empson, 1928All moanday, tearsday, wailsday, thumpsday, frightday, shatterday till the fear of the Law.
—James Joyce, 1939When law can do no right,
Let it be lawful that law bar no wrong.
The law is established from above but becomes custom below.
—Su Zhe, c. 1100War has silenced all laws.
—Lucan, c. 65If law and justice do not attain their ends, the people will be unable to move hand or foot.
—Confucius, c. 500Petty laws breed great crimes.
—Ouida, 1880To make laws that man cannot and will not obey serves to bring all law into contempt.
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 1860Let us have peace, but let us have liberty, law, and justice first.
—Frederick Douglass, 1878It is better to live unknown to the law.
—Irish proverbAn unjust law is no law at all.
—Saint Augustine, 395Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.
—Aleister Crowley, 1904Laws, like houses, lean on one another.
—Edmund Burke, 1765A functioning police state needs no police.
—William S. Burroughs, 1959It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me.
—Martin Luther King Jr., 1962Good men must not obey the laws too well.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1844Curse on all laws but those which love has made.
—Alexander Pope, 1717No law is sufficiently convenient to all.
—Roman proverbThe law makes ten criminals where it restrains one.
—Voltairine de Cleyre, 1890Everything that has wings is beyond the reach of the law.
—Joseph Joubert, 1791Better no law than no law enforced.
—Danish proverbWe are to go to law never to revenge, but only to repair.
—Samuel Pepys, 1661