LAW
For as the law is set over the magistrate, even so are the magistrates set over the people. And therefore, it may be truly said, "that the magistrate is a speaking law, and the law is a silent magistrate."
Silent enim leges inter anna.
For the laws are dumb in the midst of arms.
Cicero—Pro MiUme. IV.
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After an existence of nearly twenty years of almost innocuous desuetude these laws are brought forth.
Grover Cleveland—Message. March 1, 1886.
Magna Charta is such a fellow that he will
have no sovereign.
Sir Edward Coke—Debate in the Commons.
May 17, 1628'.
Reason is the life of the law; nay, the common
law itself is nothing else but reason. * * *
The law which is perfection of reason.
Sir Edward Coke—First Institute.
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The gladsome light of jurisprudence.
Sra Edward Coke—First Institute.
According to the law of the Medes and
Persians, which altereth not.
Daniel. VI. 8.
Trial by jury itself, instead of being a security to persons who are accused, shall be a delusion, a mockery, and a snare.
Lord Denman—In his Judgment in CConnell vs. the Queen. II. C. and F., 351. Sept. 4,
Whatever was required to be done, the Circumlocution Office was beforehand with all the public departments in the art of perceiving—how not to DO IT.
"If the law supposes that," said Mr. Bumble, "the law is a ass, a idiot."
If it's near dinner time, the foreman takes out his watch when the jury have retired and says: "Dear me, gentlemen, ten minutes to five, I declare! I dine at five, gentlemen." "So do I," says everybody else except two men who ought to have dined at three, and seem more than half disposed to stand out in consequence. The foreman smiles, and puts up his watch: "Well, gentlemen, what do we say? Plaintiff, defendant, gentlemen? I rather think so far as I am concerned, gentlemen—I say I rather think—but don't let that influence you-—I rather think the plaintiff's the man." Upon this two or three other men are sure to say they think so too—as of course they do; and then they get on very unanimously and comfortably.
I know'd what 'ud come o' this here mode o' doin' business. Oh, Sammy, Sammy, vy worn't thereaalleybi!
When the judges shall be obliged to go armed, it will be time for the courts to be closed.
S. J. Field—When advised to arm himself. California. (1889)
Our human laws are but the copies, more or less imperfect, of the eternal laws, so far as we can read them.
Froude—Short Studies on Great Subjects.
Just laws are no restraint upon the freedom of the good, for the good man desires nothing which a just law will interfere with.
Froude—Short Studies on Great Subjects. Reciprocal Duties of State and Subject.
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of mankind.
Gibbon—The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Ch.XIV. Vol.1.
Es erben sich Gesetz und Rechte
Wie eine ew'ge Krankheit fort.
All rights and laws are still transmitted,
Like an eternal sickness to the race.
Goethe—Faust. I. 4. 449.
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.
Goldsmith-—The Traveller. L. 386. Same in Vicar of Wakefield.
I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution.
U. S. Grant—Inaugural Address. March 4, 1869.
A cloud of witnesses.
Hebrews. XII. 1.
Quid leges sine moribus
Vanse proficiunt?
Of what use are laws, inoperative through
public immorality?
Horace—Carmina. III. 24. 35.
To the law and to the testimony.
Isaiahj VIII. 20.
The law is the last result of human wisdom
acting 'upon human experience for the benefit of the public. .
Samuel Johnson. Johnsoniana. Piozzi's
Anecdotes, 58.
Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas.
The verdict acquits the raven, but condemns
the dove.
Juvenal—Satires. II. 63.
