Quotes about law

It seemed to me that if the lawyers failed to do their duty, they ought to pay people for waiting upon them, instead of making them pay for it.

Crimes are what the state defines as crimes.

he glanced toward them, swallowed, and said quietly, "So sorry...It's not me doing it. It's not even the leasers. It's what is legal."

Belle sat down. "Why is it that so many crimes are backed up by your laws?"

"The law is on their side because it's their law." (p111)

"Right or wrong. For us, it is such a simple thing, only a matter of whether a wrong has been done, or someone harmed. But they have books filled with words, with rules about how the story can and cannot be spoken. There is not room enough, nor time, to search for the real story that lies beneath the rest." (p341)

Leases, writs, statutes, all are written to be read and each person reads them by the light of self-interest.

When you are writing laws you are testing words to find their utmost power. Like spells, they have to make things happen in the real world, and like spells, they only work if people believe in them. If your law exacts a penalty, you must be able to enforce it—on the rich as well as the poor, the people on the Scottish borders and the Welsh marches, the men of Cornwall as well as the men of Sussex and Kent.

Laws produce lawbreakers, Bernie, like hens produce eggs. Civilization has nothing to do with it.

They are a highly individualistic people and still experience many frictions living in a centralized society. Despite several centuries of advanced civilization, most Gtetans look upon the Law as a delightful problem in circumvention rather than as a way of life.

One night Jakie Smith rushed into my room with the sudden illumination: "I know what it is! The law is common sense plus clear English!" I've never heard a better definition of what the law should be and isn't. (Ch. 11)

Law is the agent of those in political power; it is the product of those powerful enough to define right and wrong and to have that definition legitimized by “law.” This is not to say that “might makes right,” but it is to say that Might makes Law.

“The law” became a convenient tool to be used by illegal masters when black people sought to move.