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Law Quotes

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Law Quotes

“Clark, what in your honest opinion is the right standard for determining conduct? Is the only right standard for everyone, the probable action of Jesus Christ? Would you say that the highest, best law for a man to live by was contained in asking the question 'What would Jesus do?' And then doing it regardless of results? In other words, do you think men everywhere ought to follow Jesus' example as closely as they can in their daily lives?”

Thinking Men Action Law Jesus Christ Results Christianity Opinion Honest Example Ought Highest Standards Jesus Christ Asking Christian Life Daily Life Live By

Author:Charles Sheldon

“Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.”

Has Beens Law Written Ought Philosophical

Book:Politics

Source: Politics

“We ought to be very cautious in the prosecution of magic and heresy. The attempt to put down these two crimes may be extremely perilous to liberty, and may be the origin of a number of petty acts of tyranny if the legislator be not on his guard; for as such an accusation does not bear directly on the overt acts of a citizen, but refers to the idea we entertain of his character.”

“The law of humanity ought to be composed of the past, the present, and the future, that we bear within us; whoever possesses but one of these terms, has but a fragment of the law of the moral world.”

World Past Law Humanity Term Moral Bears Ought Fragments

Author:Edgar Quinet

“To the second end, we hold that minimum wage commissions should be established in the Nation and in each State to inquire into wages paid in various industries and to determine the standard which the public ought to sanction as a minimum; and we believe that, as a present installment of what we hope for in the future, there should be at once established in the Nation and its several States minimum standards for the wages of women, taking the present Massachusetts law as a basis from which to start and on which to improve.”

Should Believe Ends States Law Nations Industry Ought Standards Bases Paid Determine Various Minimum Wages Sanctions Minimum Wage Massachusetts Living Wage

Author:Theodore Roosevelt

“When people are breaking the law, they don’t get an invitation to the White House. They ought to be getting an invitation to the big house... This is just an anathema to everything that the civil rights movement was truly all about and what it accomplished.”

People Bigs Law House White Rights Movement Ought Civil Rights Accomplished White House Invitations Civil Rights Movement Big Houses Breaking The Law Anathema

Author:Mike Huckabee

“The effect of our knowledge rather ought to be, first, to teach us reverence and fear; and, secondly, to induce us, under its guidance and teaching, to ask every good thing from [God], and, when it is received, ascribe it to him. For how can the idea of God enter your mind without instantly giving rise to the thought, that since you are his workmanship, you are bound, by the very law of creation, to submit to his authority?-\-\that your life is due to him?-\-\that whatever you do ought to have reference to him.”

Source: The Institutes Of The Christian Religion, Books First and Second

“Conservatism, we are told, is out-of-date. This charge is preposterous and we ought to boldly say so. The laws of God, and of nature, have no dateline. These principles are derived from the nature of man, and from the truths that God has revealed about His creation. To suggest that the Conservative philosophy is out of date is akin to saying that the Golden Rule, or the Ten Commandments or Aristotle's Politics are out of date.”

Men Philosophy Law Principles Creation Ought Ten Conservative Golden Commandments Conservatism Golden Rule Ten Commandments Nature Of Man

Author:Barry Goldwater

“You say men ought to be hung for the way they are executing the law; I say the way it is being executed is quite as good as any of its antecedents. It is being executed in the precise way which was intended from the first, else why does no Nebraska man express astonishment or condemnation? Poor Reeder is the only public man who has been silly enough to believe that anything like fairness was ever intended, and he has been bravely undeceived.”

Men Way Firsts Believe Doe Has Beens Enough Law Poor Ought Silly Fairness Hung Precise Condemnation Astonishment Executing Nebraska

Book:LINCOLN – Complete 7 Volume Edition: Biographies, Speeches and Debates, Civil War Telegrams, Letters, Presidential Orders & Proclamations: Including the Introduction by Theodore Roosevelt & 3 Biographies: The Every-day Life of the President, Lincoln by Carl Shurz and Abraham Lincoln by Joseph H. Choate

Source: LINCOLN – Complete 7 Volume Edition: Biographies, Speeches and Debates, Civil War Telegrams, Letters, Presidential Orders & Proclamations: Including the Introduction by Theodore Roosevelt & 3 Biographies: The Every-day Life of the President, Lincoln by Carl Shurz and Abraham Lincoln by Joseph H. Choate

“It seems clear to me that marriage ought to be constituted by children, and relations not involving children ought to be ignored by the law and treated as indifferent by public opinion. It is only through children that relations cease to be a purely private matter.”

Children Matter Seems Law Opinion Clear Ought Relation Cease Treated Indifferent Ignored Public Opinion Involving

Book:Autobiography

Source: Autobiography

“I ought never to act except in such a way that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law.”

Way Should I Can Law Ought Universal Als Maxims Universal Laws

Author:Immanuel Kant

“Symons remarked that the most common and unhelpful illusion plaguing those who came to see him was the idea that they ought somehow, in the normal course of events, to have intuited long before they had finished their degrees, started families, bought houses and risen to the top of law firms - what they should properly be doing with their lives. They were tormented by a residual notion of having through some error or stupidity on their part missed out on their true calling.”

Should Long Ideas Law Courses House Common Events Ought Calling Degrees Normal Illusion Errors Notion Stupidity Finished Firm Risen Residual Law Firms

Author:Alain de Botton

“By the laws of statistics we could probably approximate just how unlikely it is that it would happen. But people forget especially those who ought to know better, such as yourself that while the laws of statistics tell you how unlikely a particular coincidence is, they state just as firmly that coincidences do happen.”

People Knows States Happens Law Forget Particular Ought Statistics Coincidence Unlikely

Book:The Door Into Summer

Source: The Door Into Summer

“By the laws of God, of nature, of nations, and of your country you are and ought to be as free a people as your brethren in England.”

People Country Law Nations Freedom Ought England Brethren

Book:Memoirs of Jonathan Swift, D.D

Source: Memoirs of Jonathan Swift, D.D

“Laws ought to be fashioned unto the manners and conditions of the people whom they are meant to benefit, and not imposed upon them according to the simple rule of right.”

People Law Simple Conditions Ought Benefits Manners Meant To Be

Book:Ireland Under Elizabeth and James the First

Source: Ireland Under Elizabeth and James the First

“For those who have only to obey, law is what the sovereign commands. For the sovereign, in the throes of deciding what he ought to command, this view of law is singularly empty of light and leading. In the dispersed sovereignty of modern states, and especially in times of rapid social change, law must look to the future as well as to history and precedent, and to what is possible and right as well as to what is actual.”

Wells Looks States Light Law Social Views Modern Ought Empty Command Sovereign Sovereignty Social Change Rapids Precedent Looking To The Future

Author:William Ernest Hocking

“That elections of members to serve as representatives of the people, in assembly, ought to be free; and that all men, having sufficient evidence of permanent common interest with, and attachment to, the community, have the right of suffrage, and cannot be taxed or deprived of their property for public uses, without their own consent, or that of their representives so elected, nor bound by any law to which they have not, in like manner, assembled, for the public good.”

“That all power of suspending laws, or the execution of laws, by any authority, without consent of the representatives of the people, is injurious to their rights, and ought not to be exercised.”

People Law Rights Ought Authority Execution Representatives Consent

Author:George Mason

“The whole life of Christians ought to be an exercise of piety, since they are called to sanctification. It is the office of the law to remind them of their duty and thereby to excite them to the pursuit of holiness and integrity. But when their consciences are solicitous how God may be propitiated, what answer they shall make, and on what they shall rest their confidence, if called to his tribunal, there must then be no consideration of the requisitions of the law, but Christ alone must be proposed for righteousness, who exceeds all the perfection of the law.”

Source: On God and Political Duty: Calvin

“When in all the nations of the world the rule of law is the darling of the leaders and the plague of the people, we ought to begin to recognize this.”

People World Law Nations Leader Ought Plague Darling Rule Of Law

Book:Voices of a People's History of the United States

Source: Voices of a People's History of the United States

“Commerce is entitled to a complete and efficient protection in all its legal rights, but the moment it presumes to control a country, or to substitute its fluctuating expedients for the high principles of natural justice that ought to lie at the root of every political system, it should be frowned on, and rebuked.”

“I believe law-abiding citizens ought to be able to own a gun. I believe in background checks at gun shows or anywhere to make sure that guns don't get in the hands of people that shouldn't have them.”

People Believe Shows Hands Able Law I Believe Ought Citizens Gun I Believe In Backgrounds Checks Abiding Law Abiding Citizen Background Checks

Author:George W. Bush

“Antitrust laws ought to be deployed, not against business, but to bust this two-party monopoly, which subverts competition in government and rewards the colluding quislings with sinecures in perpetuity.”

Two Government Law Party Ought Competition Rewards Monopoly Antitrust Antitrust Laws

Author:Ilana Mercer

“When your response to everything that is wrong with the world is to say, 'there ought to be a law,' you are saying that you hold freedom very cheap.”

World Law Ought Response

Author:Thomas Sowell

“Therefore those governing the State ought primarily to devote themselves to the service of individual groups and of the whole commonwealth, and through the entire scheme of laws and institutions to cause both public and individual well-being to develop spontaneously out of the very structure and administration of the state.”

Wells States Whole Wisdom Law Politics Individual Causes Economy Groups Ought Institutions Structure Administration Well Being Liberalism Schemes Governing Commonwealth

Book:On the Condition of Workers

Source: On the Condition of Workers

“The industrial and social injustice of our era is the tragic aftermath of democracy's overemphasis on freedom as the "right to do whatever you please." No, freedom means the right to do what you ought, and ought implies law, and law implies justice, and justice implies God. So too in war, a nation that fights for freedom divorced from justice has no right to war, because it does not know why it wants to be free, or why it wants anyone else to be free.”

“I believe people ought to be treated fairly under the law. I see no reason why if the marriage contract conveys certain things that if you want to marry another woman that you can do that and have a contract. But the thing is is the religious connotation of marriage that has been going on for thousands of years, I still want to preserve that. And you probably could have both. You could have both traditional marriage, which I believe in. And then you could also have the neutrality of the law that allows people to have contracts with another.”

“A share in the sovereignty of the state, which is exercised by the citizens at large, in voting at elections is one of the most important rights of the subject, and in a republic ought to stand foremost in the estimation of the law...That portion of the sovereignty, to which each individual is entitled, can never be too highly prized. It is that for which we have fought and bled.”

Important States Law Individual Rights Share Subjects Ought Citizens Election Voting Republic Portions Entitled Sovereignty Estimation Elections And Voting

Author:Alexander Hamilton

“Shame is the proper reaction when one has purposefully violated the accepted behavior of society. Inflicting it is etiquette's response when its rules are disobeyed. The law has all kinds of nasty ways of retaliating when it is disregarded, but etiquette has only a sense of social shame to deter people from treating others in ways they know are wrong. So naturally Miss Manners wants to maintain the sense of shame. Some forms of discomfort are fully justified, and the person who feels shame ought to be dealing with removing its causes rather than seeking to relieve the symptoms.”

Source: Miss Manners Rescues Civilization: From Sexual Harassment, Frivolous Lawsuits, Dissing, and Other Lapses in Civility

“The laws ought to be so framed as to secure the safety of every citizen as much as possible. ... Political liberty does not consist in the notion that a man may do whatever he pleases; liberty is the right to do whatsoever the laws allow. ... The equality of the citizens consists in that they should all be subject to the same laws.”

Men Should May Doe Law Political Liberty Subjects Ought Citizens Please Safety Notion Civil Rights Secure Framed

Author:Catherine the Great

“It must be assumed and established as a principle, that the right of private property must be regarded as sacred. Wherefore, the law ought to favor this right and, so far as it can, see that the largest possible number among the masses of the population prefer to own property.... But if the productive activity of the multitude can be stimulated by the hope of acquiring some property... , it will gradually come to pass that, with the difference between extreme wealth and extreme penury removed, one class will become the neighbor to the other.”

Ifs Wisdom Law Differences Wealth Numbers Class Principles Ought Activity Mass Sacred Property Population Extremes Neighbor Favors Productive Multitudes Private Property

Author:Pope Leo XIII

“I've always thought the law ought to put on spectacles, it has mighty poor eyesight once in a while.”

Law Poor Ought Spectacles Eyesight Poor Eyesight

Book:Dr. Lavendar's People

Source: Dr. Lavendar's People

“There ought to be an onus on the people that want a law, rather than people that don`t need a new law.”

People Want Needs Law Ought

Author:Chris Matthews

“The laws are, and ought to be, relative to the constitution, and not the constitution to the laws. A constitution is the organization of offices in a state, and determines what is to be the governing body, and what is the end of each community. But laws are not to be confounded with the principles of the constitution; they are the rules according to which the magistrates should administer the state, and proceed against offenders.”

Should Ends States Body Law Community Principles Ought Office Organization Constitution Determine Relative Governing Offenders Magistrates

Book:Aristotle

Source: Aristotle

“Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered. As in other sciences, so in politics, it is impossible that all things should be precisely set down in writing; for enactments must be universal, but actions are concerned with particulars. Hence we infer that sometimes and in certain cases laws may be changed.”

Should Writing May Has Beens Sometimes Action Law Certain Justice Cases Impossible Written Changed Ought Concerned All Things Universal

Book:The Essential Aristotle

Source: The Essential Aristotle