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Aeschylus
Wrong must not win by technicalities.
Aeschylus, The Eumenides, 485 BC
Laws are like spider's webs which, if anything small falls into them they ensnare it, but large things break through and escape.
Solon quoted by Diogenes, 200 AD
Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.
Jonathan Swift, A Critical Essay upon the Faculties of the Mind, 1707
No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way harmed, nor will we go upon him nor will we send upon him, except by the legajudgment of his peers or by the law of the land.
Magna Carta, Clause 39, 1215
To none will we sell, to none deny or delay, right or justice.
Magna Carta, Clause 40, 1215
That whether you're an honest man or whether you're a thief Depends on whose solicitor has given me my brief.
Sir W.S. Gilbert (1836-1911) Trial by Jury, 1875
There's no better way of using the imagination than the study of law. No poet ever interpreted nature as freely as a lawyer interprets truth.
Jean Giraudoux (1882-1944) Tiger at the Gaates
Lawyers are always more ready to get a man into troubles, than out of them.
Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774) The Good Natur'd Man, act III
I do not know a meaner or sadder portion of a man's existence, or one more likely to be full of impatient sorrow, than that which he spends in waiting at the offices of lawyers.
Sir Arthur Helps (1813-1875) Companions of My Solitude,ch 1
Lawyer's houses are built on the heads of fools.
George Herbert (1593-1633) Jacula Prudentum, 1651
A British lawyer would like to think of himself as part of that mysterious entity called The Law; an American lawyer would like a swimming pool and two houses.
Simon Hoggart, Observer, 10 August 1986
"he did not care to speak ill of any man behind his back, but he believed the gentleman was an "attorney."
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) in Boswell's Life of Johnson,
As it rarely happens that a man is fit to plead his own cause, lawyers are a class of the community, who, by study and experience, have acquired the art and power of arranging evidence, and of applying to the points at issue what the law has settled. A lawyer is to do for his client all that his client might fairly do for himself, if he could.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) in Boswell's Life of Johnson,
I have ne'er been in a chamber with a lawyer when I did not wish either to scream with desperation or else fall into the deepest of sleeps, e'en when the matter concern'd my own future most profoundly.
Erica Jong, Fanny, 1980, bk. III, ch. XVI
Lawyers Can Seriously Damage Your Health.
Michael Joseph, title of book, 1984
There are limits to permissible misrepresentation, even at the hands of a lawyer.
John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946)
A certain young lawyer is said to criticise my verses. I do not know his name, but if I find out, woe to you!
Martial (c.AD40-c.104) Epigrams, bk. V, epig. XXXIII
He had the prosperous look of a lawyer.
Somerset Maugham (1874-1966) A Writer's Notebook, 1917
It is the curse, as well as the fascination of the law, that lawyers get to know more than is good for them about their fellow human beings.
(ohn Mortimer, The Trials of Rumpole, 1979, Rumpole and the Man God
The lawyer's is a manifold art.
Sir Frederick Pollock (1845-1937) Oxford Lectures, 1890, p.2
The practice of the law is a perfectly distinct art.
Sir Frederick Pollock (1845-1937) Oxford Lectures, 1890, p. 2
The lawyer has not reached the height of his vocation who does not find therein ... scope for a peculiar but genuine artistic function.
Sir Frederick Pollock (1845-1937) Oxford Lectures, 1890, p. 100
"It is the act of lawyers," answered Pantagruel, "to sell words."
Francois Rabelais (c. 1494-1553) Pantagruel, 1532, bk. IV, ch. LVI
A lawyer cannot be made honest by an act of the Legislature. You've got to work on his conscience, and his lack of conscience is what made him a lawyer.
Will Rogers (1879-1935) in Donald Day, Will Rogers: A Biography, 1962, ch. 22
I will makeOne of her women lawyer to me; for I yet not understand the case myself.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) Cymbeline, 1609-10, act II, sc. III
Why may not that be the skull of a lawyer?
Where be his quiddits now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, his tricks?
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) Hamlet, 1599-1600, act V, sc. I
Then'tis like the breath of an unfee'd lawyer, - you gave me nothing for 't.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) King Lear, 1605-6, act I, sc. IV
Lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) Romeo and Juliet , act I, sc. IV
Do as adversaries do in law, - Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) Taming of the Shrew, act I, sc. II
A lawyer's a man well trained in memory Of cases, precedent, repartee, speeches.
Stephen Spender, Trial of a Judge, 1938, act I
There was a society of men [lawyers] among us, bred up from their youth in the art of proving by words multiplied for thepurpose, that white is black, and black is white, according as they are paid. To this society all the rest of the people are slaves.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) Gulliver's Travels, 1726, pt. IV, ch. V
I never heard a finer piece of satire against lawyers, than that of astrologers; when they pretend by rule of art to foretell in what time a suit will end, and whether to the advantage of the plaintiff or defendant: thus making the matter depend entirely upon the influence of the stars, without the least regard to the merits of the cause.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) Thoughts on Various Subjects, 1711
I have undertaken the duty of constituting myself one of the attorneys for the people in any court to which I can get entrance. I don't mean as a lawyer, for while I was a lawyer, I have repented.
Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) speech, 2 September 1912
These are those lawyers who, by being in all causes, are in none.
William Wycherley (1640-17116) The Plain-Dealer, act III, sc. I
A man without money, needs no more fear a crowd of lawyers, than a crowd of pickpockets.
William Wycherley (1640-17116) The Plain-Dealer, act III, sc. I
Every law has its loophole.
Anonymous
Law is a bottomless pit, it is a cormorant, a harpy, that devours everything.
John Arbuthbit (1667-1735) Law is a Bottomless Pit, 1712
It makes no difference whether a good man defrauds a bad one, nor whether a man who commits an adultery be a good or a bad man; the law looks only to the difference created by the injury.
Aristotle (384-322 BC) Nicomachean Ethics
One of the Seven was wont to say "that laws were like cobwebs; where the small flies are caught, and the great break through.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) Apophthegms
The law is of much interest to the layman as it is to the lawyer.
Lord Balfour (1848-1930) attributed
The law is good, if a man use it lawfully.
1 Timothy 1:8
[Law is] ... a species of knowledge in which the gentlemen of England have been more remarkably deficient than those of all Europe besides.
Sir William Blackstone (1723-1780) Commentaries on the Laws of England, 15th ed., 1809, vol. 1, p.4
Laws, like houses, lean on one another.
Edmund Burke (1729-1797) Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790, para. 268
That which is law to-day is none to-morrow.
Robert Burton (1577-1640) The Anatomy of Melancholy
"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law, And argued each case with my wife; And the musculaar strength, which it gave to my jaw, Has lasted the rest of my life."
Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 1865, ch. V
I am ashamed the law is such an ass.
George Chapman (1559-1634) Revenge for Honour, act III, sc. II
The law, as manipulated by clever and highly respected rascals, still remains the best avenue for a carf honourable and leisurely plunder.
Gabriel Chevallier (1895-1969) Clochemerle, 1936 ch. 14
The meanest English plow-man studies law, And keeps thereby magistrates in awe; Will boldly tell them what they ought to do, And sometimes punish their omissions too.
Daniel Defoe (1660-1731) The True-Born Englishman, 1701
"The law supposes that your wife acts under your direction."
"If the law supposes that," said Mr Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically with both hands, "the law is a ass - a idiot. If that's the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experience - by experience."
Charles Dickens (1812-1870) Oliver Twist, 1838, ch. 11
I think the navigation laws were not the most fortunate voyage.
Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) House of Commons, February 1851
The law exists to protect us all, whether we are union members, union leaders, employers or merely long-suffering members of the public. We cannot do without it. But the law is not a one- way street. Part goes our way, part goes against us. We have either to accept it all or else to opt bor anarchy.
Sir John Donaldson, Con-Mech (Engineers) Ltd v. AUEW,
The law is only a memorandum.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) Essays, second series,
Politics
Where there is hunger, law is not regarded; and where the law is not regarded, there will be hunger.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) Poor Richard's Almanac, 1755
Much law, but little justice.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) Gnomologia, 1732, no. 3482
The Law is the true embodiment Of everthing that's excellent. It has no kind of fault or flaw, And I, my Lords, emody the Law.
Sir W.S. Gilbert (1836-1911) Iolanthe, 1882, act I, Lord Chancellor's Song
I should regret to find that the law was powerless to enforce the most elementary principles of commercial morality.
Lord Herschell (1837-1899) Reddaway v. Banham, 1896
The more laws, the more offenders.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) Gnomologia, 1732, no. 4663
Unnecessary laws are not good laws, but traps for money.
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) Leviathan, 1651, pt.II, ch. XXV
That ignorant, blundering, blind thing, the law.
Elbert Hubbard (1856-19150) Notebook, 1927, p. 193
Where ther are many laws, there are many enormities.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) Gnomologia, 1732, no. 5672
Law is order, and good law is good order.
Aristotle, Politics, 343 BC
There are few Englishmen who will not admit that the English law, in spite of modern improvements, is neither so cheap nor so speedy as might be wished. Still it is a system which has grown up among us. In some points, it has been fashioned to suit our feelings; in others, it has gradually fashioned our feelings to suit itself.
Lord Macaulay (1800-1859) Warren Hastings, October 1841
The Law ... can be civil to you or downright criminal.
Keith Miles, The Finest Swordsman in all France:
The laws do not undertake to punish anything other than overt acts.
Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) The Spirit of the Laws, 1748, bk. XII, 11
To me the law seems like a sort of maze through which a client must be led to safety, a collection of reefs, rocks and underwater hazards through which he or she must be piloted.
John Mortimer, Clinging to the Wrechage, 1982, ch. 7
Please remember that law and sense are not always the same.
Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964) in N.B. Sen, Wit and Wisdom of India, 1961
One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils of this world can be cured by legislation.
Thomas B. Reed (1839-1902)
Laws describe constraint. Their purpose is to control, not to create.
Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker, 1980, ch. 71
Still you keep o' the windy side of the law.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) Twelfth Night, 1599-1600,
act II, sc. IV
The law is in another world; but it thinks it's the whole world.
John Mortimer, Rumpole of the Bailey, 1978, Rumpole and the Alternative Society
As with forms of government, so with forms of law; it is the national character which decides.
Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) Social Statics, 1870, pt. III, ch. XXI, sec. 6
If there be no law, there is no transgression.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) Seasonable Advice to the Grand Jury, 1724
There are very few grave questions in a poor estate.
Howe (1853-1937)
Law, though sometimes a necessary medicine is generally a nauseous one; and it resembles some other medicines in this, that it is apt to induce ailments more disagreeable that those for the cure of which it is invoked. I trust that the respondent, when he reflects on the order of this Court, will realize this truth, and will also realise that attempts to administer medicineto others may sometimes result, quite justly, in having to swallow it onself.
Sir Edmund Barton, Commonwealth Law Reports, 1912
Beware of the bald-heads of the law, for there are two men whom you should never go to Court against unless you are dragged there; one is he who has more money than you have, and the other is he who has no money at all. With the former you may lose even if you are in the right, and with the latter you will lose even if you win.
Australianus (pseudonym of K.J. Back), "Law", The Royal Toast, 1920
When I die, section 92 will be found written on my heart.
Sir John Latham in his farewell speech to the High Court, quoted in Z. Cowen, Sir John Latham and Other Papers, 1965
Damn the laws of England! I make the laws and every son of a bitch shall be governed by them.
William Bligh
I dare say the day will come when we shall all have to go to a higher court than this. Then we will see who was right and who is wrong.
Ned Kelly, to Justice Redmond Barry, Argus, 30th October, 1880
If you want justice, go to a whorehouse. If you want to be f ...., go to Court.
Richard Gere, "Primal Fear"
Law and Order is like patriotism - anyone who comes on strong about patriotism has got something to hide; it never fails. They always turn out to be a crook or an asshole or a traitor or something.
Bill Mauldin
Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1883-1892
To have grievance is to have a purpose in life.
Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind, 1954
For certain people, after fifty, litigation takes the place of sex.
Gore Vidal, Evening Standard, 1981
A libel action is a toy that allows the rich to sue the rich, with the proceeds being trousered by the legal profession.
Marcel Berlins, The Times, 17 January 1987
Every lawyer should be a conciliator.
Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915) Notebook, 1927, p. 120
A law-suit is like an ill-managed dispute, in which the first object is soon out of sight, and the parties end upon a matter wholly foreign to that on which they began.
Edmund Burke (1729-1779) A Vindication of Natural Society,
We may justly tax our wrangling lawyers, they do consenescere in litibus [grow old in lawsuits], are so litigious and busy here on earth, that I think they will pead their clients' causes hereafter, some of them in hell.
Robert Burton (1577-1640) Anatomy of Melancholy,
So he that goes to law, as the proverb is, holds a wolf by the ears, or, as sheep in a storm runs for shelter to a briar.
Robert Burton (1577-1640) Anatomy of Melancholy,
There's only one motto I know of that's any good. "Never go to law."
Henry Cecil, Brothers in Law, 1955, ch. 5
It is ignorance of the law rather than knowledge of it that leads to litigation.
Cicero (106-43 BC) De Legibus, bk. I, ch. VI
A petitioner at court that spares his purse, angles without bait.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) Gnomologia, 1732, no. 347
An indifferent agreement, is better than carrying a cause at law.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) Gnomologia, 1732, no. 637
Fools and obstinate men make lawyers rich.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) Gnomologia, 1732, no. 1, 565
Sue a beggar, and catch a louse.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) Gnomologia, 1732, no. 4285
There is something sickening in seeing poor devils drawn into great expense about trifles by interested attorneys. But too cheap an access to litigation has its evils on the other hand, for the proneness of the lower classes to gratify spite and revenge in this way would be a dreadful evil were they able to endure the expense.
Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) Journal, 12 December 1825
You never, but never, go to litigation if there is another way out ... Litigation only makes lawyers fat.
Wilbur Smith, Hungry as the Sea, 1979, p. 214
Discourage litigation, Persuade your neighbours to compromise whenever you can ... As a peacemaker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man ... There will be business enough.
Abraham Lincoln, Notes from Law Lectures, 1st July, 1850
Our wrangling lawyers are so litigious and busy here on earth, that I think they will plead their clients' causes hereafter, some of them in hell.
Richard Burton
Words are the lawyers tools of trade.
Lord Denning, The Discipline of Law, 1979, p. 5
The language of laws should be simple; directness is always better than elaborate wording.
Charles Louis de Montesquieu, De l'Esprit des lois, 1748
It is when merchants dispute about their own rules that they invoke the law.
Judge Brett (1815-1899) Robinson v. Mollett, 1875
The great object of the law is to encourage commerce.
Judge Chambre (1739-1823) Beale v. Thompson, 1803
The most enlightened judicial policy is to let people manage their own business in their own way.
Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841-1935) Dr Miles Medical Co. v. Park & Sons Co., 1911
Laws for the regulation of trade should be most carefully scanned. That which hampers, limits, cripples and retards must be done away with.
Elbert Hubbard (1856-19150) Notebook, 1927, p. 16
Convenience is the basis of mercantile law.
Lord Mansfield (1705-1793) Medcalf v. hall, 1782
I know of no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution.
Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885) Inaugural Address, 4 March 1869
I cannot resist saying that I regard our profession [the law] as one of the obstacles to national reform.
Lord Hailsham, Observer, Sayings of the Week, 14 September 1986
When I hear any man talk of an unalterable law, the only effect it produces on me is to convince me that he is an unalterable fool.
Sydney Smith (1771-1845) The Peter Plymley Letters, 1852, IV
Lawyers do not take law reform seriously - there is no reason why they should. They think the law exists as the atmosphere exists, and the notion that it could be improved is too startling to entertain.
Lord Goodman, Sydney Morning Herald, 17 July 1982, p. 38
If the laws could speak for themselves they would complain of the lawyers in the first place.
Lord Halifax (1633-1695) Political Thoughts and Reflections
Seventy per cent of the members of all our law-making bodies are lawyers. Very naturally, lawyers making laws favour laws that make lawyers a necessity. If that were not so, lawyers would not be human.
Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915) Notebook, 1927, p. 120
With lawyers in the vacation; for they sleep between term and term, and then they perceive not how time moves.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) As You Like It, 1596-1600,
act. III, sc. II
Nothing is more subject to change than the laws.
Michel de Montaigne, Apologie de Raimond Sebond, 1580
We must not make a scarecrow of the law, Setting it up to fear the birds of prey, And let it keep one shape, till custom make it Their perch, and not their terror.
William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, 1604
The way to tell the state of health of a lawyer is to look at his mouth: if it's shut, he's dead.
Professor Dymock, UNSW
A contingency fee is an arrangement in which if you lose, your lawyer gets nothing - and if you win you get nothing. George M. Palmer
A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.
H.L. Mencken
Good judgement comes from experience; and experience - well, that comes from bad judgement.
Anon
There is not such a thing as justice - in or out of court. Clarence Darrow
A jury is composed of 12 men of average ignorance
Herbert Spencer
A jury consists of 12 persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.
Robert Frost
Lawful, adj. Compatible with the will of a judge having jurisdiction.
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) The Devil's Dictionary, 1911
Lawyer, n. One skilled in circumvention of the law.
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) The Devil's Dictionary, 1911
Lawyer ... An unnecessary evil ... The only man in whom ignorance of the law is not punished.
Frank McKinney Hubbard (1868-1930) The Roycroft Dictionary, 1923
[Lawyers] ... men that hireout words and anger.
Martial (c. AD40-c.104) in Joseph Addison, The Spectator, no. 21
Litigation,n. A machine which you go into as a pig and come out as a sausage.
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) The Devil's Dictionary, 1911
Litigation: A form of hell whereby money is transferred from the pockets of the proletariat to that of lawyers.
Frank McKinney Hubbard (1868-1930) The Roycroft Dictionary, 1923
The body of the law is no less incumbered with superfluous members, that are like Virgil's army, which he tells us was so crowded, many of them had not room to use their weapons.
Joseph Addison (1672-1719) The Spectator, no. 21, 24 March
When Mr Justice was a counsellor, he would never take less than a guinea for doing anything, nor less than half a one for doing nothing. He durst not if he would; among lawyers, moderation would be infamy.
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) Truth v. Ashburst; or, Law As It Is, 1823
Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers.
Luke 11:46.
Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge; ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.
Luke 11:52.
A lawyer starts life giving $500 worth of law for $5, and ends giving $5 worth for $500.
Benjamin H. Brewster
A man must not think he can save himself the trouble of being a sensible man and a gentleman by going to his solicitor, any more than he can get himself a sound constitution by going to his doctor; but a solicitor can do more to keep a tolerably well-meaning fool straight than a doctor can do for an invalid. Money is to the solicitor what souls arre to the parson or life to the physician. He is our money-doctor.
Samuel Butler (1835-1902) Note Books, ed. Festing Jones, 1912, ch. II
The laws I love, the lawyers I suspect.
Charles Churchill (1731-1764) The Farewell, 1764
The trouble with law is lawyers.
Clarence Darrow (1857-1938) attributed
Next bring some lawyers to thy bar, By inuendo they might all stand there; There let them expiate their guilt, And pay for all that blood their tongues ha' spilt, These are the mountebanks of state. Who by the slight of tongue can crimes create, And dress up trifles in the robes of fate.
Daniel Defoe (c. 1660-1731) A Hymn to the Pillory, 1703
The old woman hesitated, then cast a quick eye at a certain open box beside her roll-top desk and apparently decided that even lawyers can be thieves - a possibility few who have had to meet their fees would dispute.
John Fowles, The French Lietenant's Woman, 1977, ch. 46
Lawyers don't love beggars.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) Gnomologia, 1732, no. 3151
I know you lawyers can, with ease, Twist words and meanings as you please; That language, by your skill made pliant, Will bend to favour ev'ry client.
(ohn Gay (1685-1732) Fables, 1728, vol. II, 1738, Fables I, "The Dog and the Fox"
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