50 of the Best Quotes about Law and Lawyers

50 Memorable Quotes About Law and Lawyers

Throughout history, philosophers, politicians, jurists, and writers have offered their perspectives on law, justice, and the legal profession. Here are 50 of the most memorable and thought-provoking quotes.

On Justice

1. "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." — Martin Luther King Jr.
2. "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." — Theodore Parker
3. "Justice delayed is justice denied." — William E. Gladstone
4. "In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small problems." — Albert Einstein
5. "The first duty of society is justice." — Alexander Hamilton

On the Law

6. "The law is reason, free from passion." — Aristotle
7. "Where there is no law, there is no freedom." — John Locke
8. "Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through." — Jonathan Swift
9. "The more laws, the less justice." — Marcus Tullius Cicero
10. "An unjust law is no law at all." — St. Augustine

On Lawyers

11. "A lawyer's time and advice are his stock in trade." — Abraham Lincoln
12. "The good lawyer is not the man who has an eye to every side and angle of contingency." — Ralph Waldo Emerson
13. "Lawyers are the only persons in whom ignorance of the law is not punished." — Jeremy Bentham
14. "A lawyer without books would be like a workman without tools." — Thomas Jefferson
15. "The power of the lawyer is in the uncertainty of the law." — Jeremy Bentham

On Rights and Liberty

16. "The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened." — John F. Kennedy
17. "Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth." — George Washington
18. "The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion." — Albert Camus
19. "Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes." — Mahatma Gandhi
20. "Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves." — Abraham Lincoln

On the Legal Profession

21. "The study of law can be disappointing at times — a matter of applying narrow rules and arcane procedure... but that is not all the law is." — Barack Obama
22. "About half the practice of a decent lawyer consists of telling would-be clients that they are damned fools and should stop." — Elihu Root
23. "It is the trade of lawyers to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour." — Thomas Jefferson
24. "A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer." — Robert Frost
25. "Make crime pay. Become a lawyer." — Will Rogers

On Ethics and Morality

26. "Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do." — Potter Stewart
27. "Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated." — Martin Luther King Jr.
28. "The law is not the private property of lawyers, nor is justice the exclusive province of judges and juries." — Jimmy Carter
29. "The duty of a true patriot is to protect his country from its government." — Thomas Paine
30. "No man is above the law and no man is below it." — Theodore Roosevelt

Timeless Wisdom

31. "Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can." — Abraham Lincoln
32. "The good of the people is the greatest law." — Marcus Tullius Cicero
33. "Law is order, and good law is good order." — Aristotle
34. "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer." — William Blackstone
35. "The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience." — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
36. "True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice." — Martin Luther King Jr.
37. "Every person is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental and spiritual." — John Stuart Mill
38. "Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice." — Martin Luther King Jr.
39. "The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly." — Abraham Lincoln
40. "Equal justice under law is not merely a caption on the façade of the Supreme Court building, it is perhaps the most inspiring ideal of our society." — Lewis F. Powell Jr.
41. "Compromise is the best and cheapest lawyer." — Robert Louis Stevenson
42. "The law must be stable, but it must not stand still." — Roscoe Pound
43. "Laws control the lesser man; right conduct controls the greater one." — Mark Twain
44. "I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think." — Socrates
45. "People are more afraid of the laws of Man than of God, because their punishment seems to be nearest." — William Penn
46. "Lawlessness is lawlessness. Anarchy is anarchy. Neither combatants nor combatants are combatants in order." — Thurgood Marshall
47. "One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation." — Thomas B. Reed
48. "The safety of the people shall be the highest law." — Marcus Tullius Cicero
49. "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster." — Friedrich Nietzsche
50. "We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker." — Ronald Reagan