In political institutions nearly everything that we now call an abuse, was once a remedy.
[Presque tout ce que nous appelons un abus fut un remède dans les institutions politiques.]
Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French moralist, philosopher, essayist, poet
Pensées [Thoughts], ch. 18 “Du Siècle [On the Age],” ¶ 21 (1850 ed.) [tr. Lyttelton (1899), ch. 17, ¶ 8]
(Source)
(Source (French)). Alternate translation:
In political institutions, almost everything we call an abuse was once a remedy.
[tr. Auster (1983)], 1813 entry]
Quotations about:
laws
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
The exact measure of the progress of civilization is the degree in which the intelligence of the common mind has prevailed over wealth and brute force.
George Bancroft (1800-1891) American historian, statesman, education reformer
Speech, Adelphi Society, Liamstown College (Aug 1835)
I think all Christians would agree with me if I said that though Christianity seems at first to be all about morality, all about duties and rules and guilt and virtue, yet it leads you on, out of all that, into something beyond.
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
Mere Christianity, “Faith” (1952)
(Source)
Science admits no exceptions; otherwise there would be no determinism in science, or rather, there would be no science.
Claude Bernard (1813-1878) French physiologist, scientist
Leçons de Pathologie Expérimentale (1872)
If there be, in any region of the universe, an order of moral agents living in society, whose reason is strong, whose passions and inclinations are moderate, and whose dispositions are turned to virtue, to such an order of happy beings, legislation, administration, and police, with the endlessly various and complicated apparatus of politics, must be in a great measure superfluous.
James Burgh (1714-1775) British politician and writer
Political Disquisitions, Book 1 “Of Government, briefly,” ch. 1 “Government by Laws and Sanctions, why necessary” (1774)
(Source)
One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils of the world can be cured by legislation.
Thomas Brackett Reed (1839-1902) American politician, Speaker of the House (1889-91, 1895-99)
(Attributed)
The period of Prohibition — called the noble experiment — brought on the greatest breakdown of law and order the United States has known until today. I think there is a lesson here. Do not regulate the private morals of people. Do not tell them what they can take or not take. Because if you do, they will become angry and antisocial and they will get what they want from criminals who are able to work in perfect freedom because they have paid off the police.
Gore Vidal (1925-2012) American novelist, dramatist, critic
“The State of the Union”, Esquire (May 1975)
And now bills were passed, not only for national objects but for individual cases, and laws were most numerous when the commonwealth was most corrupt.
[Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.]
Tacitus (c.56-c.120) Roman historian, orator, politician [Publius or Gaius Cornelius Tacitus]
Annals, Book 3, ch. 27 (AD 117)
More common variants:
- "The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the government."
- "The more corrupt the state, the more laws."
Books that cannot bear examination, certainly ought not to be established as divine inspiration by penal laws.
John Adams (1735-1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797-1801)
Letter to Thomas Jefferson (23 Jan 1825)
(Source)
An infinite God ought to be able to protect himself, without going in partnership with State Legislatures. Certainly he ought not so to act that laws become necessary to keep him from being laughed at.
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, agnostic, orator
Some Mistakes of Moses, Sec. 3 “The Politicians” (1879)
