Herbert Hoover Quotes

Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced

Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by example. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.

Nobody has a more sacred obligation to obey the law than those who make the law.

Our whole system of self-government will crumble either if officials elect what laws they will enforce or citizens elect what laws they will support.

The first duty of a state is to provide for its own conservation. Until that point is secured, it can preserve and protect nothing else. But, if possible, it has greater interest in acting according to strict law than even the subject himself. For if the people see that the law is violated to crush them, they will certainly despise the law. They, or their party, will be easily led to violate it, whenever they can, by all the means in their power. Except in cases of direct war, whenever government abandons law, it proclaims anarchy.

The Attorney General is not above the law.

But the Republic has its rules and it must not tolerate any abuse of them.

If there are people who act outside the law, then the state must use legal means to impose law in the interests of majority. That's the way it's done in the U.S., and that's the way it's done in Russia.

In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously.

Good laws, if they are not obeyed, do not constitute good government.

We believe that all governments necessarily require civil officers and magistrates to enforce the laws of the same; and that such as will administer the law in equity and justice should be sought for and upheld by the voice of the people.

Order is said to exist where the people of the country have, as a general rule, ceased to prosecute their quarrels by private force, and acquired the habit of referring the decision of their disputes and the redress of their injuries to the public authorities.

Ultimately, the best guarantor of the rule of law is not the state and the branches which comprise it but the recognition by people of its value and their willingness to fight for, and uphold it.

We must be intransigent when it comes to respecting our Constitution and our laws.

It's the duty of any government: where there is disregard of the law, that law and order must be instituted.

Society is well governed when its people obey the magistrates, and the magistrates obey the law.

The state can be a force for good. The Rule of law is absolutely essential to a good life. God has instituted government and leaders throughout history and throughout the Biblical narrative. However, the state is growing precisely as the church is fading as a force for good, and this does not seem to be a good trend.

I love the system. Let me tell you why. People love it... The people, by and large, have great respect for our law and our system... Why do you think they go to that courthouse instead of killing each other in the streets, taking the law into their own hands?

Government loses its claim to legitimacy when it fails to fulfill its obligations.

We need a president who is willing to uphold the law.

Our government... teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.

Why do we have U.S. attorneys? Because we need a mechanism to make sure people obey the laws that we pass, for societal reasons.

Rule of law is the most important element in any civil society.

The submission of free people to the executive authority of government, is no more than a compliance with laws which they themselves have enacted.

Are all the laws to go unexecuted and the government itself go to pieces, lest civil liberties be violated?