Thomas Hobbes Quotes

When the laws lack clarity to the point where police officers who apply them have diverging opinions on their interpretation, can we reasonably expect that ordinary citizens can figure them out?

Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure.

Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things.

It is best that laws should be so constructed as to leave as little as possible to the decision of those who judge.

Where a phrase is susceptible of two meanings, we ought certainly to adopt that which will bring upon us the fewest inconveniences

Vagueness and good law are simply incompatible.

In my own opinions as a judge, I have never yet had occasion to find a statute ambiguous.

It would be gross understatement to say that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 is not a model of clarity. It is in many important respects a model of ambiguity or indeed even self-contradiction.

Laws are not made like lime-twigs or nets, to catch everything that toucheth them; but rather like sea-marks, to guide from shipwreck the ignorant passenger.

How can you pass laws about things that nobody knows?" "They do it all the time," says Hayden. "That's what law is: educated guesses at right and wrong.

The law rarely hesitates in declaring its own meaning; but the Judges are frequently puzzled to find out the meaning of others.

Every law that was ever written opened up a new way to graft.

I hope that your committee will not permit doubt as to constitutionality, however reasonable, to block the suggested legislation

The best reason to be assigned, in this case, for not having made the Constitution more free from a charge of uncertainty in its meaning, is believed to be, that it was not suspected that any such charge would ever take place; and it appears that no such charge did take place, during the early period of the Constitution, when the meaning of its authors could be best ascertained, nor until many of the contemporary lights had in the lapse of time been extinguished. How often does it happen, that a notoriety of intention diminishes the caution against its being misunderstood or doubted!

You know sometimes words have two meanings.

Ambiguity lurks in generality, and may thus become an instrument of severity.

I know too much and not enough

I want to remind all Americans that the Senate has a very important responsibility to confirm only well- qualified individuals who will faithfully interpret the law and the Constitution.

A room full of words that are nearly the truth but not quite, each note fluttering off the steam of its rose like a broken butterfly wing.

Laws are like spider's webs: If some poor weak creature comes up against them, it is caught; but a big one can break through and get away.

A lawyer's duty is to read the law well himself, then tell the people what it is, and let them act upon it.

I wish they weren't called the 'Bush tax cuts.' If they're called some other body's tax cuts, they're probably less likely to be raised.

the law, like art, is always vainly racing to catch up with experience.

In Germany, under the law, everything is prohibited, except that which is permitted. In France, under the law, everything is permitted, except that which is prohibited. In the Soviet Union, under the law, everything is prohibited, including that which is permitted. And in Italy, under the law, everything is permitted, especially that which is prohibited.

Writers talk too much.