George Washington Quotes

There can be no peace without law.

There can be no civil peace without the rule of law.

Nanny states are interested in social order. Daddy states are interested in public order.

Law is order, and good law is good order.

As laws are necessary that good manners may be preserved, so good manners are necessary that laws may be maintained.

We are ruled by public opinion, not by statute law.

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.

Attempts to enforce by legal sanctions, acts obnoxious to so great a proportion of Citizens, tend to enervate the laws in general, and to slacken the bands of Society. If it be difficult to execute any law which is not generally deemed necessary or salutary, what must be the case, where it is deemed invalid and dangerous? And what may be the effect of so striking an example of impotency in the Government, on its general authority?

We must be governed by the force of law, not by the law of force.

Laws that do not embody public opinion can never be enforced.

There can be no prosperity without law and order.

Where there's no law, there's no bread.

Obviously I prefer freedom, but I know, and I think all history has told us, that freedom cannot flow from anarchy and disorder.

Law is death. The more of the law in a country, the worse for the country.

It seems evident that the basis for civil safety is homogeneity. A culture which is socially uniform is pretty well devoid of informal violence.

I want to say that Russia is developing along a democratic path, this is without question so. No one should have any doubts about that. The fact that, amidst political rivalry and some other domestic developments, we see things happen here that are typical of other countries, I do not see anything unusual in it. We have rallies, opposition rallies. And people here have the right to express their point of view. However, if people, while expressing their views, break the current legislation, the effective law in place, then of course, the law enforcement agencies try to restore order.

Opposition can be useful. Every opposition movement is good and useful if it acts within the law... If there are people who act outside the law, then the state must use legal means to impose law in the interests of the majority. That's the way it's done in the U.S. and that's the way it's done in Russia.

The rule of law doesn't mean the police are in charge, but that we all answer to the same laws.

In the United States we have a society pervaded from top to bottom by contempt for the law.

Thomas More: ...And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned around on you--where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast--man's laws, not God's--and if you cut them down...d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.

The power that keeps cities of men together Is noble preservation of law.

When you break the big laws, you do not get liberty; you do not even get anarchy. You get the small laws.

Government can easily exist without laws, but law cannot exist without government.

Law and its instrument, government, are necessary to the peace and safety of all of us, but all of us, unless we live the lives of mud turtles, frequently find them arrayed against us.