Lord Acton Quotes

The law can seem remote, arcane, the stuff of specialists. But it isn't, because for those of us who live in democracies, the law begins with us.

The will of the people shall be the law of the land

What is crucial is there be laws.

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

The Constitution: it's not just a good idea, it's the law.

Law is order in liberty, and without order liberty is social chaos.

You can't legislate morality.

I know how to take good ideas and turn them into sensible law at great odds.

Good government is an empire of laws.

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

Whatever the People has last ordained shall be held as binding by law.

Common sense is the foundation of all authorities, of the laws themselves, and of their construction

How a constitution is written can sometimes matter almost as much as what it contains.

The Constitution has to be supreme.

Laws are there for a reason, and we have an obligation to follow them.

Whenever freedom is made into the absolute, the result is not freedom but anarchism. Freedom must be under law, or it is not freedom.

We have introduced a rule of law into many sections of our public life.

We are a country of laws.

We are nothing but by the law.

Obviously, the state's responsibility should be to legislate rules for a well-ordered society. It has no right or duty to creep into the bedrooms of the nation.

I don't think any country can survive as a prosperous and dignified country unless there is rule of law.

The most favourable laws can do very little towards the happiness of people when the disposition of the ruling power is adverse to them.

According to the laws and constitution of the people, which I [the Lord] have suffered to be established, and should be maintained for the rights and protection of all flesh, according to just and holy principles.

The freedom of a government does not depend on the quality of its laws, but upon the power that has the right to create them.