Law Obedience Quotes

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

If he who breaks the law is not punished, he who obeys it is cheated. This, and this alone, is why lawbreakers ought to be punished: to authenticate as good, and to encourage as useful, law-abiding behavior. The aim of criminal law cannot be correction or deterrence; it can only be the maintenance of the legal order.

I get slightly irritated by people who say they're natural rebels because it just means that they're going to be against whatever anybody does, which is almost like saying you might as well leave it as it is. I'm naturally quite conformist, really. If I go to a country and they say, "You've got to drive on the right," I'm not going to drive on the left to show that I'm different. I'm able to stick to the law. I'm not a soldier for anything, either. I'm only a singer and I don't think it makes a difference what we sing.

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

There is no nation so powerful, as the one that obeys its laws not from principals of fear or reason, but from passion.

I just want everybody to follow the law.

Laws too gentle are seldom obeyed; too severe, seldom executed.

It's hard for people who obey and respect the law to keep their heads from exploding in the face of affronts to common sense and the rule of law.

No man has a right to disturb the public peace, by personally resisting the execution of a law however bad. He ought to acquiesce, using at the same time the utmost powers of his reason, to promote its repeal.

I don’t like the death penalty but it was the law in Ohio. Therefore as a prosecutor I sought the death penalty and as a judge I imposed the death penalty. It was the law and you have to obey the law.

It will be wrong of us to approach our grievances by threatening to disobey the laws or by threatening the integrity of our nation.

Those who challenge the law in one or another of its aspects weaken the whole legal structure of society. For one man to disobey a law he does not like is to invite others to disobey another law which he may regard as indispensable to his own livelihood - or life.

The main thing I say on war is that we need to obey the law and formally declare war.

Human laws are entirely destitute of the sanction of rewards. To confer honors for obedience would be as ridiculous as unavailing. The honor of many would resolve itself into the honor of none. To dispense pecuniary rewards would be nugatory or impracticable. In an unqualified extent, no government would be able to supply the funds; and even in a restricted form, its operation would be to receive money with one hand as a premium, and to pay it back with the other in the shape of a tax.

I would never tell young people to break the law or avoid prosecution.

Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them?

As a conservative, I maintain a healthy skepticism of the theory of man-made global warming. I also believe that more people enjoying the fruits of modernity and economic development is a good thing - as long as those people arrived legally and obey the law.

As regards religion, the earliest Inca commanded that the Sun should be regarded as supreme god, and that in his temple great sacrifices should be held and thanks should be given, especially for having sent his son [the Inca] to rule them… giving the people to understand that the laws were to be obeyed as the Sun himself commanded it.

As people, we have to take the law's side. We have to stand behind the police, not behind the criminal.

The anarchist is not at liberty to break the law because he reasons that all government is wrong.

We don't break the law.

An orderly society cannot exist if every man may decide which laws he will obey.

We have the means to change the laws we find unjust or onerous. We cannot, as citizens, pick and choose the laws we will or will not obey.

I have not broken the laws of the United States or the laws of the Dominican Republic.