Law Reform Quotes

Boston's justice system is in serious need of reform. Many of its policies and practices are antiquated, expensive, and don't really even make Boston safer.

You must make women count as much as men; you must have an equal standard of morals; and the only way to enforce that is through giving women political power so that you can get that equal moral standard registered in the laws of the country. It is the only way.

Abolish the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency.

History is not merely a procession of people in fancy dress fighting wars. It is crucially the story of man's evolution from grunting cave dweller to serious thinker, from cruelly retributive law to merciful law, from casual barbarism to care and compassion.

No society can make a perpetual constitution or even a perpetual law.

Man was born for peace and liberty, and became miserable and cruel only through the action of insidious and oppressive laws. And I believe therefore that if man be given laws which harmonize with the dictates of nature and of his heart he will cease to be unhappy and corrupt.

Public opinion is always in advance of the law.

Let us revise our views and work from the premise that all laws should be for the welfare of society as a whole and not directed at the punishment of sins.

If people want to change the law, they should vote so that we can appoint pro-life judges. I believe the law should be changed.

I want to do what I can to make the law make sense to citizens and businesses alike. I want the laws to assist them in worthwhile endeavors, not to stand as bureaucratic obstacles.

We must stand our ground to ensure that our laws reduce violence and take a hard look at laws that contribute to more violence than they prevent.

The law is always in transition.

The late Sir Horace Davy introduced a Bill, which proposed that father and mother should be acknowledged equal guardians of their children. This just and logical reform secured only nineteen votes in the House of Commons.

I simply didn't believe we needed a constitutional amendment to protect women's rights. I knew of only one law that was discriminatory toward women, a law in North Dakota stipulating that a wife had to have her husband's permission to make wine.

We have talked long enough in this country about equal rights. We have talked for one hundred years or more. It is time now to write the next chapter, and to write it in the books of law.

We have to deal with the 11 million individuals who are here illegally. The bill that Senator [Marco] Rubio put forward, I think is a great place to start.

Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.

As freedom advances, the severity of the penal law decreases

If society is to be responsive to human needs, a vast restructuring of our laws is essential ... A vast restructuring of our society is needed if remedies are to become available to the average person.

From the new hate crimes law to the repeal of DOMA and 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' to the emerging popular support for marriage equality, we are making progress at breakneck speed. As someone who has dedicated most of my career to civil rights law, I am deeply moved by this sea change and proud to have done my part.

Despite my emphasis on technology, I do not view laws as inherently evil. My goals are political ones, even if my techniques are not. The only way to fundamentally succeed is by changing existing laws. If I rejected all help from the political arena I would inevitably fail.

If we are going to change this country's laws, we need to have pro-life members of both parties.

We need to prioritize our law enforcement efforts, and if somebody's gonna smoke a joint in their house and not do anybody else any harm, then perhaps there are other things that our cops should be looking at to engage in and try to clean up some of the other problems that we have in society that are appropriate for law enforcement to do.”

Whoever has overthrown an existing law of custom has always first been accounted a bad man: but when, as did happen, the law could not afterwards be reinstated and this fact was accepted, the predicate gradually changed; - history treats almost exclusively of these bad men who subsequently became good men!

After all, that is what laws are for, to be made and unmade.