legal traditions Quotes

Hanging may seem barbarous, but the greater barbarity lies in the slow abandonment of our common law traditions.

American values and legal traditions do not permit the indefinite detention of people beyond our borders.

It must be recognized that in any culture the source of law is the god of that society

Look at the history of civil laws in our world and the source from which they emerged, and you will see that the vast majority of them arose directly from, or where based in principle on, Roman Canon Law, or the laws of other religious origin. Sharia is another notable example.

Laws have come down to us from old customs and folk-ways based on primitive ideas of man's origin, capacity and responsibility.

The whole notion of land property rights in the Arab world is different from that in Europe.

In seeking for justice men seek for the mean or neutral, for the law is the mean. Again, customary laws have more weight, and relate to more important matters, than written laws, and a man may be a safer ruler than the written law, but not safer than the customary law.

I have complete confidence in the American people and our legal traditions and the prosecutors, the tough prosecutors from New York who specialize in terrorism.

The constitution of England is not a paper constitution. It is an aggregate of institutions, many of them founded merely upon prescription, some of them fortified by muniments, but all of them the fruit and experience of an ancient and illustrious people.

The confused mass of rules of conduct called law, which has been bequeathed to us by slavery, serfdom, feudalism, and royalty, has taken the place of those stone monsters, before whom human victims used to be immolated, and whom slavish savages dared not even touch lest they should be slain by the thunderbolts of heaven.

The Odyssey is the story of motion both purposeful and purposeless, successful and futile. What else is the history of law?

I expect from our judges that their verdicts are also inspired by Talmudic law - and not only by common law or European justice systems.