Laughter is a most healthful exertion; it is one of the greatest helps to digestion with which I am acquainted; and the custom prevalent among our forefathers, of exciting it at table by jesters and buffoons, was founded on true medical principles.—Dr. Hufeland.
Law.—With us, law is nothing unless close behind it stands a warm, living public opinion. Let that die or grow indifferent, and statutes are waste paper, lacking all executive force.—Wendell Phillips.
Of all the parts of a law, the most effectual is the vindicatory; for it is but lost labor to say, "Do this, or avoid that," unless we also declare, "This shall be the consequence of your non-compliance." The main strength and force of a law consists in the penalty annexed to it.—Blackstone.
If there be any one principle more widely than another confessed by every utterance, or more sternly than another imprinted on every atom of the visible creation, that principle is not liberty, but law.—Ruskin.
It would be very singular if this great shad-net of the law did not enable men to catch at something, balking for the time the eternal flood-tide of justice.—Chapin.
True law is right reason conformably to nature, universal, unchangeable, eternal, whose commands urge us to duty, and whose prohibitions restrain us from evil.—Cicero.
Aristotle himself has said, speaking of the laws of his own country, that jurisprudence, or the knowledge of those laws, is the principal and most perfect branch of ethics.—Blackstone.
In effect, to follow, not to force, the public inclination, to give a direction, a form, a technical dress, and a specific sanction, to the general sense of the community, is the true end of legislation.—Burke.
In the habits of legal men every accusation appears insufficient if they do not exaggerate it even to calumny. It is thus that justice itself loses its sanctity and its respect amongst men.—Lamartine.
Pity is the virtue of the law, and none but tyrants use it cruelly.—Shakespeare.