A Quote by Cesare Beccaria
The laws only can determine the punishment of crimes, and the authority of making penal laws can only reside with the legislator, who represents the whole society united by the social compact.
Quote Topics
Quote Author
Related Quotes
It is not only vain, but wicked, in a legislator to frame laws in opposition to the laws of nature, and to arm them with the terrors of death. This is truly creating crimes in order to punish them.
Statistical science is indispensable to modern statesmanship. In legislation as in physical science it is beginning to be understood that we can control terrestrial forces only by obeying their laws. The legislator must formulate in his statutes not only the national will, but also those great laws of social life revealed by statistics.
The Laws of Nature are just, but terrible. There is no weak mercy in them. Cause and consequence are inseparable and inevitable. The elements have no forbearance. The fire burns, the water drowns, the air consumes, the earth buries. And perhaps it would be well for our race if the punishment of crimes against the Laws of Man were as inevitable as the punishment of crimes against the Laws of Nature -were Man as unerring in his judgments as Nature.
The Laws of Nature are the Laws of God, Whose authority can be superseded by no power on earth. A legislature must not obstruct our obedience to Him from whose punishment they cannot protect us. All human constitutions which contradict His laws, we are in conscience bound to disobey.
Bills of attainder, ex-post facto laws and laws impairing the obligation of contracts are contrary to the first principles of the social compact, and to every principle of sound legislation.
Legalizing pot would benefit society by first off having laws applicable to all, without those in control breaking the laws and making a mockery of our system. We need social justice. This requires laws equally applied to all. In addition, we could educate and rehabilitate the wrong doers. Not incarnate those misfortunate people for doubtful wrongs.
Anarchy, when it works to destroy authority in all its aspects, when it demands the abrogation of laws and the abolition of the mechanism that serves to impose them, when it refuses all hierarchical organization and preaches free agreement - at the same time strives to maintain and enlarge the precious kernel of social customs without which no human or animal society can exist. Only, instead of demanding that those social customs should be maintained through the authority of a few, it demands it from the continued action of all.
We're a nation of laws, but the good thing about America, is that laws reside in the people and people can change the laws.
Manners are the root, laws only the trunk and branches. Manners are the archetypes of laws. Manners are laws in their infancy; laws are manners fully grown,--or, manners are children, which, when they grow up, become laws.
Was I a criminal? No. I was a good member of society. Only my society and the one making the laws are different.
Laws are sand, customs are rock. Laws can be evaded and punishment escaped, but an openly transgressed custom brings sure punishment.
A country is in a bad state, which is governed only by laws; because a thousand things occur for which laws cannot provide, and where authority ought to interpose.
Tell me it's never been done. Because the only real laws in this world-the only things we really know-are the two postulates of relativity, the three laws of Newton, the four laws of thermodynamics, and Maxwell's equation-no, scratch that, the only things we really know are Maxwell's equations, the three laws of Newton, the two postulates of relativity, and the periodic table. That's all we know that's true. All the rest are man's laws
Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary relations arising from the nature of things. In this sense all beings have their laws: the Deity His laws, the material world its laws, the intelligences superior to man their laws, the beasts their laws, man his laws.
As good government is an empire of laws, how shall your laws be made? In a large society, inhabiting an extensive country, it is impossible that the whole should assemble to make laws. The first necessary step, then, is to depute power from the many to a few of the most wise and good.
I think you can get to a point where nihilism, if that's the right word, is overwhelming, and the basic laws that society has set up - either religious or social laws - become meaningless.
Related Authors
Antonin Scalia Quotes
American
Judge
Brett Kavanaugh Quotes
American
Judge
Clarence Thomas Quotes
American
Judge
Earl Warren Quotes
American
Judge
Felix Frankfurter Quotes
American
Judge
Hugo Black Quotes
American
Judge
Learned Hand Quotes
American
Judge
Louis D. Brandeis Quotes
American
Judge
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Quotes
American
Judge
Robert Rinder Quotes
English
Judge
Ruth Bader Ginsburg Quotes
American
Judge
Samuel Alito Quotes
American
Judge
Sandra Day O'Connor Quotes
American
Judge
Sonia Sotomayor Quotes
American
Judge
Thurgood Marshall Quotes
American
Judge
William O. Douglas Quotes
American
Judge