A Quote by Aaron Swartz

There is no justice in following unjust laws.

Aaron Swartz

Quote Topics

Following Justice Laws Unjust Unjust Laws

Quote Author

Aaron Swartz
American - Businessman
November 8, 1986 - January 11, 2013

There is no justice in following unjust laws. It's time to come into the light and, in the grand tradition of civil disobedience, declare our opposition to this private theft of public culture.

Aaron Swartz

The goodness or badness, justice or injustice, of laws varies of necessity with the constitution of states. This, however, is clear, that the laws must be adapted to the constitutions. But if so, true forms of government will of necessity have just laws, and perverted forms of government will have unjust laws.

Aristotle

There are two types of laws: there are just laws and there are unjust laws... What is the difference between the two?...An unjust law is a man-made code that is out of harmony with the moral law.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

The idea that laws decide what is right or wrong is mistaken in general. Laws are, at their best, an attempt to achieve justice; to say that laws define justice or ethical conduct is turning things upside down.

Richard Stallman

God allows unjust disparities between rich and poor because He does not miraculously intervene to establish justice against human wills. Also, discrepancies are not unjust by themselves; justice does not mean equality of result but equality of opportunity.

Peter Kreeft

One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that ' an unjust law is no law at all.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless.

Isaiah

There are unjust laws as there are unjust men.

Mahatma Gandhi

There has been no clearer principle of English or American constitutional law than that, in criminal cases, it is not only the power and duty of juries to judge what are the facts, what is the law, and what is the moral intent of the accused; but that it is also their power, and their primary and paramount duty, to judge the justice of the law, and to hold all laws invalid, that are, in their opinion, unjust or oppressive, and find all persons guiltless in violating, or resisting the execution of, such laws.

Lysander Spooner

One who breaks an unjust law that conscience tells him is unjust ... is in reality expressing the highest respect for law ... We will not obey your evil laws.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

It's clear that the laws intended to allow victims to have their cases heard - including our civil rights laws, our criminal laws and our civil justice laws - too often have the opposite effect. These laws are clearly rooted in a false assumption that those in power can do no wrong.

Cal Cunningham

Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust.

John Rawls

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.

Ronald Reagan

The idea of justice - even just dreaming of justice - is revolutionary. The language of human rights tends to accept a status quo that is intrinsically unjust - and then tries to make it more accountable.

Arundhati Roy

Generally the officers of the army were indifferent whether the annexation [of Texas] was consummated or not; but not so all of them. For myself, I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. It was an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies, in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory.