A Quote by Oliver Goldsmith

The English laws punish vice; the Chinese laws do more, they reward virtue. — © Oliver Goldsmith
The English laws punish vice; the Chinese laws do more, they reward virtue.
God will certainly reward virtue and punish vice, either here or hereafter.
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.
When a people, having become free, establish wise laws, their revolution is complete... Peace and prosperity, public virtue, victory, everything is in the vigor of the laws. Outside of the laws, everything is sterile and dead.
Laws and customs may be creative of vice; and should be therefore perpetually under process of observation and correction: but laws and customs cannot be creative of virtue: they may encourage and help to preserve it; but they cannot originate it.
Laws, it is said, are for the protection of the people. It's unfortunate that there are no statistics on the number of lives that are clobbered yearly as a result of laws: outmoded laws; laws that found their way onto the books as a result of ignorance, hysteria or political haymaking; antilife laws; biased laws; laws that pretend that reality is fixed and nature is definable; laws that deny people the right to refuse protection. A survey such as that could keep a dozen dull sociologists out of mischief for months.
[The] operation of the wisest laws is imperfect and precarious. They seldom inspire virtue, they cannot always restrain vice.
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.
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.
If a president can change some laws, can he change ALL laws? Can he change election laws? Can he change discrimination laws? Are there any laws, under your theory, that he actually HAS to enforce?
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.
That there is one God, who made all things. That he governs the world by his providence. That he might be worshipped by adoration, prayer, and thanksgiving. But that the most acceptable service of God is doing good to Man. That the Soul is immortal. And that God will certainly reward virtue and punish vice, either here or hereafter.
Virtue is not an end in itself. Virtue is not its own reward or sacrificial fodder for the reward of evil. Life is the reward of virtue-and happiness is the goal and the reward of life.
Nothing is more futile than theorizing about music. No doubt there are laws, mathematically strict laws, but these laws are not music; they are only its conditions? The essence of music is revelation.
Does man's freedom consist in revolting against all laws? We say no, in so far as laws are natural, economic, and social laws, not authoritatively imposed but inherent in things, in relations, in situations, the natural development of which is expressed by those laws. We say YES if they are political and juridical laws, imposed upon men by men.
It is clear that in a monarchy, where he who commands the exceution of the laws generally thinks himself above them, there is lessneed of virtue than in a popular government, where the person entrusted with the execution of the laws is sensible of his being subject to their direction.
Of course you cannot free yourself from the laws of nature; but the laws of nervous systems are not the same as the physical laws.
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