A Quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson
There is something servile in the habit of seeking after a law which we must obey.
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There is something servile in the habit of seeking after a law which we may obey. We may study the laws of matter at and for our convenience, but a successful life knows no law.
A law is something which must have a moral basis, so that there is an inner compelling force for every citizen to obey.
A quality is something capable of being completely embodied. A law never can be embodied in its character as a law except by determining a habit. A quality is how something may or might have been. A law is how an endless future must continue to be.
Christians - at least Christians in a liberal democracy - have accepted, after Thomas Hobbes, that they must obey the secular rule of law; that there must be a separation of church and state.
We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature.
The art of living consists in knowing which impulses to obey and which must be made to obey.
If you choose to live outside the law, you must obey the law more stringently than anyone.
The police must obey the law while enforcing the law.
If I were to prescribe one process in the training of men which is fundamental to success in any direction, it would be thoroughgoing training in the habit of accurate observation. It is a habit which every one of us should be seeking ever more to perfect.
Brothers, you came from our own people. You are killing your own brothers. Any human order to kill must be subordinate to the law of God, which says, 'Thou shalt not kill'. No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God. No one has to obey an immoral law. It is high time you obeyed your consciences rather than sinful orders. The church cannot remain silent before such an abomination. ...In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cry rises to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you: stop the repression.
[T]he guilty as well as the innocent are entitled to due process of law. They are entitled to a fair trial. They are entitled to counsel. They are entitled to fair treatment from the police. The law enforcement officer has the same duty as the citizen-indeed, he has a higher duty-to abide by the letter and spirit of our Constitution and laws. You yourselves must be careful to obey the letter of the law. You yourselves must be intellectually honest in the enforcement of the law.
Thus, if there exists a law which sanctions slavery or monopoly, oppression or robbery, in any form whatever, it must not even be mentioned. For how can it be mentioned without damaging the respect which it inspires? Still further, morality and political economy must be taught from the point of view of this law; from the supposition that it must be a just law merely because it is a law. Another effect of this tragic perversion of the law is that it gives an exaggerated importance to political passions and conflicts, and to politics in general.
There is something monstrous in commands couched in invented and unfamiliar language; an alien master is the worst of all. The language of the law must not be foreign to the ears of those who are to obey it.
The atom cannot disobey the law. Whether it is the mental or the physical atom, it must obey the law. "What is the use of [external restraint]?"
My theory is that everything went to hell with Prohibition, because it was a law nobody could obey. So the whole concept of the rule of law was corrupted at that moment. Then came Vietnam, and marijuana, which clearly shouldn't be illegal, but is. If you go to jail for ten years in Texas when you light up a joint, who are you? You're a lawbreaker. It's just like Prohibition was. When people accept breaking the law as normal, something happens to the whole society, you see?
I am a thing not new, I am as old As human nature. I am that which lurks, Ready to spring whenever a bar is loosed; The ancient trait which fights incessantly Against restraint, balks at the upward climb; The weight forever seeking to obey The law of downward pull; and I am more: The bitter fruit am I of planted seed; The resultant, the inevitable end Of evil forces and the powers of wrong.
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