A Quote by Marcus Tullius Cicero

Law is the highest reason implanted in Nature, which commands what ought to be done and forbids the opposite.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Quote Topics

Commands Done Highest Law Nature Opposite Ought Reason Which

Quote Author

Marcus Tullius Cicero
Roman - Statesman
106 BC - 43 BC

Slavery is not penal in character and planned by that law which commands the preservation of the natural order and forbids disturbance.

Saint Augustine

True law is right reason in agreement with nature;...it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrongdoing by its prohibitions... It is a sin to try to alter this law, nor is it allowable to attempt to repeal any part of it, and it is impossible to abolish it entirely.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it.

John Locke

The most universal and effectual way of discovering the true meaning of law, when the words are dubious, is by considering the reason and spirit of it; or the cause which moved the legislator to enact it. for when this reason ceased, the law itself ought likewise to cease with it.

William Blackstone

Whether arrived at through reason or revelation, natural law is the highest law known to man. It is anchored in the very existential nature of man and is therefore a priori just.

Ilana Mercer

If [God] has made it a law in the nature of man to pursue his own happiness, He has left him free in the choice of place as well as mode, and we may safely call on the whole body of English jurists to produce the map on which nature has traced for each individual the geographical line which she forbids him to cross in pursuit of happiness.

Thomas Jefferson

The regeneration of a sinner is an evidence of power in the highest sphere--moral nature; with the highest prerogative--to change nature; and operating to the highest result--not to create originally, which is great; but to create anew, which is greater.

William Arthur Ward

Conscience, the sense of right, the power of perceiving moral distinctions, the power of discerning between justice and injustice, excellence and baseness, is the highest faculty given us by God, the whole foundation of our responsibility, and our sole capacity for religion. ...God, in giving us conscience, has implanted a principle within us which forbids us to prostrate ourselves before mere power, or to offer praise where we do not discover worth.

William Ellery Channing

Do not talk to me of goodness, of abstract justice, of nature law. Necessity is the highest law, public welfare is the highest justice.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Reason is the life of the law; nay, the common law itself is nothing else but reason - the law which is perfection of reason.

Edward Coke

It is our duty to endeavor always to promote the general good; to do to all as we would be willing to be done by were we in their circumstances; to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly before God. These are some of the laws of nature which every man in the world is bound to observe, and which whoever violates exposes himself to the resentment of mankind, the lashes of his own conscience, and the judgment of Heaven. This plainly shows that the highest state of liberty subjects us to the law of nature and the government of God.

Samuel West

He who forbids not sin when he may, commands it

Seneca the Younger

For those who have only to obey, law is what the sovereign commands. For the sovereign, in the throes of deciding what he ought to command, this view of law is singularly empty of light and leading. In the dispersed sovereignty of modern states, and especially in times of rapid social change, law must look to the future as well as to history and precedent, and to what is possible and right as well as to what is actual.

William Ernest Hocking

God commands you to pray, but forbids you to worry.

John Vianney

Let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarcy, that in America the law is King. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other.