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Law Quotes by Mark Twain

65 Law quotes by Mark Twain

All Law quotes Mark Twain’s page

Law in these snippets is shown as both unfair and funny. The writer jokes that copyright changes are made by idiots, that a good lawyer tells you to stay out of trouble, and that the real rule of human action is often hidden. He also compares legal evolution to natural selection.

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“Laws control the lesser man. Right conduct controls the greater.”

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Going to law is losing a cow for the sake of a cat.

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A good lawyer knows the law; a clever one takes the judge to lunch.

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There is no end to the laws, and no beginning to the execution of them

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Laws control the lesser man... Right conduct controls the greater one.

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Senator: Person who makes laws in Washington when not doing time.

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We have an insanity plea that would have saved Cain.

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Where every man in a state has a vote, brutal laws are impossible.

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There are laws to protect the freedom of the press's speech, but none that are worth anything to protect the people from…

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Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet.

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You can't reason with your heart; it has its own laws, and thumps about things which the intellect scorns.

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Really, what we want now, is not laws against crime, but a law against insanity. That is where the true evil lies.

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People who love sausage and respect the law should never watch either being made.

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Those that respect the law and love sausage should watch neither being made.

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Every citizen of the republic ought to consider himself an unofficial policeman, and keep unsalaried watch and ward over the laws and…

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Whenever a copyright law is to be made or altered, then the idiots assemble.

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It would not be possible for Noah to do in our day what he was permitted to do in his own ...…

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“But it seems to be a law of human constitution that those that deserve shall not have and those that do not…

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What is the most rigorous law of our being? Growth. No smallest atom of our moral, mental, or physical structure can stand…

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All gentle cant and philosophizing to the contrary notwithstanding, no people in this world ever did achieve their freedom by goody-goody talk…

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A crime persevered in a thousand centuries ceases to be a crime, and becomes a virtue. This is the law of custom,…

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Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human…

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What, then, is the true Gospel of consistency? Change. Who is the really consistent man? The man who changes. Since change is…

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It is plain that there is one moral law for heaven and another for the earth. The pulpit assures us that wherever…

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Narrative should flow as flows the brook down through the hills and the leafy woodlands...a brook that never goes straight for a…

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The law of God, as quite plainly expressed in woman's construction, is this: There shall be no limit put upon your intercourse…

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The spirit of Christianity proclaims the brotherhood of the race and the meaning of that strong word has not been left to…

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So much blood has been shed by the Church because of an omission from the Gospel: "Ye shall be indifferent as to…

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What is the most rigorous law of our being? Growth. No smallest atom of our moral, mental, or physical structure can stand…

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The laws of Nature, that is to say the laws of God, plainly made every human being a law unto himself, we…

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Evolution is a blind giant who rolls a snowball down a hill. The ball is made of flakes-circumstances. They contribute to the…

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The laws of Nature take precedence of all human laws. The purpose of all human laws is one - to defeat the…

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The law of God, as quite plainly expressed in woman's construction is this: There shall be no limit put upon your intercourse…

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What is the most rigorous law of our being? Growth.

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Honor is a harder master than the law.

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The law is a system that protects everybody who can afford to hire a good lawyer.

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Laws are sand, customs are rock. Laws can be evaded and punishment escaped, but an openly transgressed custom brings sure punishment.

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An injurious lie is an uncommendable thing; and so, also, and in the same degree, is an injurious truth a fact that…

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Circumstance - which moves by laws of its own, regardless of parties and policies, and whose decrees are final and must be…

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Let me make the superstitions of a nation and I care not who makes its laws or its songs either.

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More by Mark Twain

Sing like no one's listening, love like you've never been hurt, dance like nobody's watching, and live like its heaven on earth.

If you had made the acquiring of ignorance the study of your life, you could not have graduated with higher honor than you could…

“The Creator sat upon the throne, thinking. Behind him stretched the illimitable continent of heaven, steeped in a glory of light and color; before…

It's easy to quit smoking. I've done it hundreds of times.

“It is never wrong to do the right thing.”

A man accustomed to American food and American domestic cookery would not starve to death suddenly in Europe, but I think he would gradually…

There is nothing training can't cannot do. Nothing is above its reach.

I never write Metropolis for seven cents because I can get the same price for city. I never write policeman because I can get…

The higher animals get their teeth without pain or inconvenience. Man gets his through months and months of cruel torture; he will never get…

“As far as I can see, Italy, for fifteen hundred years, has turned all her energies, all her finances, and all her industry to…

Begin with the determination to succeed and the work is half done already.

Many public-school children seem to know only two dates—1492 and 4th of July; and as a rule they don't know what happened on either…

If we could imagine such a man, that is a man who could invent the fly and send him out on his mission and…

You perceive, now, that these things are all impossible except in a dream. You perceive that they are pure and puerile insanities, the silly…

Lord save us all from a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.