Rule Of Law Quotes

“Civil disobedience, as I put it to the audience, was not the problem, despite the warnings of some that it threatened social stability, that it led to anarchy. The greatest danger, I argued, was civil obedience, the submission of individual conscience to governmental authority. Such obedience led to the horrors we saw in totalitarian states, and in liberal states it led to the public's acceptance of war whenever the so-called democratic government decided on it...

In such a world, the rule of law maintains things as they are. Therefore, to begin the process of change, to stop a war, to establish justice, it may be necessary to break the law, to commit acts of civil disobedience, as Southern black did, as antiwar protesters did.”
― Howard Zinn, You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times

“They criticize me for harping on the obvious; if all the folks in the United States would do the few simple things they know they ought to do, most of our big problems would take care of themselves.”
― Calvin Coolidge

“When political leaders set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become more important. It is hard to subvert a rule-of-law state without lawyers, or to hold show trials without judges. Authoritarians need obedient civil servants, and concentration camp directors seek businessmen interested in cheap labor.”
― Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

“Government can easily exist without laws, but law cannot exist without government.”
― Bertrand Russell

“Durable political systems ultimately rely on institutions, not individuals.”
― Gideon Rachman, The Age of the Strongman: How the Cult of the Leader Threatens Democracy around the World

“When it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the law; when it it is a question of putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility, what counts is not membership of a particular class, but the actual ability which the man possesses.”
― Pericles

“Let the soldier yield to the civilian”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Preserving the difference between “rule of law” and “law for rule” is essential for democracy.”
― Pawan Pandit

“There shall be no money; all shall eat and drink om my score. And I will apparel them all in one livery, that they may agree like brothers, and worship me their lord.'
'The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers!'
'Nay, that I mean to do.”
― William Shakespeare

“It's characteristic of a number of kinds of authoritarianism to represent politically neutral organizations as biased against you, because the rule of law IS biased against you if you're a criminal.”
― Jason Stanley

“The world will not be destroyed by evil people but by good people who do nothing to stop it. Hopefully there will always be good people courageous enough to take on the bad guys, this is the only way humanity can hope for salvation”
― Bangambiki Habyarimana, The Great Pearl of Wisdom

“We are a country that could not keep the Jinnah’s vision for equal rights, privileges, and obligations; could not stop voilence towards minorities; could not win a war against vast racial disparities, retrograde enemy; cannot conquer a disease of corruption and bad governance; and cannot bring itself to trust the government.”
― Qamar Rafiq

“There are Calleys in every army. What makes them dangerous is a set of circumstances in which their homicidal aberrations can run amok. The laws of war say that it is the responsibility of the highest leadership to do all in its power to prevent such circumstances from occurring.”
― Neil Sheehan

“Burn all the records of the realm.
My mouth shall be the parliament of England!”
― William Shakespeare

“banana republic: (n.) lawless society where the monkeys rule.”
― Sol Luckman, The Angel's Dictionary

“The rule is quite simple, if a state desires to bring positive change into the society, then it has to change itself by sowing the seeds of responsibility, character, and grace.”
― Qamar Rafiq

“Wounds inflicted on the face of democracy are wounds that will bleed in us.”
― Qamar Rafiq

“Of the many unanswered questions surrounding the right to religious freedom, one of the most pressing is if the parliamentary proceedings and constitutional guarantees have failed to protect religious diversity, then the price of freedom is beyond measure.”
― Qamar Rafiq

“Respect for the rule of law is about belief in the capacity of that law to dispense justice, fairness and equality for all. But laws aren't passed by principles - they're passed by governments, and governments can be unjust and unfair. Our anti-strike laws are one of many manifestations of this fact.”
― Sally McManus, On Fairness

“I often struggle to breathe but resist thinking of the lost faith in the judicial system, incompetent politicians, and military dictators who worked hard to wheel me off into the intensive care unit (ICU) by placing my future on a ventilator. Now, my life support is a drip feed of foreign loans and emergency cash injections from lenders and friends. Have I told you my name? My name is Pakistan.”
― Qamar Rafiq

“When it comes to business, there is elasticity behind the rule of law. It’s as elastic as chewing gum.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“Justice knows no bias. It wears the blindfold of equality, serving the rich and the poor with unwavering impartiality. The rule of law stands tall, demanding respect from all.”
― DON SANTO

“Women are infantilized, demeaned, deprived of dignity, denied their rights, and all in the name of the rule of law. The elite approach followed within the courtrooms often asserts supremacy while excluding the poor, women, children, Dalits, tribals, and other subaltern groups. In itself, a court cannot change the law, yet, the court has the power to interpret and implement the given law in a sensitive manner while upholding the constitutional spirit and values, and that is what a litigant
expects and society hopes for. However, this is not happening.”
― Shalu Nigam

“The rule of law can be a powerful force in human affairs.”
― Kim Stanley Robinson, Aurora

“Weak justice system can overdose human rights crisis.”
― Qamar Rafiq

“He lifts his face and she sees the eyes of a man who has not slept and is met with pity for him, for what is known by the telling of the hands, how the man has been trained for the rules of the game but the game is changed so what now is the man?”
― Paul Lynch, Prophet Song

“The standard set up by statute is not a rule of law, it is rather a way of life.”
― Telpner, Expert Witnessing in Forensic Account (02) by Telpner, Zeph - Mostek, Michael [Hardcover (2002)]

“When the pendulum swings and it reaches an extreme on either side, you're going to get a totalitarianism, no matter what it starts out calling itself because once people with extreme ideologies actually get some power - although they may have come in on this will make everything wonderful, except we have to get rid of those people, and there's always a those people that have to be gotten rid of - and then that doesn't happen, and they've got some power. And they quite enjoy it, and they wish to retain it.

So the American experiment, one of the hallmarks of it was peaceful transfer of power. That is what we consider, you know, one of the absolute key elements of an open liberal democracy. And when you see that starting to be shut down and going away, rule of law goes out the window, another kind of law replaces it, which is joined at the hip with whoever's running the thing. And if you get on the bad side of that, you're kind of doomed because you're not going to get a fair trial, and you're probably going to get a bullet in the back of the neck.”
― Margaret Atwood

“No democratic government should ever assume that arguments for democracy or for the rule of law are somehow obvious or self-evident. Authoritarian narratives are designed to undermine the innate appeal of those ideas, to characterize dictatorship as stable and democracy as chaotic. Democratic media, civic organizations, and politicians need to argue back and make the case for transparency, accountability, and liberty--at home and around the world.”
― Anne Applebaum, Autocracy, Inc.

“...I believe the citizens of the United States, and the citizens of the democracies of Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America, should begin thinking of themselves as linked to one another and to the people who share their values inside autocracies too. They need one another, now more than ever, because their democracies are not safe. Nobody's democracy is safe.

Americans, with our long history of imagining ourselves to be exceptional, would do well to remember that our domestic politics have always been connected to, and influenced by, a larger struggle for freedom and the rule of law around the world.”
― Anne Applebaum, Autocracy, Inc.