Legal and Justice Quotes

"A successful lawsuit is the one worn by a policeman."

"A Supreme Court ruling is supposed to provide clarity to contentious legal issues, but in the case of reproductive rights, it was just the beginning of a long, heated, and grueling debate."

"Above all, we must have great respect for these people who also suffer and who want to find their own way of correct living. On the other hand, to create a legal form of a kind of homosexual marriage, in reality, does not help these people."

"Advertising is legalized lying."

"After the chaos and carnage of September 11th, it is not enough to serve our enemies with legal papers."

"All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind."

"All the libel lawyers will tell you there's no libel any more, that everyone's given up."

"All women, and men of color - we were owned like tables and chairs. We spent a hundred years getting a legal identity as human beings. That's a big thing."

"Any new legal measures, or cooperative arrangements between government and companies meant to keep people from organizing violence or criminal actions, must not be carried out in ways that erode due process, rule of law and the protection of innocent citizens' political and civil rights."

"Are hackers a threat? The degree of threat presented by any conduct, whether legal or illegal, depends on the actions and intent of the individual and the harm they cause."

"As a legal matter, my mother is an American citizen by birth."

"As soon as I go out into the world, I belong, in a way, to everyone else. It's legal to follow me. It's legal to stalk me at the beach. And I can't call the police or ask them to leave."

"At Cheney's initiative, the United States stripped terror suspects of long-established rights under domestic and international law, building a new legal edifice under exclusive White House ownership."

"Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny."

"Being a justice. If you love law the way I do... you're given the job of a lifetime... you're permitted to address the most important legal questions of the country, and sometimes the world. And in doing so, you make a difference in people's lives."

"Charity is no substitute for justice withheld."

"Children must be considered in a divorce considered valuable pawns in the nasty legal and financial contest that is about to ensue."

"Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery."

"Congress should pass a law repealing birthright citizenship for children of foreign citizens, with the sole exception being children of legal permanent residents. Children born to business travelers, foreign students, tourists, and illegal aliens would not be automatically citizens of the United States."

"Contrary to myth, 'The Feminine Mystique' and feminism did not represent the beginning of the decline of the stay-at-home mother but a turning point that led to much stronger legal rights and 'working conditions' for her."

"Deceive not thy physician, confessor, nor lawyer."

"Defining marriage is a power that should be left to the states. Moreover, no state should be forced to recognize a marriage that is not within its own laws, Constitution, and legal precedents."

"Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do."

"Experts said public companies worry about the loss of customer confidence and the legal liability to shareholders or security vendors when they report flaws."

"From your confessor, lawyer and physician, hide not your case on no condition."

"Gambling is legal and betting is legal, for what I bet."

"Gay and lesbian people have families, and their families should have legal protection, whether by marriage or civil union."

"Giving married women an independent legal existence did not destroy heterosexual marriage. And allowing husbands and wives to construct their marriages around reciprocal duties and negotiated roles - where a wife can choose to be the main breadwinner and a husband can stay home with the children - was an immense boon to many couples."

"He is no lawyer who cannot take two sides."

"Hispanic citizens know that illegal labor is taking jobs from their children and their legal immigrant friends."

"I am the inferior of any man whose rights I trample under foot."

"I believe wholeheartedly in marriage. I don't exclusively mean a marriage with a legal contract, but any relationship that constitutes a marriage because of the quality of their relationship."

"I busted a mirror and got seven years bad luck, but my lawyer thinks he can get me five."

"I decided I wanted to be a lawyer when I was 11 years of age."

"I have been surrounded by some of the smartest, brightest, most caring lawyers, by agents who are willing to risk their lives for others, by support staff that are willing to work as hard as they can."

"I have spent all my life under a Communist regime, and I will tell you that a society without any objective legal scale is a terrible one indeed. But a society with no other scale but the legal one is not quite worthy of man either."

"I never saw a lawyer yet who would admit he was making money."

"I say the law should be blind to race, gender and sexual orientation, just as it claims to be blind to wealth and power. There should be no specially protected groups of any kind, except for children, the severely disabled and the elderly, whose physical frailty demands society's care."

"I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law."

"I think a moratorium probably is legal, and we should probably for a short period of time impose a moratorium so that we don't permit any additional landfill permits for the time being, so we don't exacerbate the problem."

"I think lawyers who engage in pro bono service to protect those who cannot help themselves are truly the heroes and the heroines of the legal profession."

"I think the only way to behave is as if nothing is private. And then fight to make what you care about legal and acceptable."

"I think, clearly, where you have a situation in which the Solicitor General tells me, 'I cannot in good faith argue a certainly legal position,' and if the president told us to argue that position, we would have to tell him, 'No, we can't do that, Mr. President.'"

"I wouldn't pretend to tell you we don't pay our lawyers well."

"I write on big yellow legal pads - ideas in outline form when I'm doing stand-up and stuff. It's vivid that way. I can't type it into an iPad - I think that would put a filter into the process."

"I'm trusting in the Lord and a good lawyer."

"I've always said that at the end of the day, on a legal issue, I think a wise old woman and a wise old man are going to reach the same conclusion."