Legal and Justice Quotes

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

"It's impossible to walk a block in Miami, in Los Angeles, San Antonio without running into someone who is being deeply impacted by a broken legal immigration system."

"In terms of the legal matter of creating a contract between two people that's called marriage, and allowing them to live together with the protection of law, it seems to me is the way we should be moving in this country."

"It is not monogamy when there is one legal wife, and mistresses out of sight."

"The right of revolution, which tyrants, in mockery, accord to mankind, is no legal right under a government; it is only a natural right to overturn a government."

"Legally speaking, the term 'public rights' is as vague and indefinite as are the terms 'public health,' 'public good,' 'public welfare,' and the like. It has no legal meaning, except when used to describe the separate, private, individual rights of a greater or less number of individuals."

"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."

"It's hard to have that debate around secret programs authorized by secret legal opinions issued by a secret court. Actually, it's impossible to have that debate."

"It cannot be said that the Constitution formed 'the people of the United States,' for all time, into a corporation. It does not speak of 'the people' as a corporation, but as individuals. A corporation does not describe itself as 'we,' nor as 'people,' nor as 'ourselves.' Nor does a corporation, in legal language, have any 'posterity.'"

"Now a slave is not 'held' by any legal contract, obligation, duty, or authority, which the laws will enforce. He is 'held' only by brute force. One person beats another until the latter will obey him, work for him, if he require it, or do nothing if he require it."

"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."

"When I'm sitting at the desk not being able to write line one, it's silence and despair! It's not so easy to put the pen to the legal pad or type the first sentence on the computer screen."

"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."

"State-sanctioned marriage is a civil contract, period. A contract is not a judgment of moral value. It is a legal agreement between two parties that testifies to a meeting of minds between those consenting entities. It is not a religious act or rite and so has nothing to do with Adam and Eve or Steve or even Harvey."

"There will be gay couples; it will exist. It is not very nice that people who are married - who divorce in three seconds - don't want protection for the others. The legal system should protect everyone, not just the few people who think they are above everybody else because they are married."

"Ken Lay, the disgraced former chairman of Enron, found a way to escape his legal problems: He died after being convicted of fraud and conspiracy charges."

"Learn to invest in investments where you can achieve an honest, legal advantage over other investors. When it comes to investing, why play on a level field?"

"We have a legal and moral obligation to rid our world of nuclear tests and nuclear weapons."

"The Grameen Bank Ordinance with amendments up to 2008 is a beautiful legal structure for the fulfillment of the ideals and objectives of the bank. Any change in this structure will be devastating for the bank."

"We want Israel as a democratic and Jewish state. So you have to maintain a Jewish majority, and you want to do that by legal means, by democratic means."

"People should just buy a CD and rip it. You are legal then."

"My U.N. five-point plan focuses on preventing proliferation, strengthening the legal regime, and ensuring nuclear safety and security - an effort that was given good momentum by the Nuclear Security Summit held in Seoul earlier this year. The world is over-armed, and peace is underfunded."

"If they lose their legal basis for owning a .cn domain, google.cn would cease to exist, or if it continued to exist, it would be illegal, and doing anything blatantly illegal in China puts their employees at serious risk."

"Yahoo! had a choice. It chose to provide an e-mail service hosted on servers based inside China, making itself subject to Chinese legal jurisdiction. It didn't have to do that. It could have provided a service hosted offshore only."

"There isn't much question that the person who obtained the WikiLeaks cables from a classified U.S. government network broke U.S. law and should expect to face the consequences. The legal rights of a website that publishes material acquired from that person, however, are much more controversial."

"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."

"There is no more an enthusiastic advocate of legal immigration in the U.S. Senate than I am, and that is a message that resonates powerfully in the Hispanic community."

"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."

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

"To have a .cn domain, you have to be a registered business. You have to prove your site is legal."

"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."

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

"We don't want two-tier people in America. Those who are legal but not citizens, and citizens."

"Many foreclosed homes are neglected or abandoned, as legal proceedings or other factors delay their resale. Deteriorating or vacant properties can, in turn, directly affect the quality of life in a neighborhood, for example, by leading to increases in vandalism or crime."

"The history of American democracy, to say the least, has been checkered. Our nation was founded at a time when people of African descent were held in bondage. After slavery was abolished, they were forced to endure legal discrimination for another 100 years."

"You cannot grant amnesty. If the American people see us granting amnesty they will never again believe in legal immigration. They will never again support it, and that's wrong for our country, bad for our future."

"When the FDA announced its intentions to join other countries and ban quinolone use on U.S. chicken farms, the drug manufacturer Bayer initiated legal action that successfully delayed the process for five years."

"Those who challenge the law in one or another of its aspects weaken the whole legal structure of society. For one man to disobey a law he does not like is to invite others to disobey another law which he may regard as indispensable to his own livelihood - or life."

"If you're a Supreme Court justice, the American people have elevated you to one of the highest offices in the land out of the goodness of their heart and out of deference to your legal wisdom. You get a lifetime appointment, limitless prestige, a great office, and what I have to assume is a very comfortable chair."

"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.'"

"In legal language, a covenant generally denotes an agreement between two or more parties. But in a religious context, a covenant is much more significant. It is a sacred promise with God. He fixes the terms."

"The mainstream media and most of the political establishment are too quick to slander as 'nativist' the advocacy of barring of Islamist radicals from legal entry into the United States."

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

"If you are concerned you are the victim of illegal corporate surveillance, you should seek specialist - and independent - legal advice at once."

"On Capitol Hill and in state houses across the country, anti-women's health politicians continue to make it clear that they will stop at nothing to end access to a safe, legal abortion."

"One problem we face in policymaking is the danger of having technology develop faster than the legal and regulatory system can react, potentially risking safety as well as efficient development and testing."

"My father is a taxi driver, and my mother ran a small business. I hadn't even met a barrister before I got my first shot at the legal profession. But back then, I was lucky enough to be given a break - I can't help but wonder if I would be so lucky today."

"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."

"While everyone is entitled to a little vacation now and then, America's top legal officers should adhere to basic measures to increase accountability and restore the public's trust in government."

"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."