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Law

Monday 2nd of March 2026

Law Being inanimate should not be a barrier to legal personhood – the courts are well populated by inanimate objects: the State, the Church and the corpo- ration have all, over the centuries, been recognized by the law. Why shouldn't nature have the same legal standing as the companies seeking to exploit it? André Dao,  “What if trees could sue?” New Philosopher #14: Nature © 2016 Kwiple.com
Law I don't want to steal the thunder from the other lawyers, but Nebraska, you're going to hear, is quite a judicial thinking place. Bill Castor, Jr., Trump's legal counsel, in his Day 1 remarks during Trump's second impeachment trial © 2021 Kwiple.com
Law The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. © 2021 Kwiple.com
Law One of the striking things is that if you're middle class, if you're upper middle class, if you're a single-digit millionaire like Hulk Hogan, you have no effective access to a legal system. Peter Thiel, billionaire entrepreneur who paid the millions of dollars in legal fees for Hulk Hogan's invasion-of-privacy lawsuit against Gawker Media for posting a tape of him having sex with the wife of his friend, Bubba the Love Sponge © 2016 Kwiple.com
Law The purpose of the law is to work, to work for the people. Stephen Breyer © 2020 Kwiple.com
Law Racism and segregation is no longer de jure, but it is still de facto.  Alvin Holmes © 2017 Kwiple.com
Law So that, however it may be mistaken,  the end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom: for in all the states of created beings capable of laws, where there is no law, there is no freedom: for liberty is, to be free from restraint and violence from others; which cannot be, where there is no law John Locke, Second Treatise on Civil Government © 2016 Kwiple.com
Law Written laws are like spiders’ webs, and will like them only entangle and hold the poor and weak, while the rich and powerful will easily break through them. Anacharsis the Scythian [Many slightly different translations exist] © 2024 Kwiple.com
Law and order It was the most beautiful thing. It's called law and order. Punchline to the tale Donald Trump tells attendees at his rallies about how Minneapolis police shot an MSNBC reporter covering protests of George Floyd's murder in the knee with a rubber bullet while fleeing marauding police, which tale invariably ignites Day-of-the-Locust-worthy cackling and blood lust © 2020 Kwiple.com
Law and order … knocking over a 7-Eleven makes you a “criminal” but looting a pension fund does not. Trump's unusual level of personal crookedness dovetails with a familiar reactionary agenda of combining per- missive enforcement of white-collar crime with a crackdown on street crime – or, as Trump calls it, simply “crime.” The implicit meaning of “Law and Order” is that order is distinct from lawfulness and that some crimes create disorder while others do not. Jonathan Chaitt, New York, September 14-27, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Rule by law The lawsuit [filed by Parents' Choice Tennessee, a conservative activist group created specifically for the purpose] may have been designed, in part, to give the impression there was more opposition to Wit & Wisdom [English and Language Arts curriculum] than actually existed.  There are eighteen thousand students in the [Williamson County, Tennessee] district's elementary schools, but according to a district report only thirty-seven people  had complained about the new curriculum. Fourteen of the complainants had no children in the system. Paige Williams, The New Yorker, November 7, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Rule of law  I don't get tough with anyone, Mr. Gittes. My lawyer does. Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) to J. J. “Jake” Gittes (Jack Nicholson), in Chinatown, written by Robert Towne, directed by Roman Polanski  © 2021 Kwiple.com
Rule of law Mr Linick is the fifth inspector general to be sacked in the past two months. “Someone was walking my dog to sell arms to my dry cleaner,” was how Mr Pompeo mocked the uproar. That is the language of impunity. Edward Luce, Financial Times, May 21, 2020 [Linick was investigating Pompeo for using State Department employees as his and his wife's gofers and for bypassing Congress to sell arms to Saudi Arabia. Pompeo asked Trump to fire Linick. Trump said he never heard of Linick but fired him anyway.] © 2020 Kwiple.com
Rule of law The proportion of Americans who believe a high-ranking official would be held  accountable for breaking the law decreased from 60% to 35% in the last decade. … Around 13% of Americans (regardless of political affiliation) now say people do not need to obey the laws of a government they did not vote for. World Justice Project report on U.S. Rule of Law Trends and the 2024 Election © 2024 Kwiple.com
Rule of law The rule of law is not a meal that can be ordered à la carte. Stephen Breyer, The Authority of the Court and the Perils of Politics  © 2021 Kwiple.com
Rule of law The west was law-governed before it was democratic.  (The universal franchise is about a century old.) And if the rule of law was earlier to arrive, it is also shaping up to be the first to go. It is hard to imagine a western nation ceasing outright to be democratic any time soon, if we understand this to mean that it would no longer have fair elections whose results are enforced. Chaos, though? Entropy? Those are easier destinies to picture, at times by just looking around. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, Augusr 29, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
 
Rule of law What makes an officer a principal officer is that he or she reports only only to the president. … A principal officer must be confirmed by the Senate. And that has a very significant conse- quence today. It means that Mr. Trump's installation of Matthew Whitaker as acting Attorney General of the United States after forcing the resignation of Jeff Sessions is unconstitutional. It's illegal. And it means that anything Mr. Whitaker does, or tries to do, in that position is invalid. Neal K. Katyal and George T. Conway III, New York Times, November 8, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com