Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? — Henry David Thoreau
The strictest law sometimes becomes the severest injustice. — Benjamin Franklin
There is no justice in following unjust laws. It's time to come into the light and, in the grand tradition of civil disobedience, declare our opposition to this private theft of public culture. — Aaron Swartz
Any law which violates the inalienable rights of man is essentially unjust and tyrannical; it is not a law at all. — Maximilien Robespierre
Laws will not eliminate prejudice from the hearts of human beings. But that is no reason to allow prejudice to continue to be enshrined in our laws - to perpetuate injustice through inaction. — Shirley Chisholm
When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. — Alexei Navalny
There is a point at which the law becomes immoral and unethical. That point is reached when it becomes a cloak for the cowardice that dares not stand up against blatant violations of justice. — Kurt Huber
The worst form of injustice is pretended justice. — Plato
We are better people than what these laws represent, and it is time to discard them into the ash heap of history. — John E. Jones III
The most odious of all oppressions are those which mask as justice. — Robert H. Jackson
Short Unjust Laws Quotes
National injustice is the surest road to national downfall. — William E. Gladstone
Useless laws weaken the necessary laws. — Montesquieu
Ancient laws remain in force long after the people have the power to change them. — Aristotle
Injustice never rules forever. — Seneca
Authority founded on injustice is never of long duration. — Seneca The Elder
Some laws of state aimed at curbing crime are even more criminal. — Friedrich Engels
Unjust Laws Image Quotes
Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else!
St Augustine Quotes
Here was St. Augustine, the oldest city in the United States. How to build a hotel to meet the requirements of nineteenth century America and have it in keeping with the character of the place ? that was my hardest problem. — Henry Flagler
Loving difficult people will refine us. Perhaps only in heaven will our love be so perfected that we can actually like these people, too. St. Augustine spoke of a man who, on earth, had chronic gas problems; in heaven, his flatulence became perfect music. — Scott Hahn
One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that ' an unjust law is no law at all. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Laws control a lesser person, right conduct controls a greater one.
The conscious mind allows itself to be trained like a parrot, but the unconscious does not — which is why St. Augustine thanked God for not making him responsible for his dreams. — Carl Jung
We 'have all we want' is a terrible saying when 'all' does not include God. We find God an interruption. As St. Augustine says somewhere, 'God wants to give us something, but cannot, because our hands are full - there's nowhere for Him to put it.' — C. S. Lewis
Not every religion has to have St. Augustine's attitude to sex. Why even in our culture marriages are celebrated in a church, everyone present knows what is going to happen that night, but that doesn't prevent it being a religious ceremony. — Ludwig Wittgenstein
Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under god is acknowledged.
Holy Christendom has, in my judgment, no better teacher after the apostles than St. Augustine. — Martin Luther
Things take the time they take. don't worry. How many roads did St. Augustine follow before he became St. Augustine? — Mary Oliver
St. Augustine explicitly warns against a very narrow perspective that will put our faith at risk of looking ridiculous. If you step back from that one narrow interpretation, what the Bible describes is very consistent with the Big Bang. — Richard Dawkins
'You told me, Father, that after my past life it is still possible to become another St. Augustine. I don't doubt it, and today more than yesterday I want to try to prove it.' But you have to cut out sin courageously from the root, as the holy Bishop of Hippo did. — Josemaria Escriva
Just And Unjust Laws Quotes
I answer, Socrates, that rhetoric is the art of persuasion in courts of law and other assemblies, as I was just now saying, and about the just and unjust. — Gorgias
There are two types of laws: there are just laws and there are unjust laws... What is the difference between the two?...An unjust law is a man-made code that is out of harmony with the moral law. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of Saint Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law. — Martin Luther
A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive. — Noah Webster
Prayer is of no avail. The lightning falls on the just and the unjust in accordance with natural laws. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Our political way of life is by the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God, and of course presupposes the existence of God, the moral ruler of the universe, and a rule of right and wrong, of just and unjust, binding upon man, preceding all institutions of human society and government. — John Quincy Adams
Truth is a thing immortal and perpetual, and it gives to us a beauty that fades not away in time, nor does it take away the freedom of speech which proceeds from justice; but it gives to us the knowledge of what is just and lawful, separating from them the unjust and refuting them. — Epictetus
One-half of the people of this nation to-day are utterly powerless to blot from the statute books an unjust law, or to write there a new and a just one. — Susan B. Anthony
The Judge does not make the law. It is people that make the law. Therefore if a law is unjust, and if the Judge judges according to the law, that is justice, even if it is not just. — Alan Paton
Just because someone gets arrested doesn't mean what they are doing is wrong. Some laws are unfair and unjust. — Tim Robbins
Unjust Society Quotes
We must stop constantly fighting for human rights and equal justice in an unjust system, and start building a society where equal rights are an integral part of the design. — Jacque Fresco
The natural distribution is neither just nor unjust; nor is it unjust that persons are born into society at some particular position. These are simply natural facts. What is just and unjust is the way that institutions deal with these facts. — John Rawls
For me, men are not divided into believers and atheists, but between oppressors and oppressed, between those who want to keep this unjust society and those who want to struggle for justice. — Frei Betto
The existence of poverty is the proof of an unjust and ill-organised society, and our public charities are but the first tardy awakening in the conscience of a robber. — Sri Aurobindo
The best antidote for crime is justice. The irony we often fail to appreciate is that the more justice people enjoy, the fewer crimes they commit. Crime is the natural offspring of an unjust society. — Gerry Spence
Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe. — Noah Webster
To be wealthy and honored in an unjust society is a disgrace. — Confucius
Capitalism is like math. It is amoral. It is good at producing wealth; it's bad at distributing wealth. Unless it operates within a moral framework it will produce an unjust society. — Charley Reese
In any civilized society, it is every citizen's responsibility to obey just laws. But at the same time, it is every citizen's responsibility to disobey unjust laws. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Anyone in a free society where the laws are unjust has an obligation to break the law. — Henry David Thoreau
Unjust World Quotes
I'm really very sorry for you all, but it's an unjust world, and virtue is triumphant only in theatrical performances. — W. S. Gilbert
Here, then, is what I wanted to tell you of my architecture. I created it with courage and idealism, but also with an awareness of the fact that what is important is life, friends and attempting to make this unjust world a better place in which to live. — Oscar Niemeyer
Even at the cross, God permitted what he hated - the unjust and agonizing death of his own precious Son - in order to accomplish something he prized above his own Son's cruel death; that is, salvation for a world of sinners. So the world's worst murder becomes the world's only salvation. — Joni Eareckson Tada
Given the amount of unjust suffering and unhappiness in the world, I am deeply grateful for, sometimes even perplexed by, how much misery I have been spared. — Dennis Prager
People don't have fortunes left them in that style nowadays; men have to work and women to marry for money. It's a dreadfully unjust world. — Louisa May Alcott
Another world is possible!' ... Another world is also necessary, for this one is unjust, unsustainable, and unsafe. It's up to us to envision, fight for, and create that world, a world of freedom, real justice, balance, and shared abundance, a world woven in a new design. — Starhawk
Children will still die unjustly even in a perfect society. Even by his greatest effort, man can only propose to diminish, arithmetically, the sufferings of the world. — Albert Camus
For me philosophy begins with these experiences of disappointment: a disappointment at the level of what I would think of as "meaning," namely that, given that there is no God, what is the meaning of life? And, given that we live in an unjust world, how are we to bring about justice? — Simon Critchley
Life is unjust, people can be cruel, and yet if you harden your heart, you will lose what little love there is in this world. — Rita Mae Brown
A startup is the largest endeavor over which you can have definite mastery. You can have agency not just over your own life, but over a small and important part of the world. It begins by rejecting the unjust tyranny of Chance. You are not a lottery ticket. — Peter Thiel
Bad Laws Quotes
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws. — Plato
The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced. — Frank Zappa
I love a good man outside the law, just as much as I hate a bad man inside the law. — Woody Guthrie
There's a natural law of karma that vindictive people, who go out of their way to hurt others, will end up broke and alone. — Sylvester Stallone
You couldn't pay me enough to be a law enforcement officer. Their job is a tough job. You have to solve people's problems, you have to baby-sit people, you have to always be doing this cat-and-mouse game with the bad guys. My respect for them is immense. — Christopher Meloni
Karma, ahhh. We sow what we reap... We reap what we sow! We reap what we sow. The law of cause and effect. And we are all under this law. — Nina Hagen
For the keynote of the law of Karma is equilibrium, and nature is always working to restore that equilibrium whenever through man's acts it is disturbed. — Christmas Humphreys
I believe that the laws of karma do not apply to show business, where good things happen to bad people on a fairly regular basis. — Chuck Lorre
I think trading Bitcoin while reading twitter is a bad idea. The news that governments expect you to pay your taxes and abide by existing laws should not be driving panic in the marketplace. The main stream interpretations are almost always the opposite of the true implication. — Michael Saylor
Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry. — Unknown Author
Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States. — Noah Webster
To this war of every man against every man, this also in consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law, where no law, no injustice. Force, and fraud, are in war the cardinal virtues. — Thomas Hobbes
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 the law. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
We are at the end of the model of the caste based on that atrocity of where there is a need, there is a right but they’re forgetting that somebody has to pay for that right. Its maximum expression is that aberration called social justice which is unjust because it implies unequal treatment in the face of the law. — Javier Milei
Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust. — John Rawls
If anything had or could have a value equal to gold and silver, it would require no tender law; and if it had not that value it ought not to have such a law; and, therefore, all tender laws are tyrannical and unjust and calculated to support fraud and oppression. — Thomas Paine
It seems to me that an unjust law is no law at all. — Saint Augustine
The dream of Europe is a region of freedom and peace, of security, law, democracy, tolerance and mutual respect. If you look into the faces of the refugees you will see this dream. These are people who are fleeing from war, hate, violence and unjust systems. — Martin Schulz
No intelligent man has any respect for an unjust law. — Robert A. Heinlein
As long as the superstition that people should obey unjust laws exists, so long will slavery exist — Mahatma Gandhi
An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so. Now the law of nonviolence says that violence should be resisted not by counter-violence but by nonviolence. This I do by breaking the law and by peacefully submitting to arrest and imprisonment. — Mahatma Gandhi
In a democracy -- even if it is a so-called democracy like our white-?litist one -- the greatest veneration one can show the rule of law is to keep a watch on it, and to reserve the right to judge unjust laws and the subversion of the function of the law by the power of the state. That vigilance is the most important proof of respect for the law. — Nadine Gordimer
Government: If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law. — Edward Abbey
When I refuse to obey an unjust law, I do not contest the right of the majority to command, but I simply appeal from the sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of mankind. — Alexis de Tocqueville
Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless. — Isaiah
One of the worst things about breaking the law is that it puts one at odds with an indeterminate number of other people. This is among the many corrosive effects of having unjust laws: They tempt peaceful and (otherwise) honest people to lie so as to avoid being punished for behavior that is ethically blameless. — Sam Harris
I have never stuck up for any criminal. I have merely asked for the orderly administration of an impartial justice...Due legal process is my own safeguard against being convicted unjustly. To my mind, that's government. That's law and order. — Erle Stanley Gardner
. . . nothing could be more grotesquely unjust than a code of morals, reinforced by laws, which relieves men from responsibility for irregular sexual acts, and for the same acts drives women to abortion, infanticide, prostitution, and self-destruction. — Suzanne La Follette
A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law, or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
If a juror feels that the statute involved in any criminal offence is unfair, or that it infringes upon the defendant's natural god-given unalienable or constitutional rights, then it is his duty to affirm that the offending statute is really no law at all and that the violation of it is no crime at all, for no one is bound to obey an unjust law. — Harlan F. Stone
We have the means to change the laws we find unjust or onerous. We cannot, as citizens, pick and choose the laws we will or will not obey. — Ronald Reagan
There comes a time when a moral man can't obey a law which his conscience tells him is unjust. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
The law which attempts a man's life [capital punishment] is impractical, unjust, inadmissible. It has never repressed crime - for a second crime is every day committed at the foot of the scaffold. — Marquis De Sade
We, unlike Nazi Germany or Mussolini's Italy, have never stopped being a nation of laws, not of men. But witness how men with motives and a majority can manipulate law to cruel and unjust ends. — Robert Byrd
Legislatures have no right to set up an inquisition and examine into the private opinions of men. Test-laws are useless and ineffectual, unjust and tyrannical. — Oliver Ellsworth
A unjust law, is no law at all. — Martin Luther
In Conclusion
Which quotation resonated with you best? Did you enjoy our collection of unjust laws quotes? Or may be you have a slogan about unjust laws to suggest. Let us know using our contact form.
Citation
Feel free to cite and use any of the quotes in this collection of unjust laws quotations. For popular citation styles(APA, Chicago, MLA), please use this citation page.
