Law

Works to read

• Commentaries on the Laws of England by William Blackstone, 1765-1769
• The Spirit of the Laws by Montesquieu, 1748 · Great Books
• The Institutes of Justinian by Justinian I (Tribonian and commissioners), 533 CE
• Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (Preface and Book I) by Richard Hooker, 1594
• The Law by Frédéric Bastiat, 1850
• The Republic and The Laws by Marcus Tullius Cicero, c. 54-51 BC
• Decretum (Concord of Discordant Canons) by Gratian, c. 1140
• The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom by Thomas Jefferson, 1777 (enacted 1786)
• The Common Law by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., 1881
• Sweatt v. Painter by Supreme Court of the United States, 1950
• Laws by Plato, c. 348 BC · Great Books
• The Twelve Tables by The Decemviri of Rome, c. 451–450 BC

Passages

From the texts

• For this Law is consequent to the next before it, that commandeth Pardon, upon security of the Future Time.

  — Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

Verified quotations

• These wonders are the work of law

  — Jean-Jacques Rousseau, A Discourse on Political Economy

• We must not make a scarecrow of the law

  — William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

• It is religion to be thus forsworn, For charity itself fulfils the law

  — William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost

• Where-ever law ends, tyranny begins, if the law be transgressed to another’s harm

  — John Locke, Second Treatise of Government

• this is the sacred and golden cord of reason, called by us the common law of the State

  — Plato, Laws

• it is the ultimate aim of this work, to lay bare the economic law of motion of modern society

  — Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I

Passages are verified quotations from the library that use one of these words: law, laws, statute. Sentences under “From the texts” are copied word for word from the full texts in this library. Read each in its context on the work's page.