William Shakespeare on Law
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“They have been grand-jurymen since before Noah was a sailor.”
“Bold of your worthiness, we single you As our best-moving fair solicitor.”
“Do as adversaries do in law, Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.”
“Before I be convict by course of law, To threaten me with death is most unlawful.”
“But in these nice sharp quillets of the law, Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw.”
“The bloody book of law You shall yourself read in the bitter letter After your own sense.”
“He hath resisted law, And therefore law shall scorn him further trial Than the severity of the public power.”
“Press not a falling man too far! 'tis virtue: His faults lie open to the laws; let them, Not you, correct him.”
“In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt But, being season'd with a gracious voice, Obscures the show of evil?”
“Faith, I have been a truant in the law, And never yet could frame my will to it; And therefore frame the law unto my will.”
“I am a subject, And I challenge law: attorneys are denied me; And therefore personally I lay my claim To my inheritance of free descent.”
“We must not make a scarecrow of the law, Setting it up to fear the birds of prey, And let it keep one shape, till custom make it Their perch and not their terror.”
“But, I prithee, sweet wag, shall there be gallows standing in England when thou art king? and resolution thus fobbed as it is with the rusty curb of old father antic the law?”
“It must not be; there is no power in Venice Can alter a decree established: 'Twill be recorded for a precedent; And many an error by the same example Will rush into the state.”
“You who wear out a good wholesome forenoon in hearing a cause between an orange-wife and a fosset-seller; and then rejourn the controversy of three pence to a second day of audience.”
“In the corrupted currents of this world, Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice; And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself Buys out the law: but 'tis not so above; There is no shuffling, there the action lies In his true nature; and we ourselves compell'd, Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults, To give in evidence.”