=Law-makers should not be law-breakers.=
Parliament has made it penal to pollute the air of towns with smoke,
and the _Builder_ complains that more smoke issues from parliament's
own chimneys than from any six factories in London.
=Abundance of law breaks no law.=
It is safer to exceed than to fall short of what the law requires.
=In a thousand pounds of law there is not an ounce of love.=
=A pennyweight of love is worth a pound weight of law.=
So much more cogent is the one than the other.
=Laws were made for rogues.=
"For the upright there are no laws" (German).[746] They are designed to
control those to whom it may be said,--
=Ye wad do little for God if the deil were dead.=--_Scotch._
"The fear o' hell's a hangman's whip
To keep the wretch in order;
But where ye feel your honour grip,
Let that be aye your border.
"Its slightest touches, instant pause,
Debar a' side pretences,
And resolutely keep its laws,
Uncaring consequences."
=He that loves law will get his fill of it.=
=Agree, for the law is costly.=
=Law's costly; tak a pint and 'gree.=--_Scotch._
Lord Mansfield declared that if any man claimed a field from him he
would give it up, provided the concession were kept secret, rather than
engage in proceedings at law. Hesiod, in admonishing his brother always
to prefer a friendly accommodation to a lawsuit, gave to the world the
paradoxical proverb, "The half is more than the whole." Very often "A
lean agreement is better than a fat lawsuit" (Italian).[747] "Lawyers'
garments are lined with suitors' obstinacy" (Italian);[748] and "Their
houses are built of fools' heads" (French).[749] Doctors and lawyers
are notoriously shy of taking what they prescribe for others. "No good
lawyer ever goes to law" (Italian).[750] Lord Chancellor Thurlow did so
once, but in his case the exception approved the rule. A house had been
built for him by contract, but he had made himself liable for more than
the stipulated price by ordering some departures from the specification
whilst the work was in progress. He refused to pay the additional
charge; the builder brought an action and got a verdict against him,
and surly Thurlow never afterwards set foot within the house which was
the monument of his wrong-headedness and its chastisement.
=Refer my coat, and lose a sleeve.=--_Scotch._
Arbitrators generally make both parties abate something of their
pretensions.
=Fair and softly, as lawyers go to heaven.=
The odds are great against their ever getting there, if it be true that
"Unless hell is full never will a lawyer be saved" (French).[751] "The
greater lawyer, the worse Christian" (Dutch).[752] "'Virtue in the
middle,' said the devil as he sat between two attorneys" (Danish).[753]