One good, hearty laugh is a bombshell exploding in the right place,
while spleen and discontent are a gun that kicks over the man who shoots
it off.--_De Witt Talmage._
I am sure that since I had the use of my reason, no human being has ever
heard me laugh.--_Chesterfield._
I like the laughter that opens the lips and the heart, that shower at
the same time pearls and the soul.--_Victor Hugo._
Laughter is a most healthful exertion; it is one of the greatest helps
to digestion with which I am acquainted; and the custom prevalent among
our forefathers, of exciting it at table by jesters and buffoons, was
founded on true medical principles.--_Dr. Hufeland._
~Law.~--With us, law is nothing unless close behind it stands a warm,
living public opinion. Let that die or grow indifferent, and statutes
are waste paper, lacking all executive force.--_Wendell Phillips._
Of all the parts of a law, the most effectual is the _vindicatory_; for
it is but lost labor to say, "Do this, or avoid that," unless we also
declare, "This shall be the consequence of your non-compliance." The
main strength and force of a law consists in the penalty annexed to
it.--_Blackstone._
If there be any one principle more widely than another confessed by
every utterance, or more sternly than another imprinted on every atom of
the visible creation, that principle is not liberty, but law.--_Ruskin._
It would be very singular if this great shad-net of the law did not
enable men to catch at something, balking for the time the eternal
flood-tide of justice.--_Chapin._
True law is right reason conformably to nature, universal, unchangeable,
eternal, whose commands urge us to duty, and whose prohibitions restrain
us from evil.--_Cicero._
Aristotle himself has said, speaking of the laws of his own country,
that jurisprudence, or the knowledge of those laws, is the principal and
most perfect branch of ethics.--_Blackstone._
In effect, to follow, not to force, the public inclination, to give a
direction, a form, a technical dress, and a specific sanction, to the
general sense of the community, is the true end of
legislation.--_Burke._
In the habits of legal men every accusation appears insufficient if they
do not exaggerate it even to calumny. It is thus that justice itself
loses its sanctity and its respect amongst men.--_Lamartine._
Pity is the virtue of the law, and none but tyrants use it
cruelly.--_Shakespeare._
It is a very easy thing to devise good laws; the difficulty is to make
them effective. The great mistake is that of looking upon men as
virtuous, or thinking that they can be made so by laws; and consequently
the greatest art of a politician is to render vices serviceable to the
cause of virtue.--_Bolingbroke._