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Law: Quotations from Shakespearian Quotations

We have strict statutes and most biting laws.— M. M. i. 4.

When law can do no right,— K. J. iii. 1.

Let it be lawful, that law bar no wrong. In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt, But, being season'd with a gracious voice, Obscures the show of evil?— M. V. iii. 2.

Help, master, help; here's a fish hangs in the net, like a poor man's right in the law; 'twill hardly come out.— P. P. ii. 1.

The brain may devise laws for the blood; but a hot temper leaps over a cold decree: such a hare is madness the youth, to skip o'er the meshes of good counsel the cripple— M. V. i. 2

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— M. M. ii. 1

Their perch, and not their terror. 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: it cannot be.— M. V. iv. 1.

We are for law, he dies.— T. A. iii. 5.

It pleases time and fortune to lie heavy Upon a friend of mine, who, in hot blood, Hath stepp'd into the law, which is past depth To those that, without heed, plunge into it.— T. A. iii. 5.

Now, as fond fathers, Having bound up the threatening twigs of birch, Only to stick it in their children's sight, For terror, not to use; in time the rod Becomes more mock'd than fear'd: so our decrees, Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead; And liberty plucks justice by the nose.— M. M. i. 4

What's open made to justice, That justice seizes. What know the laws, That thieves do pass on thieves? "Tis very pregnant, The jewel that we find we stoop and take it, Because we see it; but what we do not see, We tread upon, and never think of it.— M. M. ii. 1.

The bloody book of law You shall yourself read in the bitter letter, After your own sense.— 0. i. 3

If by this crime he owes the law his life, Why, let the war receiv't in valiant gore; For law is strict, and war is nothing more.— T. A. iii. 5

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.— H. VI. PT. I. ii. 4

But, I pr'ythee, sweet wag, shall there be gallows standing in England when thou art king? and resolution thus fobb'd as it is, with the rusty curb of old father antic, the law?— H. IV. PT. I. i. 2.

Abuse Of

The usurer hangs the cozener.— K. L. iv. 6.

Lawyers

The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.— H. VI. PT. H. iv. 2.

Do as adversaries in law, strive mightily, But eat and drink as friends.— T. S. i. 2.