Mob Law Quotes & Sayings

The more you ask certain questions, the more dangerous they become. — Elie Wiesel

God has made sleep to be a sponge by which to rub out fatigue. A man's roots are planted in night as in a soil. — Henry Ward Beecher

Mob law is the most forcible expression of an abnormal public opinion; it shows that society is rotten to the core. — Timothy Thomas Fortune

Government has become ungovernable; that is, it cannot leave off governing. Law has become lawless; that is, it cannot see where laws should stop. The chief feature of our time is the meekness of the mob and the madness of the government. — G.K. Chesterton

This spirit of mob-law is becoming as great an evil as a servile war. — Andrew Jackson

Liberals despise the rule of law because it interferes with their ability to rule by mob. They love to portray themselves as the weak taking on the powerful. But it is the least powerful who suffer the most once the rule of law is gone. — Ann Coulter

The Prayer of the Middle-Aged Man
Amid the doctors in the Temple at twelve, between mother & host at Cana implored too soon, in the middle of disciples, the midst of the mob, between High-Priest and Procurator, among the occupiers,
between the malefactors, and 'stetit in medio, et dixit, pax vobis' and 'ascensit ad mediam Personarum et caelorum,' dear my Lord,mercy a sinner nailed dead-centre too, pray not to late,-
for also Ezra stood between the seven & the six, restoring the new Law. — John Berryman

A mob is the method by which good citizens turn over the law and the government to the criminal or irresponsible classes. — Ray Stannard Baker

In countries with a properly functioning legal system, the mob continues to exist, but it is rarely called upon to mete out capital punishment. The right to take human life belongs to the state. Not so in societies where weak courts and poor law enforcement are combined with intractable structural injustices. — Teju Cole

Rights are not a matter of numbers - and there can be no such thing, in law or in morality, as actions forbidden to an individual, but permitted to a mob. — Ayn Rand

The vision that the founding fathers had of rule of law and equality before the law and no one above the law, that is a very viable vision, but instead of that, we have quasi mob rule. — James Bovard

In on summer they have done their business ... they have completely pulled down to the ground their monarchy, their church, their nobility, their law, their revenue, their army, their navy, their commerce, their arts, and their manufactures ... destroyed all balances and counterpoises which serve to fix a state and give it steady direction, and then they melted down the whole into one incongrous mass of mob and democracy ... the people, along with their political servitude, have thrown off the yoke of law and morals. — Edmund Burke

If mob law is going to rule, better dismiss, judge, sheriff, etc., and let's all take chances alike. I expect to be lynched in going to Lincoln [New Mexico.] Advise persons never to engage in killing. — Billy The Kid

I've never known a Philadelphian who wasn't a downright 'character'; possibly a defense mechanism resulting from the dullness of their native habitat. — Anita Loos

It is not my way to remain silent when words or actions are needed. Silence serves no one well. Three years ago an angry mob of white people burned twenty homes of my people. Local law enforcement seemed unwilling to help them, so I went to the statehouse and reported the episode directly to Governor Williams. Consequently thirty-six white men were arrested, including the mayor of the town. This is the kind of thing the NAACP strives to do. — Corinda Marsh

Under the pressure of fanaticism, and with the mob complacently applauding the show, democratic law tends more and more to be grounded upon the maxim that every citizen is, by nature, a traitor, a libertine, and a scoundrel. In order to dissuade him from his evil-doing the police power is extended until it surpasses anything ever heard of in the oriental monarchies of antiquity. — H.L. Mencken

I know of scarcely anything so apt to impress the imagination as the wonderful form of cosmic order expressed by the "Law of Frequency of Error." The law would have been personified by the Greeks and deified, if they had known of it. It reigns with serenity and in complete self-effacement, amidst the wildest confusion. The huger the mob, and the greater the apparent anarchy, the more perfect is its sway. It is the supreme law of Unreason. — Francis Galton

It's legitimate for the police to use violence because they are enforcing the law; the law is legitimate because it's rooted in the constitution; the constitution is legitimate because it comes from the people; the people created the constitution by acts of illegal violence. The obvious question, then: How does one tell the difference between "the people" and a mere rampaging mob? — David Graeber

If you look at movies with Cary Grant or Jimmy Stewart and all the rest of it, none of them looks like a boy. They always looked like mature men. The audience didn't want to go and see kids. — Tom Conti

Books are the compasses and telescopes and sextants and charts which other men have prepared to help us navigate the dangerous seas of human life. — Jesse Lee Bennett

Every great sin ought to rouse a great anger. Mob law is better than no law at all. A community which rises in its wrath to punish with misdirected anger a great wrong is in a healthier moral condition than a community which looks upon its perpetration with apathy and unconcern. — Lyman Abbott

Although I don't know for sure, I'd bet my dog and lot that John Grisham never worked for the mob. All of that is total fabrication (and total fabrication is the fiction-writer's purest delight). He was once a young lawyer, though, and he has clearly forgotten none of the struggle. Nor has he forgotten the location of the various financial pitfalls and honeytraps that make the field of corporate law so difficult. Using plainspun humor as a brilliant counterpoint and never substituting cant for story, he sketches a world of Darwinian struggle where all the savages wear three-piece suits. And - here's the good part - this is a world impossible not to believe. Grisham has been there, spied out the land and the enemy positions, and brought back a full report. He told the truth of what he knew, and for that if nothing else, he deserves every buck The Firm made. — Stephen King

The White House, that whole criminal mob, those arrogant goons who see themselves as justified to operate above the law-they disgrace democracy by claiming that what they do they do for democracy! They should be in jail. They should be in Hollywood! — John Irving

As proof of this statement, consider this question: Have the people ever been known to rise against the Court of Appeals, or mob a Justice of the Peace, in order to get higher wages, free credit, tools of production, favorable tariffs, or government-created jobs? Everyone knows perfectly well that such matters are not within the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals or a Justice of the Peace. And if government were limited to its proper functions, everyone would soon learn that these matters are not within the jurisdiction of the law itself. — Frederic Bastiat

I detest audiences - not in their individual components, but en masse I detest audiences. I think they're a force of evil. It seems to me rule of mob law. — Glenn Gould

The orgy of thieving in Iraq has more to do with the character of the people than the absence of restraining troops. And to think that good, decent, law-abiding young British and American men and women laid down their lives to liberate this thieving mob. — Robert Kilroy-Silk

For in a government of laws and not of men, no man, however prominent or powerful, and no mob however unruly or boisterous, is entitled to defy a court of law. If this country should ever reach the point where any man or group of men by force or threat of force could long defy the commands of our court and our Constitution, then no law would stand free from doubt, no judge would be sure of his writ, and no citizen would be safe from his neighbors. — John F. Kennedy

In 1231, Pope Gregory ordered the Dominicans to take charge of papal courts and decisions and so prevent mob rule and guarantee that the accused received a fair trial and the right of defence. This was the foundation of the Inquisition, and it was a move to organize, control, and limit violence, disruption, and division. Of course, it often failed and even achieved the opposite of its stated and original purpose, but it's surprising how often in an age of casual and brutal violence a relative moderation and legality was achieved. Civil law was far harsher than canon law, demanding confiscation of a heretic's property and usually death, something the Church had tried to prevent for generations. — Michael Coren

Was emotionally true because I had already grown to feel that there existed men against whom I was powerless, men who could violate my life at will. I resolved that I would emulate the black woman if I were ever faced with a white mob; I would conceal a weapon, pretend that I had been crushed by the wrong done to one of my loved ones; then, just when they thought I had accepted their cruelty as the law of my life, I would let go with my gun and kill as many of them as possible before they killed me. The story of the woman's deception gave form and meaning to confused defensive feelings that had long been sleeping in me. My imaginings, of course, had no objective — Richard Wright

Under our institutions each individual is born to sovereignty. Whatever he may adopt as a means of livelihood, his real business is serving his country. He cannot hold himself above his fellow men. The greatest place of command is really the place of obedience, and the greatest place of honor is really the place of service. — Calvin Coolidge

But I had to keep my hands under the desk - my fists under the desk, I should say. The White House, that whole criminal mob, those arrogant goons who see themselves as justified to operate above the law - they disgrace democracy by claiming that what they do they do for democracy! They should be in jail. They should be in Hollywood! I know that some of the girls have told their parents that I deliver "ranting lectures" to them about the United States; some — John Irving

As soon as a roast is announced, I get everybody - family, friends, waitresses, cab drivers - giving me jokes about the person getting roasted. I'm the mouthpiece for the masses. — Jeff Ross

It's a law enforcement axiom. But who better to help bust a crack dealer than another crack dealer? Who better to bring down a mob boss than another mobster? As long as there have been cops, they've been making deals with informants, — John Shiffman

Indeed, that is the nature of crowds: the mob is either a humble slave or a cruel aster. As for the middle way of liberty, the mob can neither take it nor keep it with any respect for moderation or law. — Livy

There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law. — Abraham Lincoln