“Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself; and where they are, they should be changed. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against possession of marijuana in private for personal use... Therefore, I support legislation amending Federal law to eliminate all Federal criminal penalties for the possession of up to one ounce [28g] of marijuana.”
“The judge s massive eyebrows crept up. Kaldar. Are you the one speaking for the plaintiff today? Yes, Your Honor. Well, shit, Dobe said. I guess you re familiar with the law. You hit it over the head, set its house on fire, and got its sister pregnant.”
“Law applied to its extreme is the greatest injustice”
“There are laws. There are rules. And when you break them, there are consequences. Laws of nature and laws of life. Laws of love and laws of death.”
“ Law is not as disinterested as our concepts of law pretend; law serves power; law in large measure is a recapitulation of the status quo; it confirms a rigid order designed to insulate the beneficiaries of the status quo from the disturbances of change. The painful truth--one with a long history--is that police are around in large part to guarantee a peaceful disgestion for the rich.”
“I m an intelligent sociopath. I don t have problems with drugs, I don t commit crimes, I don t take pleasure in hurting people, and I don t typically have relationship problems. I do have a complete lack of empathy. But I consider that an advantage, most of the time. Do I know the difference between right and wrong, and do I want to be good? Sure. ... A peaceful and orderly world is a more comfortable world for me to live in. So do I avoid breaking the law because it s right ? No, I avoid breaking the law because it makes sense.”
“My biggest problem with modernity may lie in the growing separation of the ethical and the legal”
“Every once in a while I don t think it s a bad idea for lawyers to remember that what goes on, at least on some level of our brains, is that we have to imagine everything coming apart. ... It s what we are. Out of control, always prepared, Boy Scout control freaks.”
“An age cannot bind itself and ordain to put the succeeding one into such a condition that it cannot extend its (at best very occasional) knowledge , purify itself of errors, and progress in general enlightenment. That would be a crime against human nature, the proper destination of which lies precisely in this progress and the descendants would be fully justified in rejecting those decrees as having been made in an unwarranted and malicious manner. The touchstone of everything that can be concluded as a law for a people lies in the question whether the people could have imposed such a law on itself.”
“A unjust law, is no law at all.”
“Yes, we ve given them the benefit of the doubt. But, isn t it time (for once in our lives) to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt?”
“As one judge said to another judge: be just. And if you can’t be just, be arbitrary”
“We are bound by the law, so that we may be free.”
“So may the outward shows be least themselves: The world is still deceived with ornament. In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt, But, being seasoned with a gracious voice, Obscures the show of evil? In religion, What damned error, but some sober brow Will bless it and approve it with a text, Hiding the grossness with fair ornament? There is no vice so simple but assumes Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.”
“No one rules if no one obeys”
“You are interfering in my business, warlock. Magnus spat blood into his face. You are torturing a child in my city, Shadowhunter. [...] I thought we were playing a game where we said what the other person was and what we were doing. Magnus told him. Did I get it wrong? Can I guess again? are you breaking your own sacred Laws, asshole?”
“I think that everything should be made available to everybody, and I mean LSD, cocaine, codeine, grass, opium, the works. Nothing on earth available to any man should be confiscated and made unlawful by other men in more seemingly powerful and advantageous positions.”