Famous quotes containing the words civil, law and/or countries:
“The principle of majority rule is the mildest form in which the force of numbers can be exercised. It is a pacific substitute for civil war in which the opposing armies are counted and the victory is awarded to the larger before any blood is shed. Except in the sacred tests of democracy and in the incantations of the orators, we hardly take the trouble to pretend that the rule of the majority is not at bottom a rule of force.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“Macavity, Macavity, there’s no one like Macavity,
He’s broken every human law, he breaks the law of gravity.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“It seems to me that the god that is commonly worshiped in civilized countries is not at all divine, though he bears a divine name, but is the overwhelming authority and respectability of mankind combined. Men reverence one another, not yet God.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)