Quote#Politics & Power
The written law is binding, but the unwritten law is much more so.…
Quote bySamuel Butler · 1835–1902
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Part VII: On the Making of Music, Pictures, and Books, The Law.
English (original)
The written law is binding, but the unwritten law is much more so. You may break the written law at a pinch and on the sly if you can, but the unwritten law — which often comprises the written — must not be broken. Not being written, it is not always easy to know what it is, but this has got to be done.
— Samuel Butler
More from Samuel Butler
Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg.
Stowed away in a Montreal lumber room The Discobolus standeth and turneth his face to the wall; Dusty, cobweb-covered, maimed and set at naught, Beauty crieth in an attic and no man regardeth: O God! O Montreal!
The Discobolus is put here because he is vulgar — He has neither vest nor pants with which to cover his limbs.
We can see nothing face to face; our utmost seeing is but a fumbling of blind finger-ends in an overcrowded pocket.
The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore.