“The welfare of the people is the highest law”

“In inquiries respecting the laws of the world and the frame of things, the highest reason is always the truest.”

“A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the highest virtues of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means.”

“To think the welfare and the goodness of the next generations is indeed a good ethics, but there is much greater ethics than this: To think the welfare and the goodness of the current generations, the very people of now! The reason is simple: Future may not exist, it is only a possibility, but the people of now are not possibility, they are here!”

“The law's the law, but people are people.”

“An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law”