QuoteProject
The more laws that are written, the more criminals are produced.
Laozi
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Excessive laws may lead to increased wrongdoing rather than preventing it.

This quote by Laozi suggests that an abundance of laws can create an environment where more individuals choose to break them, rather than adhering to societal norms. It reflects the idea that overly complex legal systems can lead to confusion, frustration, and ultimately, a rise in criminal behavior, as individuals may feel oppressed or compelled to rebel against too many restrictions.

Themes

LawsCriminalsSocietyJusticeFreedom

In practice

Example use cases

In a debate about the impact of legislation on crime rates.

More from Laozi

If you understand others you are smart._x000D_ If you understand yourself you are illuminated._x000D_ If you overcome others you are powerful._x000D_ If you overcome yourself you have strength._x000D_ If you know how to be satisfied you are rich._x000D_ If you can act with vigor, you have a will._x000D_ If you don't lose your objectives you can be long-lasting._x000D_ If you die without loss, you are eternal.
LaoziRead
When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.
LaoziRead
A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.
LaoziRead
Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is enlightenment.
LaoziRead
In the world there is nothing more submissive and weak than water. Yet for attacking that which is hard and strong nothing can surpass it.
LaoziRead
Rule your mind with serenity rather than with force and manipulation.
LaoziRead

Similar quotes

Accustom yourself to believe that death is nothing to us, for good and evil imply awareness, and death is the privation of all awareness; therefore a right understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not by adding to life an unlimited time, but by taking away the yearning after immortality. For life has no terror; for those who thoroughly apprehend that there are no terrors for them in ceasing to live.
EpicurusRead
True beauty is not related to what color your hair is or what color your eyes are. True beauty is about who you are as a human being, your principles, your moral compass.
Ellen DegeneresRead
Reach me a gentian, give me a torch! Let me guide myself with the blue, forked torch of a flower down the darker and darker stairs, where blue is darkened on blueness even where Persephone goes, just now, from the frosted September to the sightless realm where darkness is awake upon the dark.
D. H. LawrenceRead
Destiny waits alike for the free man as well as for him enslaved by another's might.
AeschylusRead
I have noticed that whenever a person gives up his belief in the Word of God because it requires that he should believe a good deal, his unbelief requires him to believe a great deal more. If there be any difficulties in the faith of Christ, they are not one-tenth as great as the absurdities in any system of unbelief which seeks to take its place.
Charles SpurgeonRead
What the superior man seeks is in himself; what the small man seeks is in others.
ConfuciusRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.