I recall a quotation from (I think Shakespeare) that goes something like this (paraphrased terribly):
“If you wrest the law in search of the devil, what shall be your protection when the devil seeks you?”
But I can’t find it in my Complete Works of Shakespeare, nor the various Shakespeare search engines I found (probably because I’m searching on the wrong words.)
Anyone have any clues?
Ugh. That first word in the title should, of course, be “Identify.”
That doesn’t sound like Shakespeare… it sounds more like one of Sir Thomas More’s lines from Robert Bolt’s play (later an Oscar-winning movie) “A Man for All Seasons.”
IF I’m right, the following dialogue is what you’re looking for:
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More’s daughter: “Father, that man’s bad.”
More: “There’s no law against that.”
Roper: “There is- God’s law.”
More: “Then let God arrest him.”
More’s wife: “While you talk, he’s gone.”
More: “And go he should, even if he were the Devil, until he broke the law.”
Roper: “So, now you give the Devil benefit of law?”
More: “Yes. What would YOU do? Cut a great road through the law, to get after the Devil?”
Roper: “Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that.”
More: "Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws being all flat?
This country’s planted thick with laws, from coast to coast. Man’s laws, not God’s. And if you cut them down- and you’re just the man to do it- do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow THEN?
Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake."
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I think you may be thinking of the following passage from A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt, concerning Sir/St. Thomas More:
oh, piffle. Astorian got there first! Gotta take that speed typing course…
Astorian, are you quoting from the movie script? I used the play, which may account for the slight variations in the two versions we gave.
By way of aside, in the movie, Leo McKern played the sleazy, corrupt Cromwell - interesting to compare to his role as Rumpole, the (morally) polar opposite.
The nearest I can find in Shakespeare:
Bassanio speaking in The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, scene i
Which is, of course, the exact opposite of the Man for All Seasons quote…
Thanks Northern Piper and astorian, that’s the quotation I was looking for.
