Virtue is not advanced by written laws but by the habits of everyday life; for the majority of men tend to assimilate the manners and morals amid which they have been reared. Furthermore, they held that where there is a multitude of specific laws, it is a sign that the state is badly governed; for it is in the attempt to build up dikes against the spread of crime that men in such a state feel constrained to multiply the laws. Those who are rightly governed, on the other hand, do not need to fill their porticoes with written statues, but only to cherish justice in their souls; for it is not with legislation, but by morals, that states are well directed, since men who are badly reared will venture to transgress even laws which are drawn up with minute exactness, whereas those who are well brought up will be willing to respect even a simple code.
One need look only at the proliferation of laws governing roads and driving that have been enacted since the days of unlicensed horsemen as an example of how corrupt and overreaching our government has become.
How many laws do we really need? And why do the legislators and voters keep asking for more?
