Laws restrain action but never inspire it

Evidence

If the essence of government is defined as lawfulness, and if it is understood that laws are the stabilizing forces in the public affairs of men (as indeed it always has been since Plato invoked Zeus, the god of the boundaries, in his Laws), then the problem of movement of the body politic and the actions of its citizens arises. Lawfulness sets limitations to actions, but does not inspire them; the greatness, but also the perplexity of laws in free societies is that they only tell what one should not, but never what one should do. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1054

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Motive force never determines conduct because it is only ever possible — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 238; No factual state can by itself motivate any action — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1069; Hobbes held that law always invades liberty regardless of its character