D’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow?
I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake
While you talk, he’s gone!
And go he should if he was the devil himself until he broke the law!
So now you’d give the Devil benefit of law!
Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
I’d cut down every law in Israel to do that!
Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you—where would you hide, Netanyahu, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from river to sea—Man’s laws, not God’s—and if you cut them down—and you’re just the man to do it—d’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.
It is nearly five hundred years since these putative words were spoken by Saint Thomas More to his wife and son-in-law. Five hundred years is a long time over which to be prescient.
From A Man For All Seasons by Robert Bolt.