Civil law may refer to:
- Civil law (common law), a branch of common law dealing with relations between individuals or organizations (as opposed to criminal law)
- Civil law (legal system) (or "Continental law"), any of the various systems or codes of law which are derived from Roman law historically
- Civil law (area), a branch of Continental law which is the general part of private law
- The law that apply to the citizens of a city or state as opposed to international law
- The law as it relates to ordinary citizens as opposed to military or ecclesiastical law
Famous quotes containing the words civil law, civil and/or law:
“Just what is the civil law? What neither influence can affect, nor power break, nor money corrupt: were it to be suppressed or even merely ignored or inadequately observed, no one would feel safe about anything, whether his own possessions, the inheritance he expects from his father, or the bequests he makes to his children.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)
“At Hayes’ General Store, west of the cemetery, hangs an old army rifle, used by a discouraged Civil War veteran to end his earthly troubles. The grocer took the rifle as payment ‘on account.’”
—Administration for the State of Con, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“The image cannot be dispossessed of a primordial freshness, which idea can never claim. An idea is derivative and tamed. The image is in the natural or wild state, and it has to be discovered there, not put there, obeying its own law and none of ours. We think we can lay hold of image and take it captive, but the docile captive is not the real image but only the idea, which is the image with its character beaten out of it.”
—John Crowe Ransom (1888–1974)