law unto oneself

Definitions

1. One who is free from the constraints of law or rules.
   countable, uncountable
2. One who flouts the law or conventional wisdom; one who ignores rules or logic to behave according to his or her own standards.
   countable, uncountable
3. One who is lawful in the absence of an enforced law; one who behaves with integrity.
   countable, dated, uncountable

Equivalents

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Češtinasvévolník

Examples

“If you take⟳ away the Law, all things will fall⟳ into a Confuſion, every Man will become⟳ a law unto himſelf; which, in the depraved Condition of Human Nature, muſt needs produce⟳ many great Enormities.”

“The noiseless leaping forward⟳ of the canoe beneath him heightened his sense⟳ of breaking with the past and hastening onward into another life. In that life he would be a new creature, free to be a law unto himself.”

“The king, of course, was regarded as the central focus⟳ of traditional English institutions. By no means should he rule⟳ arbitrarily, nor was he a law unto himself.”

“Here comes Satan, prince of the power of the air / He's gonna make⟳ you a law unto yourself, gonna build⟳ a bird's nest in your hair / He's gonna deaden your conscience 'til you worship⟳ the work⟳ of your own⟳ hands / You'll be serving strangers in a strange, forsaken land⟳”

“The idea that administrators exercise authority as ‘laws unto themselves’ is one that applies in the first instance to exercises of discretion rather than to interpretations of law.”

“[T]he law was made to oppress the colored race⟳, so I snapped my finger at the law, an' resolved to come⟳ up with it every time I got a chance. I would be a higher law unto myself; for if a white man, when he was wronged, was justified in rightin' himself, even to the takin' of life, I, bein' no whit inferior to my white compeer, would take⟳ the law into my own⟳ hands as he had into hisn.”

“Can a man excuse⟳ his practices to the contrary because of his religious belief? To permit⟳ this would be to make⟳ the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land⟳, and in effect to permit⟳ every citizen to become⟳ a law unto himself.”

“"I've made up my mind⟳. I'm going to do dairy work⟳, and it's not a bit of good your trying to talk⟳ me out of it!" [...] Dilys had always been more or less a law unto herself.”

“The sperm never seems to transgress the few rules which govern the production of its fundamental parts, but in the arrangement of these parts every sperm (flagellate or non-flagellate) seems to be a law unto itself.”

“You were there? Again? You left the scene without reporting. You aren't a law unto yourself you know⟳ that right? I should arrest you on the spot right now.”

“'You're sure your dad won't come⟳ home?' she said. 'He won't,' he said, though his father was a law unto himself and couldn't be trusted to follow⟳ reason⟳.”

“For when the Gentiles which haue not the Law, doe by nature the things contained in the Law: theſe hauing not the Law, are a Law vnto themſelues.”

“The arguments by which he [Paul the Apostle] establishes his proposition are two. The first is:– / Those who are a law unto themselves are not without law: / The Gentiles are a law unto themselves: / Therefore they are not without law. / The assumption is thus proved:– / Those who, having not the written law, do by nature the things which are of the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: / But the Gentiles, having not the written law, do by nature the things which are of the law: / Wherefore they are a law unto themselves.”

“So is man, who is made in his image, a law unto himself; and it is because man is made in his image that God proposes to him the very same end⟳ as a ground of obligation which He himself recognizes.”

“I am ‘the law unto myself’ or (in contemporary idiom) ‘I am my own⟳ law’ to the extent that I judge⟳ my conduct in a principled way and seek⟳ to sustain some coherence in judgement and conduct over time, having regard both to precedent and to principle.”

“It is possible, however, to perceive what underpins modern German constitutional law on the basis of a second understanding of self-determination. [...] According to this understanding one is self-determining if one is a law unto oneself. Being a law unto oneself requires being true to oneself. The "self-given" law is the law on the ground of which the self is what it is.”

CEFR level