"When we violate the law ourselves, whatever short-term advantage may be gained, we are obviously encouraging others to violate the law; we thus encourage disorder and instability and thereby do incalculable damage to our own long-term interests"
About this Quote
The subtext is aimed at a superpower and its elites: when the state treats law as optional, it trains everyone else to do the same. That’s a domestic warning (eroded legitimacy, selective enforcement, public contempt) and an international one (norms replaced by retaliation and improvisation). Fulbright’s key move is to shift “law” from a constraint to an asset. Stability isn’t portrayed as a lofty ideal; it’s infrastructure for national interest. Once you puncture it, the costs can’t be neatly calculated or contained - hence “incalculable damage,” a phrase that sounds like a budget hawk confronting the price of moral hypocrisy.
Context matters. Fulbright’s career arc is inseparable from mid-century American power: Cold War brinkmanship, Vietnam, covert action, the creeping belief that necessity authorizes shortcuts. His intent is to puncture that doctrine. The line reads like an indictment of the “rules for thee, not for me” foreign policy style - and a reminder that credibility, at home and abroad, is the only force multiplier you can’t buy back quickly once it’s squandered.
Quote Details
| Topic | Justice |
|---|---|
| Source | Verified source: The Arrogance of Power (J. William Fulbright, 1966)
Evidence: When we violate the law ourselves, whatever short-term advantage may be gained, we are obviously encouraging others to violate the law; we thus encourage disorder and instability and thereby do incalculable damage to our own long-term interests. (Page 96). The quote is verifiably attributed in later reliable secondary discussions to J. William Fulbright's own book The Arrogance of Power, with a specific citation to page 96. A 2022 Adelaide Law Review article quotes the fuller passage and cites it directly as: J William Fulbright, The Arrogance of Power (Random House, 1966) 96. Multiple quote-reference sites also independently attribute the passage to this 1966 book, but the strongest usable lead is the scholarly citation naming the exact page. I could verify the book title, year, publisher family, and page reference, but I could not directly inspect a scanned primary page image in the available search results to prove whether this was first spoken earlier and then reprinted there. So the earliest verified primary-source publication I found is the 1966 book. Other candidates (1) Constitutional Diplomacy (Michael J. Glennon, 2020) compilation93.7% ... When we violate the law ourselves , whatever short - term advantage may be gained , we are obviously encouraging ... |
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Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Fulbright, J. William. (2026, March 10). When we violate the law ourselves, whatever short-term advantage may be gained, we are obviously encouraging others to violate the law; we thus encourage disorder and instability and thereby do incalculable damage to our own long-term interests. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/when-we-violate-the-law-ourselves-whatever-146675/
Chicago Style
Fulbright, J. William. "When we violate the law ourselves, whatever short-term advantage may be gained, we are obviously encouraging others to violate the law; we thus encourage disorder and instability and thereby do incalculable damage to our own long-term interests." FixQuotes. March 10, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/when-we-violate-the-law-ourselves-whatever-146675/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"When we violate the law ourselves, whatever short-term advantage may be gained, we are obviously encouraging others to violate the law; we thus encourage disorder and instability and thereby do incalculable damage to our own long-term interests." FixQuotes, 10 Mar. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/when-we-violate-the-law-ourselves-whatever-146675/. Accessed 26 Mar. 2026.
