Law

"RESPONSIBILITY, n. A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one's neighbor. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star."

"In a society such as ours, it is almost impossible for a person to be responsible. A simple example: a dam has been built somewhere, and it bursts. Who is responsible for that? Geologists worked out. They examined the terrain. Engineers drew up the construction plans. Workmen constructed it. And the politicians decided that the dam had to be in that spot. Who is responsible? No one. There is never anyone responsible. Anywhere. In the whole of our technological society the work is so fragmented and broken up into small pieces that no one is responsible. But no one is free either. Everyone has his own, specific task. And that's all he has to do. Just consider, for example, that atrocious excuse—it was one of the most horrible things I have ever heard. The director of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was asked at the Nuremburg trials, “But didn’t you find it horrible? All those corpses?” He replied, “What could I do? I couldn’t process all those corpses. The capacity of the ovens was too small. It caused me many problems. I had no time to think about these people. I was too busy with the technical problem of my ovens.” That is the classic example of an irresponsible person. He carries out his technical task and isn't interested in anything else."

"Responsibility is a rare thing in any case: a bastard child, often denied."

"Freedom, however, is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth. Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibleness. In fact, freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness."

"Make children take responsibility only for what they have actually done! Otherwise you rob them of a true sense of responsibility, you make them servile, and you teach them to be two-faced, in both thought and deed. No one should have to make promises about their actions to another. Responsibility for what one does cannot be entrusted to a custodian. Each person, and that person alone, is the subject of his or her actions. Only when one realizes this will one be capable of acting responsibly, autonomously, and with true conviction, deceiving no one and in fear of no one."

"The ruling powers tell us poor lower-class folks that we have an obligation, a social responsibility to society, to abide by the law, but they don't have any social responsibility to us to help us meet our needs. It's pure bourgeoisie class-based morality, a morality that serves the ruling class, not the masses of the oppressed."

"Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more."

"For of those to whom much is given, much is required. And when at some future date the high court of history sits in judgment on each of us—recording whether in our brief span of service we fulfilled our responsibilities to the state—our success or failure, in whatever office we hold, will be measured by the answers to four questions:First, were we truly men of courage—with the courage to stand up to one's enemies—and the courage to stand up, when necessary, to one's associates—the courage to resist public pressure, as well as private greed?Secondly, were we truly men of judgment—with perceptive judgment of the future as well as the past—of our mistakes as well as the mistakes of others—with enough wisdom to know what we did not know and enough candor to admit it.Third, were we truly men of integrity—men who never ran out on either the principles in which we believed or the men who believed in us—men whom neither financial gain nor political ambition could ever divert from the fulfillment of our sacred trust?Finally, were we truly men of dedication—with an honor mortgaged to no single individual or group, and comprised of no private obligation or aim, but devoted solely to serving the public good and the national interest?Courage—judgment—integrity—dedication—these are the historic qualities ... which, with God's help ... will characterize our Government's conduct in the four stormy years that lie ahead."

"Responsibility does not only lie with the leaders of our countries or with those who have been appointed or elected to do a particular job. It lies with each one of us individually."

"The possession of great power necessarily implies great responsibility."

"Upon the standard to which the wise and honest will now repair it is written: "You have lived the easy way; henceforth, you will live the hard way…. You came into a great heritage made by the insight and the sweat and the blood of inspired and devoted and courageous men; thoughtlessly and in utmost self-indulgence you have all but squandered this inheritance. Now only by the heroic virtues which made this inheritance can you restore it again…. You took the good things for granted. Now you must earn them again…. For every right that you cherish, you have a duty which you must fulfill. For every hope that you entertain, you have a task that you must perform. For every good that you wish to preserve, you will have to sacrifice your comfort and your ease. There is nothing for nothing any longer"."

"'Am I responsible or are you', a senior official asked his pilot, dubiously beginning a flight to Baghdad, 'for seeing that this machine is not overloaded?' 'That will have to be decided at the inquest.'"

"One of the annoying things about believing in free will and individual responsibility is the difficulty of finding somebody to blame your problems on. And when you do find somebody, it's remarkable how often his picture turns up on your driver's license."

"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences."

"We have been telling [young people] for decades to demand what they are owed by society. We have been implying that the important meanings of their lives will be given to them because of such demands, when we should have been doing the opposite: letting them know that the meaning that sustains life in all its tragedy and disappointment is to be found in shouldering a noble burden."

"When doing a job — any job — one must feel that he owns it, and act as though he will remain in that job forever. He must look after his work just as conscientiously, as though it were his own business and his own money. If he feels he is only a temporary custodian, or that the job is just a stepping stone to a higher position, his actions will not take into account the long-term interests of the organization. His lack of commitment to the present job will be perceived by those who work for him, and they, likewise, will tend not to care. Too many spend their entire working lives looking for the next job. When one feels he owns his present job and acts that way, he need have no concern about his next job."

"Responsibility is a unique concept... You may share it with others, but your portion is not diminished. You may delegate it, but it is still with you... If responsibility is rightfully yours, no evasion, or ignorance or passing the blame can shift the burden to someone else. Unless you can point your finger at the man who is responsible when something goes wrong, then you have never had anyone really responsible."

"Physical misery is great everywhere out here [Africa]. Are we justified in shutting our eyes and ignoring it because our European newspapers tell us nothing about it? We civilised people have been spoilt. If any one of us is ill the doctor comes at once. Is an operation necessary, the door of some hospital or other opens to us immediately. But let every one reflect on the meaning of the fact that out here millions and millions live without help or hope of it. Every day thousands and thousands endure the most terrible sufferings, though medical science could avert them. Every day there prevails in many and many a far-off hut a despair which we could banish. Will each of my readers think what the last ten years of his family history would have been if they had been passed without medical or surgical help of any sort? It is time that we should wake from slumber and face our responsibilities!"

"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it."

"I'm depraved on account of I'm deprived."

"In Donald's mind, even acknowledging an inevitable threat would indicate weakness. Taking responsibility would open him up to blame. Being a hero- being good- is impossible for him."

"Obra de comun, obra de ningun."

"In dreams begin responsibilities."

"A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving."

"If I knew something useful to me and harmful to my family, I should put it out of my mind. If I knew something useful to my family and not to my country, I should try to forget it. If I knew something useful to my country and harmful to Europe, or useful to Europe and harmful to the human race, I should consider it a crime."

"There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny."

"In proportion to power is responsibility."

"God has lent us the earth for our life; it is a great entail. It belongs as much to those who are to come after us, and whose names are already written in the book of creation, as to us; and we have no right, by anything that we do or neglect, to involve them in unnecessary penalties, or deprive them of benefits which it was in our power to bequeath."

"The Buck Stops Here"

"For we must consider that we shall be as a City upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. Soe that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword throughout the world."

"...it is the first principle upon which all Courts of Equity proceed, that if parties who have entered into definite and disctinct terms involving certain legal results — certain penalties or legal forfeiture — afterwards by their own act or with their own consent enter upon a course of negotiation which has the effect of leading one of the parties to suppose that the strict rights arising under the contact will not be enforced, or will be kept in suspense, or held in abeyance, the person who otherwise might have enforced those rights will not be allowed to enforce them where it would be inequitable having regard to the dealings which are thus taken place between the parties."

"The principle, as I understand it, is that whether one party has, by his words or conduct, made to the other a promise or assurance which was intended to affect the legal relations between them and to be acted on accordingly, then, once the other party has taken him at his word and acted on it, the one who gave the promise or assurance cannot afterwards be allowed to revert to the previous legal relations as if no such promise or assurance had been made by him, but he must accept their legal relations subject to the qualification which he himself has so introduced, even though it is not supported in point of law by any consideration, but only by his words."

"A promise which the promisor should reasonably expect to induce action or forbearance on the part of the promisee or a third person and which does induce such action or forbearance is binding if injustice can be avoided only by enforcement of the promise."

"We can try to understand the nature of these inventions by looking at who was granted patents. The patent system, which protects property rights in ideas, was systematized in the Statute of Monopolies legislated by the English Parliament in 1623, partially as an attempt to stop the king from arbitrarily granting “letters patent” to whomever he wanted—effectively granting exclusive rights to undertake certain activities or businesses. The striking thing about the evidence on patenting in the United States is that people who were granted patents came from all sorts of backgrounds and all walks of life, not just the rich and the elite. Many made fortunes based on their patents. Take Thomas Edison, the inventor of the phonogram and the lightbulb and the founder of General Electric, still one of the world’s largest companies. Edison was the last of seven children. His father, Samuel Edison, followed many occupations, from splitting shingles for roofs to tailoring to keeping a tavern. Thomas had little formal schooling but was homeschooled by his mother."

"Between 1820 and 1845, only 19 percent of patentees in the United States had parents who were professionals or were from recognizable major landowning families. During the same period, 40 percent of those who took out patents had only primary schooling or less, just like Edison. Moreover, they often exploited their patent by starting a firm, again like Edison. Just as the United States in the nineteenth century was more democratic politically than almost any other nation in the world at the time, it was also more democratic than others when it came to innovation. This was critical to its path to becoming the most economically innovative nation in the world"

"As more and more good ideas come under the protection of patents, it may become increasingly unlikely that any one program can incorporate the state of the art in user-interface design without sinking into a quagmire of unending royalty payments and legal battles."

"Software patents may be used as a form of outright coercion, providing protection against theft of ideas as a potentially high cost to future inventors."

"The days are over when technology can be advanced in laboratories by individual scientists alone. Now you need an army of lawyers to negotiate the hazardous terrain of interlocking patents. Unless we find a solution to the problem of interlocking patents, the patent system may actually impede the very innovation it was designed to encourage."

"The advancement of the arts, from year to year, taxes our credulity and seems to presage the arrival of that period when human improvement must end."

"If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today."

"In the field of industrial patents in particular we shall have seriously to examine whether the award of a monopoly privilege is really the most appropriate and effective form of reward for the kind of risk bearing which investment in scientific research involves."

"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property."

"Before then [the adoption of the United States Constitution], any man might instantly use what another had invented; so that the inventor had no special advantage from his own invention. The patent system changed this; secured to the inventor, for a limited time, the exclusive use of his invention; and thereby added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius, in the discovery and production of new and useful things."

"If one does not know whether a system “as a whole” (in contrast to certain features of it) is good or bad, the safest “policy conclusion” is to “muddle through” – either with it, if one has long lived with it, or without it, if one has lived without it... If we did not have a patent system, it would be irresponsible, on the basis of our present knowledge of its economic consequences, to recommend instituting one. But since we have had a patent system for a long time, it would be irresponsible, on the basis of our present knowledge, to recommend abolishing it. This last statement refers to a country such as the United States of America – not to a small country and not a predominantly nonindustrial country, where a different weight of argument might well suggest another conclusion..."

"Patents are the best and most effective means of controlling competition. They occasionally give absolute command of the market, enabling their owner to name the price without regard to the cost of production... Patents are the only legal form of absolute monopoly."

"There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?"

"The good patent gives the world something it did not truly have before, whereas the bad patent has the effect of trying to take away from the world something which it effectively already had."

"A country without a patent office and good patent laws is just a crab and can't travel any way but sideways and backwards."

"Well, then, the moment there is a patent case one can see it before the case is opened, or called in the list. How can we see it? We can see it by a pile of books as high as this invariably... Now, what is the result of all this? Why that a man had better have his patent infringed, or have anything happen to him in this world, short of losing all his family by influenza, than have a dispute about a patent. His patent is swallowed up, and he is ruined. Whose fault is it? It is really not the fault of the law; it is the fault of the mode of conducting the law in a patent case. This is what causes all this mischief."

"Everything that can be invented has been invented."

"Only one thing is impossible for God: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet."

"Things have been going in the wrong direction -- more surveillance, more control of everything we do on the net and also stricter copyright laws -- that's the wrong course for Europe. We want to set a new one."

"Copyright law cases typically involve multifactorial analyses and lots of nuance. I would not assume that a commercial book publisher's use of "Seinfeld" quotes necessarily tells us anything about a non-commercial reference's use of quotations. Many people believe that copyright jurisprudence gives clear and obvious guidance about how one should use copyrighted materials in future cases. My experience has been, however, that this belief is mistaken."

"Copyright is monopoly, and produces all the effects which the general voice of mankind attributes to monopoly [...] It is good that authors should be remunerated; and the least exceptionable way of remunerating them is by a monopoly. Yet monopoly is an evil. For the sake of the good we must submit to the evil; but the evil ought not to last a day longer than is necessary for the purpose of securing the good."

"Those who invade copyright are regarded as knaves who take the bread out of the mouths of deserving men. Everybody is well pleased to see them restrained by the law, and compelled to refund their ill-gotten gains. No tradesman of good repute will have anything to do with such disgraceful transactions. Pass this law: and that feeling is at an end. Men very different from the present race of piratical booksellers will soon infringe this intolerable monopoly. Great masses of capital will be constantly employed in the violation of the law. Every art will be employed to evade legal pursuit; and the whole nation will be in the plot [...] Remember too that, when once it ceases to be considered as wrong and discreditable to invade literary property, no person can say where the invasion will stop. The public seldom makes nice distinctions. The wholesome copyright which now exists will share in the disgrace and danger of the new copyright which you are about to create. And you will find that, in attempting to impose unreasonable restraints on the reprinting of the works of the dead, you have, to a great extent, annulled those restraints which now prevent men from pillaging and defrauding the living."

"I was in the pub last night, and a guy asked me for a light for his cigarette. I suddenly realised that there was a demand here and money to be made, and so I agreed to light his cigarette for 10 pence, but I didn't actually give him a light, I sold him a license to burn his cigarette. My fire-license restricted him from giving the light to anybody else, after all, that fire was my property. He was drunk, and dismissing me as a loony, but accepted my fire (and by implication the licence which governed its use) anyway. Of course in a matter of minutes I noticed a friend of his asking him for a light and to my outrage he gave his cigarette to his friend and pirated my fire! I was furious, I started to make my way over to that side of the bar but to my added horror his friend then started to light other people's cigarettes left, right, and centre! Before long that whole side of the bar was enjoying MY fire without paying me anything. Enraged I went from person to person grabbing their cigarettes from their hands, throwing them to the ground, and stamping on them. Strangely the door staff exhibited no respect for my property rights as they threw me out the door."

"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property."

"If creativity is the field, copyright is the fence"

"The corporations that hold these copyrights are media companies that also control most of the new media that comes out. Estimates vary, but it's said that 98 percent of all culture is unavailable right now because of copyrights. So the reason they hold the copyrights isn't because they want to get paid, it's because they don't want all the old stuff competing with the media stream that they control now."

"Mimi: Silencing you because I don’t like what you say is censorship. Silencing you because I can make more money that way is copyright. They’re totally different! Eunice: The profit motive makes it OK."

"In ten years I think the [copyright] laws are going to be worse and I also think they are going to be less relevant. I mean, already the difference between the laws and people's behaviour, It's like they're different planets. I'm not hopeful for the laws changing. A lot of other people are, so maybe we will have meaningful copyright reform. I doubt it. I don't think it matters. I think the tools are available for people to create and share culture and they're going to do that and they might be doing it illegally and at a certain point it's going to be more than the system can handle. I will say that if the power structure as it exists wants to continue they're going to have to reform because it's not sustainable. Copyright law as it is, it's just completely out of touch with human behaviour."

"When you shut down neurons to prevent them from transmitting signals, we call that "brain damage." Copyright is brain damage. It's brain damage in the great mind, and it's brain damage in the individual mind."

"Defendant used a robot with mechanical features and not, for example, a manikin molded to Plaintiff’s precise features. The robot at issue was not Plaintiff’s “likeness” within the meaning of section 3344."

"Dissent. (J. Kozinski) Overprotecting intellectual property is as harmful as under protecting it. Creativity is impossible without a rich public domain. Nothing today, likely nothing since we tamed fire, grows by accretion, each new creator building on the works of those who came before. Overprotection stifles the very creative forces it’s supposed to nurture."

"Discussion. In this case, the Court abandoned the strict common law rules of appropriation. The viewer of the ad could clearly see that it was an attempt to convey Plaintiff on the set of Wheel of Fortune. Defendant hoped to profit from Plaintiff’s fame without paying her for it. Because Plaintiff did not consent to such appropriation, Defendant is liable."

"She had once looked up the term ‘lawyer’ and found it was someone who helped you fight laws."

"LAWYER, n. One skilled in circumvention of the law."

"It may be that the jury would incline to regard a practising lawyer as a man of probity whose word was prima facie worthy of belief. But the belief of lawyers in their own probity is not universally shared, and there are those who believe them to be capable of almost any chicanery or sharp practice."

"America is the paradise of lawyers."

"We have the heaviest concentration of lawyers on Earth—one for every five-hundred Americans; three times as many as are in England, four times as many as are in West Germany, twenty-one times as many as there are in Japan. We have more litigation, but I am not sure that we have more justice. No resources of talent and training in our own society, even including the medical care, is more wastefully or unfairly distributed than legal skills. Ninety percent of our lawyers serve 10 percent of our people. We are over-lawyered and under-represented."

"He was a lawyer before he worked his way up to pimping."

"Next, bring some lawyers to thy bar, By innuendo they might all stand there; There let them expiate that guilt, And pay for all that blood their tongues have spilt. These are the mountebanks of state, Who by the sleight of tongues can crimes create, And dress up trifles in the robes of fate, The mastiffs of a Government, To worry and run down the innocent."

"Professionals, too, proved exceptionally susceptible to Hitler's appeal. Lawyers and doctors were substantially over-represented within the NSDAP, as were university students (then a far narrower section of society than today). To fat middle-aged lawyers, he was the heir to Bismarck. For their sons, he was the Wagnerian hero Rienzi, the demagogue who unites the people of Rome. 'Right down to the last, deepest fibre in myself, I belong to the Führer and his wonderful movement,' wrote the Nazi lawyer Hans Frank in his diary after a concert he had attended with Hitler on February 10, 1937. 'We are in truth God's tool for the annihilation of the bad forces of the earth. We fight in God's name against Jews and their Bolshevism. God protect us!' Such thoughts helped him and many other lawyers to come to terms with the systematic illegality that characterized the regime from the very outset: the arrests without trial (26,000 people were already in 'protective custody' as early as July 1933), the summary executions (beginning with the Night of the Long Knives in June 1934, when between eighty-five and two hundred people, including the over-mighty leaders of the SA, were murdered in cold blood) and, of course, the escalating discrimination against racial and social minorities."

"A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer."

"The function of the lawyer is to preserve a sceptical relativism in a society hell-bent for absolutes. The worse the society, the more law there will be. In Hell there will be nothing but law and due process will be meticulously observed."

"It has an unhappy effect upon the human understanding and temper, for a man to be compelled in his gravest investigation of an argument, to consider, not what is true, but what is convenient. The lawyer never yet existed who has not boldly urged an objection which he knew to be fallacious, or endeavoured to pass off a weak reason for a strong one. Intellect is the greatest and most sacred of all endowments; and no man ever trifled with it, defending an action to-day which he had arraigned yesterday, or extenuating an offence on one occasion, which, soon after, he painted in the most atrocious colours, with absolute impunity. Above all, the poet, whose judgment should be clear, whose feelings should be uniform and sound, whose sense should be alive to every impression and hardened to none, who is the legislator of generations and the moral instructor of the world, ought never to have been a practising lawyer, or ought speedily to have quitted so dangerous an engagement."

"Courage has been essential to the rule of law in this country from the beginning. The Declaration of Independence itself was, at heart, a complaint that the king had denied colonists the rule of law. As justification for their rebellion, colonists cited the fact that the king had withheld assent to duly enacted legislation, refused trial by jury, and prevented colonists from playing a significant role in their own governance. About half of the fifty-six colonists who signed the Declaration were lawyers. They quite literally put their lives on the line to secure a representative government and one of just laws: By signing the declaration, they became marked men who faced certain death if their cause failed."

"Courage remains as important in the legal profession today as it was then. Throughout our history lawyers who have made the greatest mark on this country haven't done so because they were smarter or were born into better families or held more important positions; it was because they were willing to stand firm for justice in the face of immense pressure and often at grave personal costs."

"I suspect that there are just two sorts of lawyers: those who spend their efforts making life easy for other people—and parasites."

"Lawyers earn their bread in the sweat of their browbeating."

"The goddess Peri became so jealous that she laid a curse on my mother, who turned into a lawyer."

"Lawyers, I suppose, were children once."

"[F]or a long time I used to think that anal sex was how lawyers were conceived."

"The duke stabs a forefinger into his shoulder. “You…person,” he says; and again, “you nobody from Hell, you whore-spawn, you cluster of evil, you lawyer.”"

"I pleaded your cause, Sextus, having agreed to do so for two thousand sesterces How is it that you have sent me only a thousand? "You said nothing," you tell me, "and this cause was lost through you." You ought to give me so much the more, Sextus, as I had to blush for you."

"Lawyer — One who protects us against robbers by taking away the temptation."

"That makes me think, my friend, as I have often done before, how natural it is that those who have spent a long time in the study of philosophy appear ridiculous when they enter the courts of law as speakers…. Those who have knocked about in courts and the like from their youth up seem to me, when compared with those who have been brought up in philosophy and similar pursuits, to be as slaves in breeding compared with freemen."

"Let's ask ourselves: Does America really need 70 percent of the world's lawyers? Is it healthy for our economy to have 18 million new lawsuits coursing through the system annually? Is it right that people with disputes come up against staggering expense and delay?"

"A common and not necessarily apocryphal example portrays a solo practitioner starved for business in a small town. A second lawyer then arrives, and they both prosper."

"About half the practice of a decent lawyer consists of telling would-be clients that they are damned fools and should stop."

"What are lawyers really? To me a lawyer is basically the person that knows the rules of the country. We're all throwing the dice, playing the game, moving our pieces around the board, but if there's a problem, the lawyer is the only person that has actually read the inside of the top of the box."

"Cade: Be brave, then; for your captain is brave, and vows reformation. There shall be in England seven halfpenny loaves sold for a penny, the three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops, and I will make it felony to drink small beer; all the realm shall be in common; and in Cheapside shall my palfrey go to grass; and when I am king, as king I will be, there shall be no money; all shall eat and drink on my score; and I will apparel them all in one livery, that they may agree like brothers and worship me their lord. Dick: The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. Cade: Nay, that I mean to do."

"Those too the tyrant serve, who, skilled to snare The feet of justice in the toils of law, Stand ready to oppress the weaker still, And right or wrong will vindicate for gold, Sneering at public virtue, which beneath Their pitiless tread lies torn and trampled where Honor sits smiling at the sale of truth."

"Chuck McGill: I know you. I know what you were, what you are. People don't change. You're Slippin' Jimmy! And Slippin' Jimmy I can handle just fine, but Slippin' Jimmy with a law degree is like a chimp with a machine gun! The law is sacred! If you abuse that power, people get hurt! This is not a game. You have to know on some level, I know you know I'm right. You know I'm right!"

"Not all lawyers are annoying. Some are dead."

"Is it not remarkable that the common repute which we all give to attorneys in the general is exactly opposite to that which every man gives to his own attorney in particular? Whom does anybody trust so implicitly as he trusts his own attorney? And yet is it not the case that the body of attorneys is supposed to be the most roguish body in existence?"

"[Lawyers] can make the worse appear the better cause, as though they were fresh from Leontine schools, and have been known to wrest from reluctant juries triumphant verdicts of acquittal for their clients, even when those clients, as often happens, were clearly and unmistakably innocent."

"The Court must have ministers : the attornies are its ministers."

"An incompetent attorney can delay a trial for years or months. A competent attorney can delay one even longer."

"When there are too many policemen, there can be no individual liberty, when there are too many lawyers, there can be no justice, and when there are too many soldiers, there can be no peace."

"Administration of justice"

"Government"

"Digna vox maiestate regnantis legibus alligatum se principem profiteri: adeo de auctoritate iuris nostra pendet auctoritas."

"Cuius merito quis nos sacerdotes appellet: iustitiam namque colimus et boni et æqui notitiam profitemur, æquum ab iniquo separantes, licitum ab illicito discernentes, bonos non solum metu pœnarum, verum etiam præmiorum quoque exhortatione efficere cupientes, veram nisi fallor philosophiam, non simulatam affectantes."

"Quod vero naturalis ratio inter omnes homines constituit, id apud omnes peraeque custoditur vocaturque ius gentium."

"Domus tutissimum cuique refugium atque receptaculum sit."

"Nulla iniuria est, quæ in volentem fiat."

"Incipientibus nobis exponere jura populi Romani, ita videntur tradi posse commodissime, si primo levi ac simplici via singula tradantur: alioqui, si statim ab initio rudem adhuc et infirmum animum studiosi multitudine ac varietate rerum oneravimus, duorum alterum, aut desertorem studiorum efficiemus, aut cum magno labore, sæpe etiam cum diffidentia (quæ plerumque juvenes avertit) serius ad id perducemus ad quod, leviore via ductus, sine magno labore, et sine ulla diffidentia maturius perduci potuisset."

"Iustitia est constans et perpetua voluntas ius suum cuique tribuens. Iurisprudentia est divinarum atque humanarum rerum notitia, iusti atque iniusti scientia."

"Iuris præcepta sunt hæc: honeste vivere, neminem laedere, suum cuique tribuere."

"Quod vero naturalis ratio inter omnes homines constituit, id apud omnes populos peræque custoditur vocaturque ius gentium, quasi quo iure omnes gentes utuntur."

"Iure enim naturali ab initio omnes homines liberi nascebantur."

"Facultas ejus, quod cuique facere libet, nisi quid jure prohibetur."

"People of the world, it is time for you to awake, to see the goal you want to reach and to go straight to it. You are harried, decimated, impoverished by the absence of world government. Each nation is a law unto itself, which means lawlessness. Wars are caused by this state of things. Kings and certain other privileged classes may reap distinction, reward in money and the gratification of vengeance; YOUR portion will be slain husbands, heartbroken widows, orphaned children, burden of taxes, harder conditions of labor, and the destruction of your business. Do not wait, therefore, for your politicians to move. Act yourselves! Do it now!"

"In my opinion the only salvation for civilization and the human race lies in the creation of a world government, with security of nations founded upon law. As long as sovereign states continue to have separate armaments and armament secrets, new world wars will be inevitable."

"There is no salvation for civilization, or even the human race, other than the creation of a world government."

"There is an increasing awareness of the need for some form of global government."

"I am conscientiously, and have been from the beginning, an advocate of what the society represented by you is trying to carry out, and nothing would afford me greater happiness than to know that, as I believe will be the case, at some future day, the nations of the earth will agree upon some sort of congress, which will take cognizance of international questions of difficulty, and whose decisions will be as binding as the decisions of our supreme court are upon us. It is a dream of mine that some such solution may be."

"Finally, may I ask, is it possible to stay halfway on the road that leads to total disarmament and the setting up of a League police force? If we contemplate as our ultimate end a League which controls the world’s economic life and the world’s armed forces, then we must say frankly that our ultimate ideal is the creation of nothing less than a World Commonwealth. I think we must make this admission. The establishment of a World Commonwealth is, in the long run, the only alternative to a relapse into a world war. The psychological obstacles are formidable but not insurmountable. There is already a group of nations in the world between whom war may be considered as ruled out forever. Those nations are the British Commonwealth, the United States, and the surviving European democracies. I would add to that group the Soviet Union which, in its international policy, has shown that it is devoted to peace, abhors war, and sincerely believes in the ideal of world union and world cooperation, although it is of the opinion that in the long run such a consummation is impossible without a far-reaching change in the present social order. The democracies stand for a certain view of what constitutes the good life. That view is incompatible with war or with the “totalitarian state”. I do not believe that the values which the Western democracies consider essential to civilization can survive in a world rent by the international anarchy of nationalism and the economic anarchy of competitive enterprise. I think we must get the better of both those forces and subordinate them to the common good through world union on the basis of social justice. I believe that the League of Nations and the International Labor Organization are the instruments to our hand for conceiving and executing such a policy. Today the world is in transition. The vast upheaval of the World War set in motion forces that will either destroy civilization or raise mankind to undreamed of heights of human welfare and prosperity. The policy I have endeavoured to sketch is big, bold, and far-reaching. It will be no light and simple task to lay the foundations of a World Commonwealth. It is, on the contrary, perhaps, the greatest and most difficult enterprise ever imagined by the audacious mind of man. But it is a task which has become a necessity. It is an enterprise that is solidly grounded in realities and in the facts of the modern world. If there is still virtue in our common Western civilization and our faith in democracy – and I believe there is – then we must dare to announce that policy as a challenge to the world and as the summons to a great crusade for peace. What greater cause and what more splendid adventure can be set before the youth of the world than the endeavour to bring into being that age – old dream of saints and sages – the great Commonwealth of the World as the visible embodiment of the brotherhood of man?"

"Finally, the present Powers of the world were formed. This process [of coalescing and forming fewer, larger units] has all taken place among the 10,000 countries over several thousand years. The progression from dispersion to union among men, and the principle [whereby] the world is [gradually] proceeding from being partitioned off to being opened up, is a spontaneous [working] of the Way of Heaven (or Nature) and human affairs."

"[T]he drive of the Rockefellers and their allies is to create a one-world government, combining super-capitalism and Communism under the same tent, all under their control ... Do I mean conspiracy? Yes I do. I am convinced there is such a plot, international in scope, generations old in planning, and incredibly evil in intent."

"Influential individuals and groups are pressing for global economic co-operation, global taxes to support the backward territories, a global army and a world government, even for a world-wide moral consciousness. Whatever the future prospects of these recommendations, there is no doubt that the tactics, the methods, the announced aims, fall under the category of social engineering..."

"Renunciation of freedom implies that the collectivity will be endowed with all that the individual gives up as too burdensome, risky, incalculable. The bargain is an alluring one, since man is always strongly tempted to discard freedom in favor of security and material benefits. The "elites" too would find their advantage since, whether on the Left or on the Right, they no longer believe in democracy but only in a paternalistic directorate, be it called managers, experts, planners, world government, ubiquitous agencies, or any other network. Their condition would be just as permanent as the order of world society itself."

"Future peace, security and ordered progress of the world demand a world federation of free nations, and on no other basis can the problems of the world be solved. Such a world federation would ensure the freedom of its constituent nations, the prevention of aggression and exploitation of one nation over another, the protection of national minorities, the advancement of all backward areas and peoples, and the pooling of the world's resources for the common good of all. On the establishment of such a world federation, disarmament would be practicable in all countries, national armies, navies and air forces would no longer be necessary, and a world federal defense force would keep the peace and prevent aggression. ...The Committee regretfully realizes, however, despite the tragic and overwhelming lessons of the war and the perils that overhang the world, the Governments of few countries are yet prepared to take this inevitable step towards world federation."

"Secondly, there is the further development of the Hague Tribunal, of the work of the conferences and courts at The Hague. It has been well said that the first Hague Conference framed a Magna Charta for the nations; it set before us an ideal which has already to some extent been realized, and towards the full realization of which we can all steadily strive. The second Conference made further progress; the third should do yet more. Meanwhile the American government has more than once tentatively suggested methods for completing the Court of Arbitral Justice constituted at the second Hague Conference and for rendering it effective. It is earnestly to be hoped that the various governments of Europe, working with those of America and of Asia, shall set themselves seriously to the task of devising some method which shall accomplish this result. If I may venture the suggestion, it would be well for the statesmen of the world, in planning for the erection of this world court, to study what has been done in the United States by the Supreme Court. I cannot help thinking that the Constitution of the United States, notably in the establishment of the Supreme Court and in the methods adopted for securing peace and good relations among and between the different states, offers certain valuable analogies to what should be striven for in order to secure, through the Hague courts and conferences, a species of world federation for international peace and justice. There are, of course, fundamental differences between what the United States Constitution does and what we should even attempt at this time to secure at The Hague; but the methods adopted in the American Constitution to prevent hostilities between the states, and to secure the supremacy of the Federal Court in certain classes of cases4, are well worth the study of those who seek at The Hague to obtain the same results on a world scale."

"For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, Saw a Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be; ... Till the war-drum throbb’d no longer, and the battle-flags were furled In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law."

"There are some things which a world government could do better than national or state governments. A world government could compel peace among the nations; but it could not efficiently prescribe the character of sewers to be installed by the city of Pittsburgh, Pa., or Des Moines, la. There are some things a national government can do better than a state or city government. But we do not want to leave it to the national government to prescribe the character of telephone service our city shall have. I do not want to leave it to Congress to determine the time I shall retire at night. There are some things which might well be left to a world government, there are others which can be cared for better by our national government, and others by the state government, and still others by the county, and city, and family. And there are a few matters that even the individual himself can best perform, strange as it may seem to some. The real problem is how to secure wise regulation. Will a strong centralized government bring the best results, or is the federal plan—joining national and state control—preferable? The issue concerns the method of government, one of the profound problems at the basis of all organized human life."

"We live... in an age of law and an age of reason, and age in which we can get along with our neighbors. ...It will be just as easy for nations to get along in a republic of the world as it is for you to get along in the republic of the United States. Now, if Kansas and Colorado have a quarrel over a watershed they don't call out the national guard in each state and go to war over it. They bring suit in the Supreme Court and abide by its decision. There isn't a reason in the world why we can't do that internationally. There were two documents signed at San Francisco. One of them was the charter of the United Nations. The other was the World Court. It will require the ratification of both of those Charters, and the putting of them into effect, if we expect to have world peace for future generations. This is one of the tasks which have been assigned to me. I am accepting the responsibility. I am going to try to carry it out."

"I am aware that when even the brightest mind in our world has been trained up from childhood in a superstition of any kind, it will never be possible for that mind, in its maturity, to examine sincerely, dispassionately, and conscientiously any evidence or any circumstance which shall seem to cast a doubt upon the validity of that superstition. I doubt if I could do it myself. We always get at second hand our notions about systems of government; and high tariff and low tariff; and prohibition and anti-prohibition; and the holiness of peace and the glories of war; and codes of honor and codes of morals; and approval of the duel and disapproval of it; and our beliefs concerning the nature of cats; and our ideas as to whether the murder of helpless wild animals is base or is heroic; and our preferences in the matter of religious and political parties; and our acceptance or rejection of the Shakespeares and the Arthur Ortons and the Mrs. Eddys. We get them all at second hand, we reason none of them out for ourselves. It is the way we are made. It is the way we are all made, and we can't help it, we can't change it. And whenever we have been furnished a fetish, and have been taught to believe in it, and love it and worship it, and refrain from examining it, there is no evidence, howsoever clear and strong, that can persuade us to withdraw from it our loyalty and our devotion. In morals, conduct, and beliefs we take the color of our environment and associations, and it is a color that can safely be warranted to wash. ...It took several thousand years to convince our fine race—including every splendid intellect in it—that there is no such thing as a witch; it has taken several thousand years to convince that same fine race—including every splendid intellect in it—that there is no such person as Satan; it has taken several centuries to remove perdition from the Protestant Church's program of post-mortem entertainments; it has taken a weary long time to persuade American Presbyterians to give up infant damnation and try to bear it the best they can; and it looks as if their Scotch brethren will still be burning babies in the everlasting fires when Shakespeare comes down from his perch. We are The Reasoning Race. We can't prove it by the above examples, and we can't prove it by the miraculous "histories"... I feel that our fetish is safe for three centuries yet."

"It is obvious that no difficulty in the way of world government can match the danger of a world without it."

"History is now choosing the founders of the World Federation. Any person who can be among that number and fails to do so has lost the noblest opportunity of a lifetime."

"We shall have world government, whether or not we like it. The question is only whether world government will be achieved by consent or by conquest."

"There can be little question that the attainment of a federation of all humanity, together with a sufficient measure of social justice, to ensure health, education, and a rough equality of opportunity to most of the children born into the world, would mean such a release and increase of human energy as to open a new phase in human history. The enormous waste caused by military preparation and the mutual annoyance of competing great powers, and the still more enormous waste due to the under-productiveness of great masses of people, either because they are too wealthy for stimulus or too poor for efficiency, would cease. There would be a vast increase in the supply of human necessities, a rise in the standard of life and in what is considered a necessity, a development of transport and every kind of convenience; and a multitude of people would be transferred from low-grade production to such higher work as art of all kinds, teaching, scientific research, and the like. All over the world there would be a setting free of human capacity, such as has occurred hitherto only in small places and through precious limited phases of prosperity and security. Unless we are to suppose that spontaneous outbreaks of supermen have occurred in the past, it is reasonable to conclude that the Athens of Pericles, the Florence of the Medici, Elizabethan England, the great deeds of Asoka, the Tang and Ming periods in art, are but samples of what a whole world of sustained security would yield continuously and cumulatively. Without supposing any change in human quality, but merely its release from the present system of inordinate waste, history justifies this expectation."

"In every bureaucratic system the shifting of responsibilities is a matter of daily routine, and if one wishes to define bureaucracy in terms of political science, that is, as a form of government—the rule of offices, as contrasted to the rule of men, of one man, or of the few, or of the many—bureaucracy unhappily is the rule of nobody and for this very reason perhaps the least human and most cruel form of rulership."

"Le courant des affaires devant toujours s'expédier, il surnage une certaine quantité de commis qui se sait indispensable quoique congéable à merci et qui veut rester en place. La bureaucratie, pouvoir gigantesque mis en mouvement par des nains, est née ainsi."

"The bureaucratic culture which prompts us to view society as an object of administration, as a collection of so many 'problems' to be solved, as 'nature' to be 'controlled', 'mastered' and 'improved' or 'remade', as a legitimate target for 'social engineering', and in general a garden to be designed and kept in the planned shape by force (the gardening posture divides vegetation into 'cultured plants' to be taken care of, and weeds to be exterminated), was the very atmosphere in which the idea of the Holocaust could be conceived, slowly yet consistently developed, and brought to its conclusion."

"Bureaucracy is the epoxy that greases the wheels of progress."

"What bosses do: decapitate heads in the name of the freedom of the free markets. It’s bureaucracy terrorism—not different from the other terrorism that marches rampant in the streets—oh, bureaucracy terrorists name the other terrorists cowards, but what are they—sinister cowards—because they cripple your resources. They take away your office, your computer, and your friends."

"Human bureaucracies, and most alien ones, are slow by design, their response times slowed to a crawl despite all the technologies we employ to make their progress visible to the naked eye. That’s because they’re still subject to all the delays native to organic life: the mistakes, indecision, the malice, the covering of asses, and the reluctance to transmit even the most urgent message until after a leisurely break for lunch."

"The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies."

"Stupidity multiplies unnecessary procedure, intelligence decreases it; therefore stupidity is the more functional from the bureaucratic point of view."

"Our society is run by a managerial bureaucracy, by professional politicians; people are motivated by mass suggestion, their aim is producing more and consuming more, as purposes in themselves."

"Bureaucracy is where fun goes to die."

"Everyone knows how compromised the idea of bureaucracy as a meritocratic system is. The first criterion of loyalty to any organization is therefore complicity. Career advancement is not based on merit but on a willingness to play along with the fiction that career advancement is based on merit, or with the fiction that rules and regulations apply to everyone equally, when in fact they are often deployed as an instrument of arbitrary personal power. ... As whole societies have come to represent themselves as giant credentialized meritocracies, rather than as systems of predatory extraction, we bustle about, trying to curry favor by pretending we actually believe it to be true."

"The bureaucracy is the most dangerously hidebound and conservative force; if it ends up by constituting a compact body, which stands on its own and feels itself independent of the mass of members, the party ends up by becoming anachronist and at moments of acute crisis it is voided of its social content and left as though suspended in mid-air."

"As specialists and bureaucrats, human beings become tools, able to make systems of exploitation and even terror function efficiently without the slightest sense of personal responsibility or understanding. They retreat into the arcane language of all specialists, to mask what they are doing and give to their work a sanitized, clinical veneer."

"Bureaucracy destroys initiative. There is little that bureaucrats hate more than innovation, especially innovation that produces better results than the old routines. Improvements always make those at the top of the heap look inept."

"Bureaucracy is ever desirous of spreading its influence and its power. You cannot extend the mastery of the government over the daily working life of a people without at the same time making it the master of the people's souls and thoughts."

"If you have ever wondered how [a totalitarian] regime can maintain control without breaking a sweat—or a rib—Hamilton College’s Alexsia T. Chan’s “Beyond Coercion: The Politics of Inequality in China” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025) offers some clues about the art of bureaucratic suffocation. Forget tanks in Tiananmen or surveillance drones buzzing overhead. The Chinese state, Chan argues, has perfected a quieter, more elegant form of repression: political atomization. It’s repression by red tape, domination by document, and inequality by design."

"Besides, the paper pushers refuse to let the world end until every form is turned in, timestamped and properly initialed. Apocalypse is the last gasp of bureaucracy."

"There are more agriculture bureaucrats than there are farmers in this country."

"Project management has long been discussed by corporate executives and academics as one of several workable possibilities for organizational forms of the future that could integrate complex efforts and reduce bureaucracy.... This approach does not really destroy the vertical, bureaucratic flow of work but simply requires that line organizations talk to the other horizontally so work will be accomplished more smoothly throughout the organization"

"My symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the offices of a thoroughly nasty business concern."

"Bureaucratic thought does not deny the possibility of the science of politics, but regards it as identical with the science of administration."

"The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty."

"Bureaucracy, the rule of no one, has become the modern form of despotism."

"A bureaucracy always tends to become a pedantocracy."

"Bureaucracy can have dehumanizing effect upon employees, making them more like machines, especially those at the lower levels of the organizational hierarchy"

"The great defect of scale, of course, which makes the game interesting — so that the big people don't always win — is that as you get big, you get the bureaucracy. And with the bureaucracy comes the territoriality — which is again grounded in human nature. And the incentives are perverse. For example, if you worked for AT&T in my day, it was a great bureaucracy. Who in the hell was really thinking about the shareholder or anything else? And in a bureaucracy, you think the work is done when it goes out of your in-basket into somebody else's in-basket. But, of course, it isn't. It's not done until AT&T delivers what it's supposed to deliver. So you get big, fat, dumb, unmotivated bureaucracies. They also tend to become somewhat corrupt. In other words, if I've got a department and you've got a department and we kind of share power running this thing, there's sort of an unwritten rule: "If you won't bother me, I won't bother you and we're both happy." So you get layers of management and associated costs that nobody needs. Then, while people are justifying all these layers, it takes forever to get anything done. They're too slow to make decisions and nimbler people run circles around them. The constant curse of scale is that it leads to big, dumb bureaucracy — which, of course, reaches its highest and worst form in government where the incentives are really awful. That doesn't mean we don't need governments — because we do. But it's a terrible problem to get big bureaucracies to behave."

"Once genius is submerged by bureaucracy, a nation is doomed to mediocrity."

"It is increasingly clear that the fate of the universe will come to depend more and more on individuals as the bungling of bureaucracy permeates every corner of our existence."

"Bureaucrats want bigger bureaus. Special interests are interested in whatever's special to them."

"Earth is still going round the sun, and neither the dictators nor the bureaucrats, deeply as they disapprove of the process, are able to prevent it."

"When despotism has established itself for ages in a country, as in France, it is not in the person of the king only that it resides. It has the appearance of being so in show, and in nominal authority; but it is not so in practice and in fact. It has its standard everywhere. Every office and department has its despotism, founded upon custom and usage. Every place has its Bastille, and every Bastille its despot. The original hereditary despotism resident in the person of the king, divides and sub-divides itself into a thousand shapes and forms, till at last the whole of it is acted by deputation. This was the case in France; and against this species of despotism, proceeding on through an endless labyrinth of office till the source of it is scarcely perceptible, there is no mode of redress. It strengthens itself by assuming the appearance of duty, and tyrannises under the pretence of obeying."

"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion."

"The time spent on any item of the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum involved."

"In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence."

"Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status."

"The state—or, more precisely, the Communist Party—has no choice but to accommodate this new class because it depends on it to stay in power. And under Communism, the officialdom grows by leaps and bounds for the simple reason that inasmuch as all aspects of national life, the economy very much included, are taken over by the state, it requires a large bureaucracy to administer it. This bureaucracy is the favorite scapegoat of every Communist regime, yet none can manage without it. In the Soviet Union, within a few years of the Bolshevik coup d’état, the regime began to offer unique rewards to its leading cadres, which in time evolved into the nomenklatura, a hereditary privileged caste. This spelled the end of the ideal of equality. Thus to enforce the equality of possessions it is necessary to institutionalize inequality of rights. The contradiction between ends and means is built into Communism and into every country where the state owns all the productive wealth. True, periodic attempts have been made to shake off the grip that the Communist officialdom secured on the state and society. Lenin and Stalin tried purges, which under Stalin led to mass murder. Mao launched his “Cultural Revolution” to destroy entrenched party interests. None of these attempts succeeded. In the end, the nomenklaturas won out because without them nothing would work."

"Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. [...] The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions."

"If you are going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy. God will forgive you but the bureaucracy won't."

"The administrative character... is liable to be influenced much more strongly by the choice of letter carriers and policemen than by the choice of a High Commissioner."

"In sharp contrast to the modus operandi of swarm dynamics, political bodies are ill-equipped to protect the integrity of their components and lack the collective wisdom for synchronization. Instead, highly layered command-based systems invade, institutionalize, and indoctrinate society with centralized directives, straitjacket bureaucracies, and self-serving officialdom. These systems hungrily feast on what others have created, cannibalizing other people’s resources like a tribe of pragmatic headhunters."

"The mills of bureaucracy may or may not grind fine, but they certainly grind exceeding slow."

"Forecasting by bureaucrats tends to be used for anxiety relief rather than for adequate policy making."

"I meant the petitions to provoke thought, to create discussion, but I underestimated the inertia in the system. I forgot that inertia is what bureaucracies are all about!"

"How easily we Indians see the several sides to every question! That is what makes us such good bureaucrats, and such poor totalitarians."

"Bureaucracy is [...] simultaneously the most crippling of Indian diseases and the highest of Indian art-forms."

"Bureaucracy and social harmony are inversely proportional to each other."

"There comes a time in the history of all bureaucracies when they must inevitably parody their own functions."

"Let no one say that in this case it is possible for “truth” in its turn by the help of the press to get the better of lies and errors. You who speak thus, do you venture to maintain that men regarded as a crowd are just as quick to seize upon truth which is not always palatable as upon falsehood which always is prepared delicately to give delight? … Or do you venture even to maintain that “truth” can just as quickly be understood as falsehood, which requires no preliminary knowledge, no schooling, no discipline, no abstinence, no self-denial, no honest concern about oneself, no patient labor?"

"And do not mix the truth with falsehood or conceal the truth while you know (it)."

"Say, "Indeed, those who invent falsehood about Allah will not succeed.""

"That is because Allah is the Truth, and that which they call upon other than Him is falsehood, and because Allah is the Most High, the Grand."

"And (they are) those who do not testify to falsehood, and when they pass near ill speech, they pass by with dignity."

"CONFIDANT, CONFIDANTE, n. One entrusted by A with the secrets of B, confided by him to C."

"Whatever, in connection with my professional service, or not in connection with it, I see or hear, in the life of men, which ought not to be spoken of abroad, I will not divulge, as reckoning that all such should be kept secret."

"Let those who are friendly to you be many, <br"

"Though the pie to be shared by the next generation will be far larger than today’s, how it will be divided will remain fiercely contentious. Just as is now the case, there will be struggles for the increased output of goods and services between those people in their productive years and retirees, between the healthy and the infirm, between the inheritors and the Horatio Algers, between investors and workers and, in particular, between those with talents that are valued highly by the marketplace and the equally decent hard-working Americans who lack the skills the market prizes. Clashes of that sort have forever been with us – and will forever continue. Congress will be the battlefield; money and votes will be the weapons. Lobbying will remain a growth industry."

"Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights."

"There are a lot of guys on both campaigns, on all the campaigns now, who do some very questionable lobbying on behalf of very questionable interests and do things that trouble me a whole lot more than a woman writing a book about masturbation."

"שָׂרַ֣יִךְ סֹורְרִ֗ים וְחַבְרֵי֙ גַּנָּבִ֔ים כֻּלֹּו֙ אֹהֵ֣ב שֹׁ֔חַד וְרֹדֵ֖ף שַׁלְמֹנִ֑ים יָתֹום֙ לֹ֣א יִשְׁפֹּ֔טוּ וְרִ֥יב אַלְמָנָ֖ה לֹֽא־יָבֹ֥וא אֲלֵיהֶֽם׃ פ"

"When Bobby Kennedy went after organized crime in the early 1960s, one of the things he learned was that the Mafia had a series of rituals new members went through to declare their loyalty and promise they’d never turn away from their new benefactors. Once in, they’d be showered with money and protection, but they could never leave and even faced serious problems if they betrayed the syndicate. Which brings us to the story of Kyrsten Sinema. For a republican democracy to actually work, average citizens with a passion for making their country better must be able to run for public office without needing wealthy or powerful patrons; this is a concept that dates back to Aristotle’s rants on the topic. And Sinema... Apparently... she decided that if you can only barely beat them, you’d damn well better join them. Sinema quickly joined other Democrats who’d followed the Citizens United path to the flashing neon lights of big money, joining the so-called “Problem Solvers” caucus that owes its existence in part to the Wall Street-funded front group “No Labels.” ... Political networks run by rightwing billionaires and the US Chamber of Commerce showered her with support... She’d proved herself as a “made woman,” just like the old mafiosi documented by RFK in the 1960s, willing to do whatever it takes, compromise whatever principles she espoused..."

"And this is a genuine crisis for America because if President Biden is frustrated in his attempt to pass his Build Back Better legislation (that is overwhelmingly supported by Americans across the political spectrum) — all because business groups, giant corporations and rightwing billionaires are asserting ownership over their two “made” senators — there’s a very good chance that today’s cynicism and political violence is just a preview of the rest of the decade. But this isn’t as much a story about Sinema as it is about today’s larger political dysfunction for which she’s become, along with Joe Manchin, a poster child. Increasingly, because of the Supreme Court’s betrayal of American values, it’s become impossible for people like the younger Sinema to rise from social worker to the United States Senate without big money behind them.... While the naked corruption of Sinema and Joe Manchin is a source of outrage for Democrats across America, what’s far more important is that it reveals how deep the rot of money in American politics has gone, thanks entirely to a corrupted Supreme Court. In Justice Stevens’ dissent in Citizens United, he pointed out that corporations in their modern form didn’t even exist when the Constitution was written..."

"Lobbyists are in many cases expert technicians and capable of explaining complex and difficult subjects in a clear, understandable fashion. They engage in personal discussions with in which they can explain in detail the reasons for positions they advocate…. Because our congressional representation is based on geographical boundaries, the lobbyists who speak for the various economic, commercial, and other functional interests of this country serve a very useful purpose and have assumed an important role in the legislative process."

"If any of the great corporations of the country were to hire adventurers who make market of themselves in this way, to procure the passage of a general law with a view to the promotion of their private interests, the moral sense of every right-minded man would instinctively denounce the employer and employed as steeped in corruption, and the employment as infamous."

"We hear much of special interest groups. Our concern must be for a special interest group that has been too long neglected. It knows no sectional boundaries or ethnic and racial divisions, and it crosses political party lines. It is made up of men and women who raise our food, patrol our streets, man our mines and our factories, teach our children, keep our homes, and heal us when we are sick—professionals, industrialists, shopkeepers, clerks, cabbies, and truck drivers. They are, in short, “We the people,” this breed called Americans."

"Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior; for it is a prince's part to pardon."

"If blasted hopes and ruin'd name, And all the venom Love lends Shame — The violent death, and rabble eye, To look upon its agony ; If these are not enough to win A pardon for Earth's deadliest sin, Words will not, cannot! — never dare Tell me it may be won by prayer ! The coward prayer, the coward tear, Not from remorse wrung, but from fear!"

"It is the duty of nations, as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truths announced in the Holy Scriptures, and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord."

"If you will apply yourself to the King, you may, and there, perhaps, you may find mercy; we must, according to the duty of our places and oaths, give such judgment as the law requires."

"We cannot pardon. We are to say what we take the law to be: if we do not speak our real opinions, we prevaricate with God and our own consciences."

"Mercy is in the King's breast, but is no part of our province: and therefore your application on that head must be elsewhere."

"Where a person interposes his interest and good offices to procure a pardon, it ought to be done gratuitously and not for money."

"Where the King has no share, and the King's Serjeant or Attorney-General prosecute not, and the King's name is not so much as mentioned, and only by the Commons of England, which the Courts Westminster cannot punish ; it is you that have the interest in the suit, and all the Commons of England."

"It is the duty of the Lord Chancellor's place, if he thought it not a good pardon, to inform the King of it."

"The regular way of pardons is by the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General. &c. They are men of the law, and might stop it in their office, and the rest of the offices, &c . . . . To pardon before trial, when the King knows not what fact he is to pardon, is a dangerous precedent. . . . The King cannot pardon a man, an impeachment depending."

"Raleigh: Oh my lord, you may use equity. Popham, C.J. : That is from the King; you are to have justice from us."

"Sequi debet potentia justitiam non praecedere: Power should follow justice, not precede it."

"May one be pardoned and retain the offence?"

"It is true that when medieval writers spoke of natural law as being discoverable by reason, they meant that the best human reasoning could discover it, and not, of course, that the results to which any and every individual's reasoning led him was natural law."

"[A]ccording to Weyl, complexity is essential in understanding the concept of a law of nature. If laws of nature may be arbitrarily complex, he argued, the very concept... becomes vacuous. What difference would remain... if the laws meant to explain them were as complex as the phenomena they are meant to explain? Laws of nature must be simple."

"Whether something falls within the domain of ‘‘law’’ is, for a natural lawyer, at least partially or nominally determined by reference to an extra-legal standard or norm."

"It is not an accident that men like Machiavelli, and Hobbes, whose aim is to remove all restraints from the actions of rulers except those of expediency, should be agreed in denying all meaning to the idea of natural law. On the other hand for Grotius with his theory of inter-state morality, for Du Plessis Mornay with his claim that the governor must have regard to the good of the governed, the notion of natural law which makes promises binding anterior to positive rules, is essential and obligatory."

"When most people speak of natural law, what they have in mind is the contention that morality can be derived from human nature. If human beings are rational animals of such-and-such a sort, then the moral virtues are…(filling in the blanks is the difficult part)."

"It offends reason to believe that a well-established natural law can admit of exceptions. A natural law must hold everywhere and always, or be invalid. I cannot believe, for example, that the universal law of gravitation, which governs the physical world, is ever suspended in any instance or at any point of the universe. Now I consider economic laws comparable to natural laws, and I have just as much faith in the principle of the division of labor as I have in the universal law of gravitation. I believe that while these principles can be disturbed, they admit of no exceptions."

"The natural law is, in essence, a profoundly "radical" ethic, for it holds the existing status quo, which might grossly violate natural law, up to the unsparing and unyielding light of reason. In the realm of politics or State action, the natural law presents man with a set of norms which may well be radically critical of existing positive law imposed by the State. At this point, we need only stress that the very existence of a natural law discoverable by reason is a potentially powerful threat to the status quo and a standing reproach to the reign of blindly traditional custom or the arbitrary will of the State apparatus."

"No objection can be made to these voluntary associations upon the ground that they would lack that knowledge of justice, as a science, which would be necessary to enable them to maintain justice, and themselves avoid doing injustice. Honesty, justice, natural law, is usually a very plain and simple matter, easily understood by common minds. Those who desire to know what it is, in any particular case, seldom have to go far to find it."

"Children learn the fundamental principles of natural law at a very early age. Thus they very early understand that one child must not, without just cause, strike or otherwise hurt, another; that one child must not assume any arbitrary control or domination over another; that one child must not, either by force, deceit, or stealth, obtain possession of anything that belongs to another; that if one child commits any of these wrongs against another, it is not only the right of the injured child to resist, and, if need be, punish the wrongdoer, and compel him to make reparation, but that it is also the right, and the moral duty, of all other children, and all other persons, to assist the injured party in defending his rights, and redressing his wrongs. These are fundamental principles of natural law, which govern the most important transactions of man with man. Yet children learn them earlier than they learn that three and three are six, or five and five ten. Their childish plays, even, could not be carried on without a constant regard to them; and it is equally impossible for persons of any age to live together in peace on any other conditions.It would be no extravagance to say that, in most cases, if not in all, mankind at large, young and old, learn this natural law long before they have learned the meanings of the words by which we describe it. In truth, it would be impossible to make them understand the real meanings of the words, if they did not understand the nature of the thing itself. To make them understand the meanings of the words justice and injustice before knowing the nature of the things themselves, would be as impossible as it would be to make them understand the meanings of the words heat and cold, wet and dry, light and darkness, white and black, one and two, before knowing the nature of the things themselves. Men necessarily must know sentiments and ideas, no less than material things, before they can know the meanings of the words by which we describe them."

"But if justice be a natural principle, then it is necessarily an immutable one; and can no more be changed—by any power inferior to that which established it—than can the law of gravitation, the laws of light, the principles of mathematics, or any other natural law or principle whatever; and all attempts or assumptions, on the part of any man or body of men—whether calling themselves governments, or by any other name—to set up their own commands, wills, pleasure, or discretion, in the place of justice, as a rule of conduct for any human being, are as much an absurdity, an usurpation, and a tyranny, as would be their attempts to set up their own commands, wills, pleasure, or discretion in the place of any and all the physical, mental, and moral laws of the universe."

"If there be such a principle as justice, or natural law, it is the principle, or law, that tells us what rights were given to every human being at his birth; what rights are, therefore, inherent in him as a human being, necessarily remain with him during life; and, however capable of being trampled upon, are incapable of being blotted out, extinguished, annihilated, or separated or eliminated from his nature as a human being, or deprived of their inherent authority or obligation.On the other hand, if there be no such principle as justice, or natural law, then every human being came into the world utterly destitute of rights; and coming into the world destitute of rights, he must necessarily forever remain so. For if no one brings any rights with him into the world, clearly no one can ever have any rights of his own, or give any to another. And the consequence would be that mankind could never have any rights; and for them to talk of any such things as their rights, would be to talk of things that never had, never will have, and never can have any existence."

"The essence of right and wrong does not depend upon words and clauses inserted in a code or a statute-book, much less upon the conclusions and explications of lawyers; but upon reason and the nature of things, antecedent to all laws."

"[T]he process of plea bargaining is not one which any student of the subject regards as an ornament to our system of justice."

"In a system where ninety percent or more of cases end in a negotiated disposition, it is unclear why the "discounted" punishment imposed in that ninety percent of cases should not rather be considered the norm. Where almost no one pays the "manufacturer's suggested retail price," and almost everyone buys the item at a "discounted" price, no one really gets a "bargain," and the product's real price is what is actually charged in the marketplace."

"[W]e cannot hold that it is unconstitutional for the State to extend a benefit to a defendant who, in turn, extends a substantial benefit to the State and who demonstrates by his plea that he is ready and willing to admit his crime and to enter the correctional system in a frame of mind that affords hope for success in rehabilitation over a shorter period of time than might otherwise be necessary."

"The law has outgrown its primitive stage of formalism when the precise word was the sovereign talisman, and every slip was fatal. It takes a broader view to-day. A promise may be lacking, and yet the whole writing may be "instinct with an obligation," imperfectly expressed. If that is so, there is a contract."

"There are very few ways to legally break a contract unilaterally."

"The way I heard it, a contract is a list of all the ways two people don’t trust each other."

"A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on."

"The movement of progressive societies has hitherto been a movement from Status to Contract."

"Men keep their agreements when it is an advantage to both parties not to break them; and I shall so frame my laws that it will be evident to the Athenians that it will be for their interest to observe them."

"There is grim irony in speaking of the freedom of contract of those who, because of their economic necessities, give their service for less than is needful to keep body and soul together."

"The primary office and purpose of a bill of lading, although by mercantile law and usage it is a symbol of the right of property in the goods, is to express the terms of the contract between the shipper and the shipowner."

"There is no darker page in the annals of English jurisprudence than that which contains the law relating to bills of sale, for, recent as it is, it is illogical, uncertain, and fuller of doubts and difficulties than any other part of our law."

"Judicial decision on one contract can rarely help us to the understanding of another."

"There is a great principle which I think ought to be adhered to by this Court, and by every Court where it can possibly do so; that is to say, that a man shall abide by his contracts, and that a man's contracts should be enforced as against him."

"As to the hardships upon foreigners, if they enter into contracts in England, and apply to our Courts of judicature to enforce a performance of them, they must submit themselves to be judged by the laws of this kingdom, and to our exposition of them."

"It is to be remembered that contracts in restraint of trade are in themselves, if nothing more appears to show them reasonable, bad in the eye of the law."

"A contract requires two parties to it, and a man in one character can, with difficulty, contract with himself in another character."

"It seems to me that whenever circumstances arise in the ordinary business of life in which, if two persons were ordinarily honest and careful, the one of them would make a promise to the other, it may properly be inferred that both of them understood that such a promise was given and accepted."

"It is assented and accorded, for the good Governance of the Commons, that no Man be put to answer without Presentment before Justices, or Matter of Record, or by due Process and Writ original, according to the old Law of the Land: And if any Thing from henceforth be done to the contrary, it shall be void in the Law, and holden for Error"

"That no Man, of what Estate or Condition that he be, shall be put out of Land or Tenement, nor taken, nor imprisoned, nor disinherited, nor put to death, without being brought in answer by due-process of Law."

"Nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."

"No State shall … deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

"Audi Alteram Partem."

"Those who slew my father I drove into exile, punishing their deed by due process of law, and afterwards when they waged war upon the republic I twice defeated them in battle."

"Bad men, like good men, are entitled to be tried and sentenced in accordance with law, and when it is shown to us that a person is serving an illegal sentence our obligation is to direct that proper steps be taken to correct the wrong done, without regard to the character of a particular defendant or to the possible effect on others who might also want to challenge the legality of their sentences as they have the right to do 'at any time' under Rule 35. If it has any relevance at all, the fact that there may be other prisoners in this country's jails serving illegal sentences would seem to me to make it all the more imperative that we grant appropriate relief in this case rather than search for some obviously dubious excuse to deny this petitioner's claim."

"For me, the only correct meaning of that phrase is that our Government must proceed according to the 'law of the land'&mdash;that is, according to written constitutional and statutory provisions as interpreted by court decisions."

"Due process is a growth too sturdy to succumb to the infection of the least ingredient of error."

"The first eight Amendments to the Constitution have been made applicable to the States only in part. My view has been that, when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, its Due Process Clause incorporated all of those Amendments. See Adamson v. California, 332 U. S. 46, 332 U. S. 68 (dissenting opinion). Although the history of the Fourteenth Amendment may not be conclusive, the words "due process" acquired specific meaning from Anglo-American experience. [Footnote 2/7] As MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN recently stated, "The Bill of Rights is the primary source of expressed information as to what is meant by constitutional liberty. The safeguards enshrined in it are deeply etched in the foundations of America's freedoms." The Bill of Rights and the States (1961), 36 N.Y.U.L.Rev. 761, 776. When the Framers wrote the Bill of Rights, they enshrined in the form of constitutional guarantees those rights -- in part substantive, in part procedural -- which experience indicated were indispensable to a free society. Some would disagree as to their importance; the debate concerning them did indeed start before their adoption and has continued to this day. Yet the constitutional conception of "due process" must, in my view, include them all until and unless there are amendments that remove them."

"In 1942, there were 110,000 Japanese American citizens in good standing, law-abiding people who were thrown into internment camps simply because their parents were born in the wrong country. That's all they did wrong. They had no right to a lawyer, no right to a fair trial, no right to a jury of their peers no right to due process of any kind. The only right they had: "Right this way" into the internment camps! Just when these American citizens needed their rights the most, their government took them away! And rights aren't rights if someone can take them away. They're privileges. That's all we've ever had in this country, is a bill of temporary privileges. And if you read the news even badly, you know that every year the list gets shorter and shorter."

"Ours will neither be a perfect world, nor a world without disagreement and occasional violence. But it will be a world where the overwhelming majority of national leaders will consistently abide by the rule of world law, and those who won't will be dealt with effectively and with due process by the structures of that same world law."

"The 14th Amendment, in declaring that no State "Shall deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws," undoubtedly intended, not only that there should be no arbitrary deprivation of life or liberty or arbitrary spoliation of property but that equal protection and security should be given to all under like circumstances in the enjoyment of their personal and civil rights; that all persons should be equally entitled to pursue their happiness and acquire and enjoy property; that they should have like access to the courts of the country for the protection of their persons and property, the prevention and redress of wrongs, and the enforcement of contracts; that no impediment should be interposed to the pursuits of anyone except as applied to the same pursuits by others under like circumstances; that no greater burdens should be laid upon one than are laid upon others in the same calling and condition, and that in the administration of criminal justice no different or higher punishment should be imposed upon one than such as is prescribed to all for like offenses."

"A license cannot be revoked because a man is redheaded or because he was divorced, except for a calling, if such there be, for which redheadedness or an unbroken marriage may have some rational bearing. If a State licensing agency lays bare its arbitrary action, or if the State law explicitly allows it to act arbitrarily, that is precisely the kind of State action which the Due Process Clause forbids."

"The function of the lawyer is to preserve a sceptical relativism in a society hell-bent for absolutes. The worse the society, the more law there will be. In Hell there will be nothing but law and due process will be meticulously observed."

"It is fundamental that the great powers of Congress to conduct war and to regulate the Nation's foreign relations are subject to the constitutional requirements of due process. The imperative necessity for safeguarding these rights to procedural due process under the gravest of emergencies has existed throughout our constitutional history, for it is then, under the pressing exigencies of crisis, that there is the greatest temptation to dispense with fundamental constitutional guarantees which, it is feared, will inhibit governmental action. "The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances." Ex parte Milligan, 4 Wall. 2, 71 U. S. 120-121. The rights guaranteed by the Fifth and Sixth Amendments are "preserved to every one accused of crime who is not attached to the army, or navy, or militia in actual service." Id. at 71 U. S. 123. "[I]f society is disturbed by civil commotion -- if the passions of men are aroused and the restraints of law weakened, if not disregarded -- these safeguards need, and should receive, the watchful care of those intrusted with the guardianship of the Constitution and laws. In no other way can we transmit to posterity unimpaired the blessings of liberty, consecrated by the sacrifices of the Revolution." Id. at 71 U. S. 124."

"Other societies have degraded terrorists by subjecting them to lawless and unaccountable power. In the new world that is taking shape, terrorists, although they themselves degrade human rights by practising terrorism, will be afforded the full dignity of due legal process, even while being tortured."

"Without this guarantee that one may not be deprived of his rights, neither liberty nor property, without due process of law, the State's monopoly over techniques for binding conflict resolution could hardly be said to be acceptable under our scheme of things. Only by providing that the social enforcement mechanism must function strictly within these bounds can we hope to maintain an ordered society that is also just.""

"Whatever disagreement there may be as to the scope of the phrase "due process of law" there can be no doubt that it embraces the fundamental conception of a fair trial, with opportunity to be heard."

"But when notice is a person's due, process which is a mere gesture is not 'due process.'"

"Procedural fairness, if not all that originally was meant by due process of law, is at least what it most uncompromisingly requires. Procedural due process is more elemental and less flexible than substantive due process. It yields less to the times, varies less with conditions, and defers much less to legislative judgment. Insofar as it is technical law, it must be a specialized responsibility within the competence of the judiciary on which they do not bend before political branches of the Government, as they should on matters of policy which compromise substantive law. If it be conceded that in some way [the agency could take the action it did], does it matter what the procedure is? Only the untaught layman or the charlatan lawyer can answer that procedure matters not. Procedural fairness and regularity are of the indispensable essence of liberty. Severe substantive laws can be endured if they are fairly and impartially applied. Indeed, if put to the choice, one might well prefer to live under Soviet substantive law applied in good faith by our common-law procedures, than under our substantive law enforced by Soviet procedural practices. Let it not be overlooked that due process of law is not for the sole benefit of an accused. It is the best insurance for the Government itself against those blunders which leave lasting stains on a system of justice but which are bound to occur on ex parte consideration."

"One can conclude that certain essential, or fundamental, rights should exist in any just society. It does not follow that each of those essential rights is one that we as judges can enforce under the written Constitution. The Due Process Clause is not a guarantee of every right that should inhere in an ideal system. Many argue that a just society grants a right to engage in homosexual conduct. If that view is accepted, the Bowers decision in effect says the State of Georgia has the right to make a wrong decision--wrong in the sense that it violates some people's views of rights in a just society. We can extend that slightly to say that Georgia's right to be wrong in matters not specifically controlled by the Constitution is a necessary component of its own political processes. Its citizens have the political liberty to direct the governmental process to make decisions that might be wrong in the ideal sense, subject to correction in the ordinary political process."

"This is really a pretty good system you have here. What do you call it? "Due process". We're very proud of it."

"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men — not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular."

"Of course, working within your "system" is never going to get the peasants freedom or justice, but even giving them the illusion of "due process" and some form of appeal will keep most of them forever banging their heads against a bureaucratic wall instead of actually resisting you."

"[The Texas anti-sodomy statute] undoubtedly imposes constraints on liberty. So do laws prohibiting prostitution, recreational use of heroin, and, for that matter, working more than 60 hours per week in a bakery. But there is no right to 'liberty' under the Due Process Clause, though today's opinion repeatedly makes that claim. . . . The Fourteenth Amendment expressly allows States to deprive their citizens of 'liberty,' so long as 'due process of law' is provided. . . .""

"When asked about my opinion regarding blasphemy, I could not tell a lie and confirmed that — like both the Torah and the Gospel — the Qur’an considers it, without repentance, as a capital offense. The Bible is full of similar harsh laws if you're looking for them. However, the application of such Biblical and Qur'anic injunctions is not to be outside of due process of law, in a place or land where such law is accepted and applied by the society as a whole."

"Several decisions of this Court make clear that freedom of personal choice in matters of marriage and family life is one of the liberties protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. . . . That right necessarily includes the right of a woman to decide whether or not to terminate her pregnancy."

"The due process of law as we use it I believe, rests squarely on the liberal idea of conflict and resolution."

"APPEAL, v.t. In law, to put the dice into the box for another throw."

"Those who sit in judgment merely give utterance to the prejudices which they have imbibed at home, and think they have duly performed their part if they do not order punishment to be inflicted on any one until convicted, either on his own confession, or on legal evidence. But of what crime convicted? “Of that condemned doctrine,” is the answer. But with what justice condemned? The very essence of the defence was, not to abjure the doctrine itself, but to maintain its truth. On this subject, however, not a whisper is allowed!"

"It is the glory and happiness of our excellent constitution, that to prevent any injustice no man is to be concluded by the first judgment; but that if he apprehends himself to be aggrieved, he has another Court to which he can resort for relief; for this purpose the law furnishes him with appeals, with writs of error and false judgment."

"A number of American authorities were cited in the course of the argument, which may be briefly noticed, seeing that they were made the subject of comment in both Courts below."

"In coming to that conclusion, as I do upon principle, I am much strengthened by the American authorities to which my attention has been called."

"A rule of such general adoption shows that there is nothing in it inconsistent with the relative rights and duties of principal and surety, and that it accords with a common sense of justice and the natural equity of mankind."

"I think it beyond question that it is generally the duty of an appellate Judge to leave undisturbed a decision of which he does not clearly disapprove. I conceive that, in our Court, as in the civil law, it is the rule that "gravely to doubt is to affirm.""

"It is needless to enter into many reasons for quashing the conviction, when one alone is fully sufficient."

"It has not been deemed improper by the best of Judges to say that it would be a satisfaction not to them only, but to the profession at large, if a point of novelty and difficulty were taken to the Court of Appeal."

"If no appeal were possible, I have no great hesitation in saying that this would not be a desirable country to live in. . . . It is quite true that there is enough difficulty in appealing as it is; but if there is to be no appeal at all possible the system would be intolerable."

"A decision of the House of Lords requires no sanction."

"A solemn decision of a competent Judge is by no means to be disregarded, and I ought not to overrule it without being clearly satisfied in my own mind that the decision is erroneous."

"I should be desirous that my opinion should not be conclusive on the parties, if there were any mode by which our judgment could be reviewed in a Court of error."

"I am desirous that the case should be brought under the consideration of a higher tribunal, without any unnecessary delay, and to afford every facility in my power for the correction of any error into which I may have fallen."

"It is a great satisfaction for me to find, that this matter will undergo investigation elsewhere, before it is finally decided."

"I trust I have not misinterpreted the views of the Court of Appeal in a matter of so much importance, and, further, that if I have, any misconceptions of mine may be speedily removed by the decision of a higher tribunal."

"A decision of the House of Lords upon a question of law is conclusive, and binds the House in subsequent cases. An erroneous decision can be set right only by an Act of Parliament."

"Discretion is a perfection of reason, and a guide to us in all the duties of life."

"In excited states of the public mind they have scarcely a discretion at all; the tendency of the public perturbation determines what shall and what shall not be dealt with. But, upon the other hand, in quiet times statesmen have great power; when there is no fire lighted, they can settle what fire shall be lit. And as the new suffrage is happily to be tried in a quiet time, the responsibility of our statesmen is great because their power is great too."

"La discrétion est le plus habile des calculs."

"It shew'd discretion, the best part of valor."

"The policeman on the beat or in the patrol car makes more decisions and exercises broader discretion affecting the daily likes of people every day and to a greater extent, in many respects, than a judge will ordinarily exercise in a week."

"There have been women I have loved … A lot, as discreetly as possible."

"Eine der wichtigsten Tugenden im gesellschaftlichen Leben, die täglich seltener wird, ist die Verschwiegenheit."

"At times discretion should be thrown aside, and with the foolish we should play the fool."

"I leave it to your discretion to strike or not, but the American colors must not be pulled down over my head today."

"As a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion."

"By Silence, the discretion of a man is known: and a fool, keeping Silence, seemeth to be wise."

"I cannot and do not live in the world of discretion, not as a writer, anyway. I would prefer to, I assure you—it would make life easier. But discretion is, unfortunately, not for novelists."

"Let your own discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action."

"The better part of valour is discretion; in the which better part I have saved my life."

"Covering discretion with a coat of folly."

"I have seen the day of wrong through the little hole of discretion."

"For 'tis not good that children should know any wickedness: old folks, you know, have discretion, as they say, and know the world."

"Let's teach ourselves that honourable stop, Not to outsport discretion."

"Discretion has large and extended views, and, like a well-formed eye, commands a whole horizon: cunning is a kind of short-sightedness, that discovers the minutest objects which are near at hand, but is not able to discern things at a distance. 224"

"There are many more shining qualities in the mind of man, but there is none so useful as discretion; it is this, indeed, which gives a value to all the rest, which sets them at work in their proper times and places, and turns them to the advantage of the person who is possessed of them. Without it, learning is pedantry, and wit impertinence; virtue itself looks like weakness; the best parts only qualify a man to be more sprightly in errors, and active to his own prejudice. 225"

"The discreet man finds out the talents of those he converses with, and knows how to apply them to proper uses. Accordingly, if we look into particular communities and divisions of men, we may observe that it is the discreet man, not the witty, nor the learned, nor the brave, who guides the conversation, and gives measures to the society. 225"

"Though a man has all other perfections, and wants discretion, he will be of no great consequence in the world; but if he has this single talent in perfection, and but a common share of others, he may do what he pleases in his station of life. 225"

"The cast of mind which is natural to a discreet man, make him look forward into futurity, and consider what will be his condition millions of ages hence, as well as what it is at present."

"At the same time that I think discretion the most useful talent a man can be master of, I look upon cunning to be the accomplishment of little, mean, ungenerous minds."

"Discretion points out the noblest ends to us, and pursues the most proper and laudable methods of attaining them: cunning has only private selfish aims, and sticks at nothing which may make them succeed."

"Discretion the more it is discovered, gives a greater authority to the person who possesses it: cunning, when it is once detected, loses its force, and makes a man incapable of bringing about even those events which he might have done had he passed only for a plain man."

"Discretion is the perfection of reason, and a guide to us in all the duties of life: cunning is a kind of instinct, that only looks out after our immediate interest and welfare."

"Discretion is only found in men of strong sense and good understandings, cunning is often to be met with in brutes themselves, and in persons who are but the fewest removes from them. 225"

"Cunning is only the mimic of discretion, and may pass upon weak men in the same manner as vivacity is often mistaken for wit, and gravity for wisdom. 225"

""Discretion" means, when it is said that something is to be done within the discretion of the authorities that that something is to be done according to the rules of reason and justice, not according to private opinion; according to law and not humour. It is to be not arbitrary, vague, and fanciful, but legal and regular. And it must be exercised within the limit, to which an honest man, competent to the discharge of his office, ought to confine himself."

"Discretion, when applied to a Court of justice, means sound discretion guided by law. It must be governed by rule, not by humour: it must not be arbitrary, vague, and fanciful, but legal and regular."

"Le impress de authority done par le Roy doit silencer inquiry al discretion dun Judge *; le Roy sole est le proper Judge del ability de ses Ministers et les Chef Justices sont deins le Statute de Scand (The stamp of authority given by the King ought to silence any inquiry into the discretion of a Judge; the King alone is the proper Judge of the ability of his ministers, and the Chief Justices are within the Statute of Scandal)."

"The discretion of a Judge is the law of tyrants: it is always unknown. It is different in different men. It is casual, and depends upon constitution, temper, passion. In the best it is oftentimes caprice; in the worst it is every vice, folly, and passion to which human nature is liable."

"The discretion of the Judges ought to be thus described: Discretio est discernere per legem quid sit Justum; this is prov'd by the Common Law, in the case of a special verdict, et sup' totain materiam petunt discretionem Justiciariorum; i.e. they desire that the Judges would discern by law what is just, and so give judgment accordingly."

"The exercise of a discretion has been characterised as odious; but where the necessity exists for its exercise, a Judge is not bound to shrink from the responsibility devolving on him."

"I must not forget that the discretion given to me must be exercised judicially, not fancifully or arbitrarily."

"A Judge must determine, not by the crooked cord of discretion, but by the golden mete-wand of the law! I admit that corruption is not to be imputed or supposed in any Judge, but fallibility must be admitted—humanum est errare; neither would I subject the opinion of a Judge upon matters of fact to be canvassed before, or submitted to the consideration of juries."

"Discretion is a science of understanding, to discern between falsity and truth, between wrong and right, between shadows and substance, between equity and colourable glosses and pretences, and not to do according to their (men's) wills, and private affections; for, as one saith, talis discretio diseretionem conundit?"

"It is true, as Mr. Folkard put to us, as the Judges of old felt, there are instances in which discretionary power might be grievously abused, and was abused in times such as I trust this country will never see again. At the same time, men are open to the infirmities which unfortunately attach to human nature. There may be dishonest and corrupt Judges among us, though I trust to God that will never happen. I agree you are to frame your rules so as to keep the administration of justice as far as you can beyond the possibility of corruption. On the other hand, if a rule is essential for the convenient administration of justice, you must trust to the honesty of those to whom you commit that most important department of the State. You must trust to the means you have of punishing corruption and dishonesty if you find it operating on the minds of those judicial officers."

"The word "discretion" has been frequently used. . . . What does it mean? In honest, plain language it means "do as you like." A direction which is to be actively exercised must be exercised honestly and intelligently, but the discretion which a man chooses to exercise by remaining supine is a duty, if it is a duty, of imperfect obligation. If no shadow of suspicion can be brought against him, if no culpable negligence can be alleged against him, what liability does a man in whom the discretion is vested incur by doing nothing? Attention should be paid to the meaning of the word, and the effect of it in the various cases in which its operation is called in question."

"We are to exercise a just discretion and not to promote vexation."

"It appears to me wrong in principle for any Court or Judge to impose fetters on the exercise by themselves or others of powers which are left by law to their discretion in each case as it arises."

"It is not the practice of this Court to interfere with the exercise of a judicial discretion."

"A Judge must have discretion, because without it the business could not go on, the criminal justice of the country could not be administered."

"I was brought up under a system in which discretion when given was practically absolute. It was the unbroken tradition of Westminster Hall. I believe that system worked justice and saved expense. I hope I may be forgiven if, with what energy remains to me, I strive after many years' experience and drawing near the close of my judicial career, to preserve this unfettered discretion which in my opinion, was given me by Parliament, and which I have never, at least intentionally abused."

"However much men may honestly endeavour to limit the exercise of their discretion by definite rule, there must always be room for idiosyncracy; and idiosyncracy, as the word expresses, varies with the man. But there is, besides this, that of which every student of legal history must be aware, the leaning of the Courts for a certain time in a particular direction, balanced at least, if not reversed, by the leaning of the Courts for a certain time in a direction opposite. The current of legal decision runs often to a point which is felt to be beyond the bounds of sound and sane control, and there is danger sometimes that the retrocession of the current should become itself extreme."

"When the afflicted do mean and intend only the appearance and shape of such an one, say G. Proctor, yet they positively swear that G. Proctor did afflict them; and they were allowed to do so; as though there was no real difference between G. Proctor and the shape of G. Proctor."

"The S.G. [Salem Gentlemen] will by no means allow, that any are brought in guilty, and condemned, by virtue of spectre Evidence... but whether it is not purely by virtue of these spectre evidences, that these persons are found guilty, (considering what before has been said,) I leave you, and any man of sense, to judge and determine."

"The court may exclude relevant evidence if its probative value is substantially outweighed by a danger of one or more of the following: unfair prejudice, confusing the issues, misleading the jury, undue delay, wasting time, or needlessly presenting cumulative evidence."

"Just when a scientific principle or discovery crosses the line between the experimental and demonstrable stages is difficult to define. Somewhere in this twilight zone the evidential force of the principle must be recognized, and while the courts will go a long way in admitting experimental testimony deduced from a well-recognized scientific principle or discovery, the thing from which the deduction is made must be sufficiently established to have gained general acceptance in the particular field in which it belongs."

"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence", and "No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish."

"That said, the lack of proof against something does not count as evidence for it."

"The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness."

"No possibility, however seemingly fantastic, should revolt the truly skeptical mind. It all depends on the evidence. The evidence decides everything."

"Human nature constitutes a part of the evidence in every case."

"The fact is that science itself must change, as it discovers that its net of evidence is equipped only to catch certain kinds of fish, and that it is constructed of webs of assumptions that can only hold certain varieties of reality, while others escape its bet entirely."

"The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, or vice versa."

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

"Cotton Mather never in any public writing 'denounced the admission' of it, never advised its absolute exclusion; but on the contrary recognized it as a ground of 'presumption' ... [and once admitted] nothing could stand against it. Character, reason, common sense, were swept away."

"There is no difference, in point of evidence, whether the case be a criminal or civil case; the same rules must apply to both."

"Sitting in a Court of law, I can receive no evidence but what comes under the sanction of an oath."

"The witness swears more generally on his senses, the juror by collection and inference, by the act and force of his understanding."

"Some instances of strength of memory are very surprising."

"It is difficult to say what is or is not evidence in itself, because it all depends upon the chain and connection it has—if there are two or three links in the chain, they must go to one first and then to another, and see whether they amount to evidence."

"To my mind the taking some expression of a Judge used in deciding a question of fact as to his own view of some one fact being material on a particular occasion, as laying down a rule of conduct for other Judges in considering a similar state of facts in another case, is a false mode of treating authority. It appears to me that the view of a learned Judge in a particular case as to the value of a particular piece of evidence is of no use to other Judges who have to determine a similar question of fact in other cases where there may be many different circumstances to be taken into consideration."

"I cannot go upon suspicion; I can only look at the evidence."

"A fair suspicion may be well worthy of further investigation, and it may well be worth the expense and trouble of examining witnesses to see whether it is well founded."

"Suspecting is not believing; saying he suspects would not be well; but swearing according to his estimation is sufficient."

".... A good corroborating chain, if they fail in the last link, the whole will fall to the ground."

"Certainly, no evidence will be received but what is legal evidence— at least, none but what the Judge thinks is legal; you may take that for granted."

"It is the duty of the Judge in criminal trials to take care that the verdict of the jury is not founded upon any evidence except that which the law allows."

"Circumstantial evidence only raises a probability."

"I wish that objections to questions as leading, might be a little better considered before they are made. It is necessary, to a certain extent, to lead the mind of the witness to the subject of inquiry. If questions are asked, to which the answer "Yes" or "No" would be conclusive, they would certainly be objectionable, but in general no objections are more frivolous than those which are made to questions as leading ones."

"You must answer any questions that are not ensnaring questions."

"There is no fixed rule which binds the counsel calling a witness to a particular mode of examining him. If a witness, by his conduct in the box, shows himself decidedly adverse, it is always in the discretion of the Judge to allow a cross-examination."

"The wisdom and goodness of our law appear in nothing more remarkably, than in the perspicuity, certainty, and clearness of the evidence it requires to fix a crime upon any man, whereby his life, his liberty, or his property may be concerned : herein we glory and pride ourselves, and are justly the envy of all our neighbour nations. Our law, in such cases, requires evidence so clear and convincing, that every by-stander, the instant he hears it, must be fully satisfied of the truth of it; it admits of no surmises, innuendos, forced consequences, or harsh constructions, nor anything else to be offered as evidence, but what is real and substantial, according to the rules of natural justice and equity."

"The objection in principle applies only to those cases where the question propounded involves an answer immediately concluding the merits of the case, and indicating to the witness an answer which will best accord with the interests of the party."

"I mean to decide this, and no further. That in each particular case there must be some discretion in the presiding Judge, as to the mode in which the examination shall be conducted, in order best to answer the purposes of justice."

"There are cases where examinations are admitted, namely, before the coroner, and before magistrates in cases of felony. That appears to me to go rather in support of the general rule than in destruction of it. Every exception that can be accounted for is so much a confirmation of the rule that it has become a maxim, Exceptio probat regulam."

"I apprehend that you may put a leading question to an unwilling witness on the examination in chief at the discretion of the Judge; but you may always put a leading question in cross-examination, whether a witness be unwilling or not."

"Try if you can trap him in any question."

"A general fishing cross-examination ought not to be permitted."

"It appears to us contrary to all rules of evidence, and opposed to natural justice, that the evidence of one party should be received as evidence against another party, without the latter having an opportunity of testing its truthfulness by cross-examination."

"There are hundreds of actions tried every year in which the evidence is irreconcilably conflicting, and must be on one side or other wilfully and corruptly perjured."

"I think that reading parts of evidence given in a former case is not a legal course."

"I can only recommend to you not to break in upon parts of the evidence."

"A hostile witness is a witness who, from the manner in which he gives his evidence, shows that he is not desirous of telling the truth to the Court."

"I think that the situation in which this witness stands towards either party, does not give the party calling the witness a right to cross-examine her, unless her evidence was of itself of such a nature as to make it appear that she was an unwilling witness."

"Artificial rules upon matters of evidence are better avoided as far as possible."

"I think it is impossible to give credit to testimony that would prove infinitely more than can be brought within the bounds of probability."

"We are obliged to hear all that witnesses have to say; but it is a canticle of Courts of justice that witnesses non numerentur sed ponderentur: they are not to be numbered but weighed. It is the nature of the human mind, it is the perfection of the human heart, to serve a friend in distress; but in doing so, a man should not transgress the higher calls of religion and morality, the obligations of an oath. We are not monks and recluses, as was said in another place,1 but come from a class in society that I hope and believe gives us opportunities of seeing as much of the world, and that has as much virtue amongst its members as any other, however elevated."

"Do you imagine that the law supposed that anybody should produce four score witnesses? Two witnesses are enough to prove any fact, if it be a good one, for by the mouth of two witnesses shall a thing be established; and 200 will not prove any fact, if it be a bad one."

"The statement of a living man is not to be disbelieved because there is no corroboration, although in the necessary absence through death of one of the parties to the transaction it is natural that, in considering the statement of the survivor, we should look for corroboration in support of it; but, if the evidence given by the living man brings conviction to the tribunal which has to try the question, then there is no rule of law which prevents that conviction being acted upon."

"Hearsay evidence is always to be received with caution."

"Concessions made for the purpose of settling the business for which the action is brought, cannot be given in evidence; but facts admitted I have always received."

"Testis oculatus unus plus valet quam auriti decem: One eye-witness is worth more than ten ear-witnesses."

"Evidence of concessions made for the purpose of settling matters in dispute, I shall never admit; but facts admitted before arbitrators I always shall."

"It is very disturbing that the integrity of judgements coming from our courts is being openly questioned. More worrying is that in Nigeria today, neither those who cast the ballots nor those who count them decide the outcome of a democratic process. The decision as to who represents the people is now with Judges. [...] If this democracy is to survive, it is imperative that the judiciary as an institution and judges as individuals are not only impartial to those who appear before them but also that the wider public have the confidence that cases affecting their well-being will be decided fairly and in accordance with the law."

"Judges ought to remember that their office is jus dicere, and not jus dare—to interpret law, and not to make law, or give law."

"Judges ought to be more learned than witty, more reverend than plausible, and more advised than confident. Above all things, integrity is their portion and proper virtue."

"Judges must beware of hard constructions and strained inferences; for there is no worse torture than the torture of laws. Specially in case of laws penal, they ought to have care that that which was meant for terror be not tuned into rigour; and that they bring not upon the people that shower whereof the Scripture speaketh, Pluet super eos laqueos: for penal laws pressed are a shower of snares upon the people."

"Non est interpretatio, sed divinatio, quae recedit a litera."

"It is the Judges (as we have seen) that make the common law:— Do you know how they make it? Just as a man makes laws for his dog. When your dog does anything you want to break him of, you wait till he does it, and then beat him for it. This is the way you make laws for your dog: and this is the way the Judges make laws for you and me."

"I will always shake hands with a man who offers it to me."

"There is in each of us a stream of tendency, whether you choose to call it philosophy or not, which gives coherence and direction to thought and action. Judges cannot escape that current any more than other mortals. All their lives, forces which they do not recognize and cannot name, have been tugging at them — inherited instincts, traditional beliefs, acquired convictions; and the resultant is an outlook on life, a conception of social needs. … In this mental background every problem finds it setting. We may try to see things as objectively as we please. None the less, we can never see them with any eyes except our own."

"The great tides and currents which engulf the rest of men do not turn aside in their course and pass the judges by."

"The state in commissioning its judges has commanded them to judge, but neither in constitution nor in statute has it formulated a code to define the manner of their judging. The pressure of society invests new forms of conduct in the minds of the multitude with the sanction of moral obligation, and the same pressure working upon the mind of the judge invests them finally through his action with the sanction of the law."

"Times before number, condemned criminals had waited for their last dawn. Yet until the very end they could hope for a reprieve; human judges can show mercy. But against the laws of nature, there is no appeal."

"Having children not only obeys the Torah’s first command to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth,” but also increased adults’ maturity. The Rabbis recognized this in a very interesting ruling, according to which only people with children of their own were eligible to serve as judges in capital cases. Only such people, the Rabbis seem to be saying, can know the true value of life – both the life of the alleged perpetrator and the life of the victim."

"One man is Judge, Jury, AND Executioner."

"No judge writes on a wholly clean slate."

"The judges, those respectable officials, flip through law books and hand down arbitrary judgments on human actions, alienating themselves from human lives, denying even their humanity as they undertake their duty as protectors of authority."

"Whoso would shed man's blood, his blood would be shed. Even if human judges let the guilty man go free, his punishment would overtake him. He would die an unnatural death, such as he had inflicted upon his fellow-man. Yea, even beasts that slew men, even of them would the life of men be required."

"Jefferson was against any needless official apparel, but if the gown was to carry, he said: "For Heaven's sake discard the monstrous wig which makes the English judges look like rats peeping through bunches of oakum.""

"When twenty years ago a vague terror went over the earth and the word socialism began to be heard, I thought and still think that fear was translated into doctrines that had no proper place in the Constitution or the common law. Judges are apt to be naif, simple-minded men, and they need something of Mephistopheles. We too need education in the obvious—to learn to transcend our own convictions and to leave room for much that we hold dear to be done away with short of revolution by the orderly change of law."

"I do not know whether it is the view of the Court that a judge must be thick-skinned or just thick-headed, but nothing in my experience or observation confirms the idea that he is insensitive to publicity. Who does not prefer good to ill report of his work? And if fame &mdash; a good public name &mdash; is, as Milton said, the "last infirmity of noble mind", it is frequently the first infirmity of a mediocre one."

"When we went to school we were told that we were governed by laws, not men. As a result of that, many people think there is no need to pay any attention to judicial candidates because judges merely apply the law by some mathematical formula and a good judge and a bad judge all apply the same kind of law. The fact is that the most important part of a judge's work is the exercise of judgment and that the law in a court is never better than the common sense judgment of the judge that is presiding."

"Something happens to a man when he puts on a judicial robe, and I think it ought to. The change is very great and requires psychological change within a man to get into an attitude of deciding other people's controversies, instead of waging them. It really calls for quite a changed attitude. Some never make it - and I am not sure I have."

"As, for the safety of society, we commit honest maniacs to Bedlam, so judges should be withdrawn from their bench, whose erroneous biases are leading us to dissolution. It may indeed injure them in fame or in fortune; but it saves the republic, which is the first and supreme law."

"While the censorious man is most severe in judging others, he is invariably the most ready to repel any animadversions made upon himself; upon the principle well understood in medical circles, that the feeblest bodies are always the most sensitive."

"My suit has nothing to do with the assault, or battery, or poisoning, but is about three goats, which, I complain, have been stolen, by my neighbor This the judge desires to have proved to him, but you, with swelling words and extravagant gestures, dilate on the Battle of Cannæ, the Mithridatic war, and the perjuries of the insensate Carthaginians, the Syllæ, the Marii, and the Mucii It is time, Postumus, to say something about my three goats"

"Although the most acute judges of the witches and even the witches themselves, were convinced of the guilt of witchery, the guilt nevertheless was non-existent. It is thus with all guilt."

"The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, And wretches hang that jurymen may dine."

"Our judges will not continue to represent the diverse face of America if only the well-to-do or the mediocre are willing to become judges."

"Honour is the mysticism of legality."

"Therefore I say again, I utterly abhor, yea from my soul Refuse you for my judge; whom, yet once more, I hold my most malicious foe, and think not At all a mend to truth."

"Heaven is above all yet, there sits a judge, That no king can corrupt."

"Angelo: Thieves for their robbery have authority When judges steal themselves."

"He who the sword of heaven will bear Should be as holy as severe, Pattern in himself to know, Grace to stand, and virtue go; More nor less to others paying Than by self-offenses weighing Shame to him, whose cruel striking Kills for faults of his own liking!"

"Portia: To offend, and judge, are distinct offices And of opposed natures."

"It doth appear you are a worthy judge, You know the law; your exposition Hath been most sound"

"What is my offence? Where are the evidence that do accuse me? What lawful quest have given their verdict up Unto the frowning judge?"

"As far as I'm concerned, the mark of a good justice or a good judge is an opinion you can read and have no idea whether it was written by a man or a woman, a Republican or a Democrat or a Christian or a Jew. The most important thing is quality and competence and temperament and character and diligence."

"Oh Utu, you are my judge: pronounce my judgement! You are my decision-maker, decide my case! The dream that I have seen -- turn it into a favourable one! Let me walk straight, so that I can catch up with my companion!"

"A judge who despises justice, cursing with the right hand, and the chasing away of a younger son from the house of his father are abominations to Ninurta."

"In the public interest, therefore, it is better that we lose the services of the exceptions who are good Judges after they are seventy and avoid the presence on the Bench of men who are not able to keep up with the work, or to perform it satisfactorily."

"Judges, like people, may be divided roughly into four classes: judges with neither head nor heart—they are to be avoided at all costs; judges with head but no heart—they are almost as bad; then judges with heart but no head—risky but better than the first two; and finally, those rare judges who possess both head and a heart—thanks to blind luck, that's our judge."

"When the spotless ermine of the judicial robe fell on John Jay, it touched nothing less spotless than itself."

"The Judge is nothing but the Law Speaking."

"The cold neutrality of an impartial judge."

"A justice with grave justices shall sit; He praise their wisdom, they admire his wit."

"Art thou a magistrate? then be severe: If studious, copy fair what tune hath blurr'd, Redeem truth from his jaws: if soldier, Chase brave employments with a naked sword Throughout the world. Fool not, for all may have If they dare try, a glorious life, or grave."

"Male verum exammat omrus Corruptus judex."

"So wise, so grave, of so perplex'd a tongue, And loud withal, that would not wag, nor scarce Lie still without a fee."

"Le devoir des juges est de rendre justice, leur métier est de la différer; quelques tins savent leur devour, et font leur métier."

"Half as sober as a judge."

"Bisogna che i giudici siano assai, perchè pochi sempre fanno a modo de' pochi."

"Judicis officium est ut res ita tempora rerum Quserere."

"Since twelve honest men have decided the cause, And were judges of fact, tho' not judges of laws."

"Si judicas, cognosce: si regnas, jube."

"Four things belong to a judge: to hear courteously, to answer wisely, to consider soberly, and to decide impartially."

"Judex damnatur cum nocens absolvitur."

"Initia magistratuum nostrorum meliora, ferme finis inclinat."

"Judges are philologists of the highest order."

"The Judge does much better herein, than what a bare grave grammarian, or logician, or other prudent man could do."

"Judges, like Caesar's wife, should be above suspicion."

"What is the obligation upon which we proceed? Upon the solemn sanction of an oath. Take away the reverence for religion, and there is an end at once of that obligation."

"I am willing to put the case into any shape you choose."

"Common sense still lingers in Westminster Hall."

"For the Judges of the Court I feel the most sincere respect, esteem and affection. Never have there presided in Westminster Hall magistrates more devotedly anxious to perform in a satisfactory manner the duties of their high office."

"To vindicate the policy of the law is no necessary part of the office of a Judge."

"Little respect will be paid to our judgments if we overthrow that one day, which we resolved the day before."

"I can't look to contingencies."

"Our business is to determine of meum and tuum, where the heats do not run so high, as in things belonging to the legislature."

"We must go upon general principles."

"The expressions of every Judge must be taken with reference to the case on which he decides, otherwise the law will get into extreme confusion. That is what we are to look at in all cases. The manner in which he is arguing it, is not the thing; it is the principle he is deciding."

"Aucupia verborum sunt judice indigna: Catching at words is unworthy of a Judge."

"Judges, in their judgments, ought to have a great regard to the generality of the cases of the King's subjects, and to the inconveniences which may ensue thereon, by the one way or the other. Judges, in giving their resolutions in cases depending before them, are to judge of inconveniences as things illegal; and an argument ah ineonvenienti is very strong to prove that it is against law."

"If my Lord Chief Justice do commit any person, and set his name to the warrant, he does not use to add to his name "Lord Chief Justice," but he is known to be so, without that addition. The lords do not use to write themselves privy counsellors; they are known to be so, as well as a Judge, who only writes his name and does not use to make the addition of his office."

"I am always afraid of quoting my own decisions; I do not think it is the right thing for a judge to do, but I often do refer to them when I can thereby avoid repeating in different words what I have said before."

"Every Judge ought to exercise care, and it is not more needed in one case than in another."

"In the hurry of business, the most able Judges are liable to err."

"For myself I will say that the Judges invite discussion of their acts in the administration of the law, and it is a relief to them to see error pointed out, if it is committed."

"Vastly inferior as this Court is to the House of Commons, considered as a body in the State, and amenable as its members may be for illconduct in their office to its animadversions and certainly are to its impeachment before the Lords, yet, as a Court of law, we know no superior but those Courts which may revise our judgments for error; and in this respect there is no common term of comparison between this Court and the House."

"The Judges are totally independent of the ministers that may happen to be, and of the King himself."

"The act of a single Judge, unless adopted by the Court to which he belongs, is of no validity. As the Courts do not sit in vacation, many things are done by the Judges individually; but their acts, when recognised, become the acts of the Court."

"I cannot properly give advice to anybody. It is very often supposed Judges can give advice, and I therefore take this public opportunity of saying that a Judge cannot do it."

"If we give an opinion, we can't give a judgment: you can't come here for an opinion to us."

"Many judges have avoided giving extra judicial opinions."

"Certainly the opinion of all the Judges of later times, must have more weight than the extra-judicial opinion of a single Judge at any former time."

"I honour the King; and respect the people1: but, many things acquired by the favour of either, are, in my account, objects not worth ambition. I wish popularity, but it is that popularity which follows; not that which is run after. It is that popularity which, sooner or later, never fails to do justice to the pursuit of noble ends, by noble means. I will not do that which my conscience tells me is wrong, upon this occasion, to gain the huzzas of thousands, or the daily praise of all the papers which come from the press: I will not avoid doing what I think is right, though it should draw on me the whole artillery of libels; all that falsehood and malice can invent, or the credulity of a deluded populace can swallow.1 I can say, with a great magistrate, upon an occasion and under circumstances not unlike, "Ego hoc animo semper fui, ut invidiam virtute partam, gloriam, haud infamiam, putarem.""

"My lords, I have heard of those who have expressed more wishes for popularity than ever I felt. I have heard it said, and I think it was in this Court, that they 'would have popularity: but it should be that popularity which follows, not that which is sought after.' My lords, I am proud enough to despise them both. If popularity should offer itself to me, I would speedily take care to kick it away."

"A popular Judge is a deformed thing :and plaudites are fitter for players than for magistrates. Do good to the people ; love them, and give them justice; but let it be as the psalm says, 'nihil inde expectantes,' looking for nothing, neither praise nor profit."

"Draw your learning out of your books, not out of your brain. Mix well the freedom of your opinion with the reverence of the opinion of your fellows. Continue the studying of your books, and do not spend on upon the old stock. Fear no man's face, yet turn not stoutness into bravery. Be a light to Jurors to open their eyes, not a guide to lead them by the noses. Affect not the opinion of pregnancy and expedition by an impatient and catching hearing of the counsellors at the bar. Let your speech be with gravity, as one of the sages of the law, and not talkative, nor with impertinent flying out to show learning. Contain the jurisdiction of your Court within the ancient mere-stones, without removing the mark."

"Sachez le vous qe nous ne froms nul tort a nul, pur vous ne pur altre: Know you this, that we will do no wrong to any one, neither for you nor for any one else."

"The world will never allow any man that character which he gives to himself by openly professing it to those with whom he converseth. Wit, learning, valour, acquaintance, the esteem of good men, will be known although we should endeavour to conceal them, however they may pass unrewarded: but I doubt our own bare assertions upon any of these points, will be of very little avail, except in tempting the hearers to judge directly contrary to what we advance."

"Fear not to do right to all, and to deliver your verdicts justly according to the laws; for feare is nothing but a betraying of the succours that reason should afford: and if you shall sincerely execute justice, be assured of three things: 1. Though some may maligne you, yet God will give you his blessing. 2. That though thereby you may offend great men, and favourites, yet you shall have the favourable kindness of the Almighty, and be his favourites. 3. And lastly, that in so doing, against all scandalous complaints, and pregmatical devices against you, God will defend you as with a shield: 'For thou, Lord, wilt give a blessing unto the righteous, and with thy favourable kindnesse wilt thou defend him, as with a shield.'"

"As long as we have to administer the law we must do so according to the law as it is. We are not here to make the law."

"We are sitting in a Court of law, and are bound to give a legal decision."

"For God's sake, do not put us on making law."

"We cannot make a law, we must go according to the law. That must be our rule and direction."

"Our duty is simply to administer the law as we find it."

"The Judges do not make the law; they administer it, and that however much they may disapprove or dislike it."

"A Judge cannot set himself above the law which he has to administer, or make or mould it to suit the exigencies of a particular occasion."

"Judicis est jus dieere non dare: It is for the Judge to administer, not to make laws."

"It is the duty of the Judge to decide according to law."

"Though in many other countries every thing is left in the breast of the Judge to determine, yet with us he is only to declare and pronounce, not to make or new-model, the law."

"We have to administer the law whether we like it or no."

"The cause is before us; we are sworn to decide it according to our notions of the law; we do not bring it here; and, being here, a necessity is laid upon us to deliver judgment; that judgment we can receive at the dictation of no power: we may decide the case erroneously; but we cannot be guilty of any contempt in deciding it according to our consciences."

"If I am to pronounce a judgment at all in this or in any other case, it must and shall be the judgment of my own mind, applying the law of the land as I understand it according to the best of my abilities, and with regard to the oath which I have taken to administer justice truly and impartially."

"I commend the Judge that seems fine and ingenious, so it tend to right and equity. And I condemn them, that either out of pleasure to shew a subtil wit will destroy, or out of incuriousness or negligence will not labour to support the act of the party by the art or act of the law."

"We do not conceive the law, but we know the law."

"I must lay down the law as I understand it, and as I read it in books of authority."

"I am bound by my oath to abide by the law, and I cannot suffer anybody to derogate from it."

"I will consider it upon the Precedents; upon the circumstances of this case; and upon the Reason of the thing."

"We cannot alter the law, we are bound by our oaths to proceed according to the law as it is at present."

"We must not be guilty of taking the law into our own hands, and converting it from what it really is to what we think it ought to be."

"Give your judgments, but give no reasons."

"If no reason had been given, the authority might have had more weight: but, to be sure, the reason is a false one."

"Reasons of public benefit and convenience weigh greatly with me."

"As a rule, Judges give reasons, though in many of the old cases the Judges gave no reasons1; but where no reasons are given for a particular decision, it becomes extremely difficult for a Judge to follow it, because he does not know the principle on which the decision proceeded."

"A person who had been appointed to a Judgeship in some distant part of the Empire, applied to his lordship for advice how to act, as he was totally ignorant of the law. Give your judgments, said Lord Mansfield, but give no reasons. As you are a man of integrity, sound sense, and information, it is more than an even chance that your judgments will be right; but as you are ignorant of the law, it is ten to one that your reasons will be wrong."

"Wise and learned men do before they judge, labour to reach to the depth of all the reasons of the case in question, but in their judgments express not any: and in troth if Judges should set down the reasons and causes of their judgments within every record, that immense labour should withdraw them from the necessary services of the commonwealth, and their records should grow to be like Elephantinl libri of infinite length, and in mine opinion lose somewhat of their present authority and reverence; and this is also worthy for learned and grave men to imitate. But mine advice is, that when soever a man is enforced to yield a reason of his opinion or judgment, that then he set down all authorities, precedents, reasons, arguments and inferences whatsoever that may be probably applied to the case in question; for some will be persuaded or drawn by one, and some by another, according as the capacity or understanding of the hearer or reader is."

"Chancellor Michael De La Pole did not at first resort to the expedient of handing over the seal to a legal keeper to act as his judicial deputy; and as he is said to have performed well in the Court of Chancery, he must have been like some of the military Chancellors in our West India Islands, who by discretion, natural good sense, taking hints from the clerks in Court, and giving no reasons for their decrees (according to the advice of Lord Mansfield to a military man going to Jamaica to sit as Chancellor) have very creditably performed the duties of their office."

"Judices non tenentwr exprimere eausam sententue sute: Judges are not bound to explain the reason of their sentence."

"The subject being unusual, I fear that I shall not make myself intelligible, but I will do my endeavour, that the reasons of our judgment may be apprehended."

"It is not only a justice due to the Crown and the party, in every criminal cause where doubts arise, to weigh well the grounds and reasons of the judgment; but it is of great consequence to explain them with accuracy and precision in open Court, especially if the questions be of a general tendency, and upon topics never before fully considered and settled, that the criminal law of the land may be certain and known."

"One does not like to differ from a man without knowing the reasons which influenced him."

"Let us consider the reason of the case. For nothing is law that is not reason."

"I believe that an experienced lawyer may be, as it were, instinctively right without at the moment being able to give a good reason for his opinion."

"I never give a judicial opinion upon any point, until I think I am master of every material argument and authority relative to it. It is not only a justice due to the Crown and the party, in every criminal cause where doubts arise, to weigh well the grounds and reasons of the judgment; but it is of great consequence, to explain them with accuracy and precision, in open Court; especially if the questions be of a general tendency, and upon topics never before fully considered and settled; that the criminal law of the land may be certain and known."

"My brothers differ from me in opinion, and they all differ from one another in the reasons of their opinion; but notwithstanding their opinion, I think the plaintiff ought to recover, and that this action is well maintainable and ought to lie. I will consider their reasons."

"The Court will not keep back their opinion without having sufficient ground for doubting, and a necessity of taking time to satisfy their doubts: on the other hand, they will not give their opinions over-hastily and prematurely, merely to gratify the humours or passions of mankind."

"As I find that my brothers are of a different opinion from me, I submit to their authority."

"I am so unfortunate as to differ a second time from my brethren, but I am bound by my opinion, and it is my duty to deliver it."

"You shall have my judgment presently; but my brothers are to speak first."

"My judgment ought to be given for the plaintiff : but my brothers are all of another opinion, and so I submit to it. The defendant must have his judgment."

"For the sake of general convenience, I am not sorry that the rest of the Court are of a contrary opinion."

"Whatever doubts I had, I submit to the authority of the other Judges."

"Judges set the tone for a . Especially when it comes to sensitive matters like and , that tone must be dignified, solemn, and respectful, not demeaning or sophomoric."

"In the course which the case is now about to take my opinion becomes worthless. I am bound to assume that I am wrong in point of law. Your lordships' judgment settles the law finally, and in yielding a willing obedience I have, at least, the palliation for mistake in law that I have erred in company with the Lord President, the Lord Justice Clerk, and four other able and eminent Scotch Judges."

"This is the first instance of a final difference of opinion in this Court since I sat here. Every Order, Bule, Judgment, and Opinion has hitherto beenn unanimous. That unanimity never could have happened if we did not among ourselves communicate our sentiments with great freedom; if we did not form our judgments without any prepossession to first thoughts; if we were not always open to conviction, and ready to yield to each other's reasons. We have all equally endeavoured at that unanimity, upon this occasion: we have talked the matter over several times. I have communicated my thoughts at large in writing : and I have read the three arguments which have been now delivered. In short, we have equally tried to convince or be convinced: but, in vain. We continue to differ. And whoever is right, each is bound to abide by and deliver that opinion which he has formed upon the fullest examination."

"To be sure, it is a very important case, though very imperfectly reported in the printed cases, which make an impossibility, by making the senior Judge speak first."

"Whenever there is a real likelihood that the Judge would, from kindred or any other cause, have a bias in favour of one of the parties, it would be very wrong in him to act, and we are not to be understood to say that where there is a real bias of this sort this Court would not interfere."

"Pur dishonest Judgm't Judges povent estre punv. Mirror de Justices report que 44 fueront pendus pur cest cause: For dishonest judgment Judges may be punished. Mirror of Justices reports that 44 were hanged for this cause."

"If I was wrong, I should think it more honourable to acknowledge and rectify any error that I should have committed, than to justify and defend it."

"I think that it is a matter of public policy that, so far as is possible, judicial proceedings shall not only be free from actual bias or prejudice of the Judges, but that they shall be free from the suspicion of bias or prejudice."

"It is impossible for us English lawyers, dealing with the English language, to express our views except in the technical language of our law."

"I believe it is understood that though, when the Judges are unanimous, the Chief Justice delivers the opinion of the Court, yet the other justices are not presumed to adopt and concur with every doctrine that falls from him, in the course of that opinion."

"Judges are not bound to travel beyond the facts stated in cases, and, as a general rule, such a practice would be inconvenient."

"Judges are more to be trusted as interpreters of the law than as expounders of what is called public policy."

"In former years, and down to times within my recollection, Judges of what used to be the common law Courts of this realm delighted in applying, rigidly and strictly, a series of rules and maxims which their predecessors had delighted themselves in devising, although they did not always commend themselves to the apprehension of the million."

"I think we ought to adhere to those ancient forms which have been perfected by the wisdom of ages and confirmed in their utility by the experience of many centuries."

"If I must either attribute to some Judges a reverence more for the letter than the spirit, caution carried too far, an over-anxiousness to keep themselves within the most clearly - defined limits of their authority, or ascribe to others an arbitrary and unwarrantable assumption of legislative power, I elect the former."

"I am not now going, and I do not suppose that any Judge will ever do so, to lay down a rule which, so to say, will tie the hands of the Court."

"I am far from being such a Judge as shall lay any intolerable yoke upon any one's neck."

"In the judgments which Judges pronounce, this is inevitable, that, having their minds full, not only of the cases before them, but of the principles involved in the cases which have been referred to, it very often happens that a Judge, in stating as much as is necessary to decide the case before him, does not express all that may be said upon the subject. That leaves the judgment open sometimes to misconstruction, and enables ingenious advocates, by taking out certain passages, to draw conclusions which the Judge never meant to be drawn from the words he used."

"It certainly is very hard upon a Judge, if a rule which he generally lays down, is to be taken up and carried to its full extent. This is sometimes done by counsel, who have nothing else to rely on; but great caution ought to be used by the Court in extending such maxims to cases which the Judge who uttered them never had in contemplation. If such is the use to be made of them, I ought to be very cautious how I lay down general maxims from this bench."

"In my opinion it is very important that one Judge should not attempt to draw fine distinctions between cases before him and similar cases decided by another Judge. Practitioners are much embarrassed by minute differences between the decisions of different Judges, and it is very important to follow a line of procedure which has been already laid down."

"If once our Courts of Justice come to be awed or swayed by vulgar noise, and if judges and juries should manage themselves so as would best comply with the humour of the times, it is falsely said that men are tried for their lives or fortunes; they live by chance, and enjoy what they have as the wind blows, and with the same certainty. Let us pursue the plot a God's name, and not baulk anything where there is danger or suspicion upon reasonable grounds; but not so overdo it, as to show our zeal, we will pretend to find what is not; nor stretch one thing beyond what it will bear, to reach another."

"It is not fair to criticise every line and letter of a summing-up which has been delivered by a Judge in trying a case, especially when there is a somewhat imperfect record of it."

"I will not be influenced by any judgment that is founded either on fear or favour."

"The character of the Judges is public property, and if they have done anything amiss, they ought to be censured. But if not, their characters ought to be respected; otherwise the most mischievous consequences will arise to the public."

"We that do sit here, do move in a sphere, and should be like the primum mobile, according to whom all others are to steer their course; and Judges themselves must move steadily upon their right poles, as I hope this Court will. What Judge soever he be that is elevated by popular applause,1 or animated by the contrary, to accumulate honour, is fitter to live "in fceee Romuli guam in politia Angliee." Nor will I lose time in remembering the first oath of a Judge, who should expel all by-respects, and speak his conscience. I hope none of us forget the duty we owe to God, to the King, and to the commonwealth, and to ourselves. I shall endeavour to satisfy my conscience in all that I can say. And they forget their duty to the first, and humanity towards us, that say or think the contrary of any one of us. Some of us have fortunes and posterities, and therein have given hostages to the commonwealth. . . . Those that want those blessings, want those temptations that make dream of, or hunt for honour or riches, to perpetuate their names and families; to them nothing can be more precious than the balm of integrity, which will preserve their names and memories. It cannot be presumed, but we will speak our consciences, since we well know shortly, as the psalmist says, " Corruption shall say, I am thy father, and the worm, I am thy mother.""

"I will tell you we are bound to be of counsel with you, in point of law; that is, the Court, my brethren and myself, are to see that you suffer nothing for your want of knowledge in matter of law."

"I am obliged to watch as he has no counsel"

"I have been reminded that I sit here as counsel for the defendant. I certainly do so, so far as to interpose between him and the counsel for the prosecution, and to see that no improper use of the law is made against him, and that no improper evidence is given to the jury: but the Judge has another task to perform, which is that of assisting the jury in the administration of justice."

"It is sometimes said—erroneously, as I think—that the Judge should be counsel for the prisoner; but at least he must take care that the prisoner is not convicted on any but legal evidence."

"By our rules we cannot receive a letter from a friend."

"Gentlemen, I speak for myself as well as for you: I never read anything about what may come before me in a Court of Justice; I keep my mind free from everything of the kind. There is often a necessity for me to look into the law: but I never suffer my mind to be biassed by reports, or such papers or pamphlets as are written with a view to pervert justice."

"I pass over many anonymous letters I have received. Those in print are public: and some of them have been brought judicially before the Court. Whoever the writers are, they take the wrong way. I will do my duty, unawed. What am I to fear? That mendax infamia from the press, which daily coins false facts and false motives? The lies of calumny carry no terror to me. I trust, that my temper of mind, and the colour and conduct of my life, have given me a suit of armour against these arrows."

"Acts of Parliament are the works of the legislature, and the publication of them has always belonged to the King, as the Executive Part, and as the Head and Sovereign."

"Notwithstanding all the care and anxiety of the persons who frame Acts of Parliament to guard against every event, it frequently turns out that certain cases were not foreseen."

"There is nothing so common in the framing of instruments as that whilst the framer of them is studious to avoid one inconvenience, he incurs another which does not present itself to his view. This is often to be seen in Acts of Parliament."

"Inconvenience arising from the operation of an Act of Parliament can be no ground of argument in a Court of law."

"Un Act de Parlement poet fair aucun chose, comme de fair une feme Mayor ou Justice de Paix, car ceux sont les creatures des homes, mes ne poet alter le course del nature: An Act of Parliament can do anything, as it may make a woman Mayor or Justice of the Peace, but it cannot alter the course of nature."

"The language of statutes is peculiar, and not always that which a rigid grammarian would use; we must do what we can to construe them."

"There are two ways of construing an Act of Parliament—one to extend it to every case reasonably within its operation, and the other to lay hold of every expression to limit and curtail the intention of the legislature."

"All Acts of Parliament are to be expounded according to the true meaning to be collected from the words of 'em."

"It is safest to keep to the Statute."

"We ought not to decide hastily against the words of an Act of Parliament."

"The sense and meaning of an Act must be collected from what it says when passed into a law, and not from the history of changes it underwent in the House where it took its rise. That history is not known to the other House, or to the Sovereign."

"No stops are ever inserted in Acts of Parliament, or in deeds; but the Courts of law, in construing them, must read them with such stops as will give effect to the whole."

"I do exceedingly commend the Judges that are curious and almost subtil, Astuti (which is the word used in the Proverbs of Solomon in a good sense, when it is to a good end) to invent reasons and means to make Acts, according to the just intent of the parties, and to avoid wrong and injury which by rigid rules might be wrought out of the Act."

"We must give effect to the plain language of the legislature, according to the fair interpretation of the words of the Act."

"With regard to the construction of statutes according to the intention of the legislature, we must remember that there is an essential difference between the expounding of modern and ancient Acts of Parliament. In early times the legislature used (and I believe it was a wise course to take) to pass laws in general and in few terms; they were left to the Courts of law to be construed so as to reach all the cases within the mischief to be remedied. But in modern times great care has been taken to mention the particular cases in the contemplation of the legislature, and therefore the Courts are not permitted to take the same liberty in construing them as they did in expounding the ancient statutes."

"We must decide according to the intention of the legislature, which is to be collected from the general object of the Act and from the particular words used in it."

"These laws must be construed according to the intention of them: and the circumstances of things at the time of enacting them ought to be taken into consideration."

"If it were a doubtful point how the statute should be construed, I must consider myself as bound by the construction it has already received in two Courts in Westminster Hall."

"In the absence of all authority, I can only look to the language of the statute."

"Our limited function is not to say what the legislature meant, but to ascertain what the legislature has said that it meant."

"However we might wish to provide for every hardship that may occur, we are bound to put that construction on the Act that the legislature intended."

"People cannot escape from the obligation of a statute by putting a private interpretation upon its language."

"There is a great difference between the Purview of an Act of Parliament, and a Proviso in an Act of Parliament."

"A statute cannot alter by reason of time, but the common law may."

"A Court cannot give itself jurisdiction by misconstruing a document or statute."

"The statute is like a tyrant; where he comes he makes all void; but the common law is like a nursing father, makes only void that part where the fault is, and preserves the rest."

"The statute law is the will of the legislature in writing; the common law is nothing else but statutes worn out by time; all our law began by consent of the legislature, and whether it is now law by usage or writing, it is the same thing."

"Bind not the new statutes so to the common law, that their words increased for the King's advantage, should be deprived of their force."

"Sir Henry Hobart, 1st Baronet, C.J., Sheffield v. Ratcliffe (1614), Ld. Hob. Rep. 341."

"It is the duty of Judges, not to supply the defects of the legislature by providing a remedy, but simply to construe the provisions of the statute it has enacted."

"We ought to apply to this case what is called the golden rule of construction, namely, to give an Act of Parliament the plain, fair, literal meaning of its words, where we do not see from its scope that such meaning would be inconsistent, or would lead to manifest injustice."

"A very ingenious attempt to drive a coach-and-four through this Act of Parliament."

"The Court is not bound to a strictness at once harsh and pedantic in the application of statutes. The law permits the qualification implied in the ancient maxim, de minimis non curat lex. Where there are irregularities of very slight consequence, it does not intend that the infliction of penalties should be inflexibly severe. If the deviation were a mere trifle, which, if continued in practice, would weigh little or nothing on the public interest, it might properly be overlooked."

"God forbid that Judges upon their oath should make resolutions to enlarge jurisdiction."

"I agree we ought not to incroach or inlarge our jurisdiction; by so doing we usurp both on the right of the Queen and the people."

"The rule for jurisdiction is, that nothing shall be intended to be out of the jurisdiction of the superior Court, but that which specially appears to be so; and on the contrary, nothing shall be intended to be within the jurisdiction of an inferior Court but that which is so expressly alleged."

"The Court ought never to come to the conclusion that two cases in the same Court, or in Courts of co-ordinate jurisdiction, are in conflict, unless it is obliged to. I agree that if two cases are in conflict the Court must say with which of them it agrees."

"Although our powers are great, they are not unlimited—they are bounded by some lines of demarcation."

"The Court is not hungry after jurisdiction."

"It is part of my duty to expound the jurisdiction of the Court. It is no part of my duty to expand it."

"A total want of jurisdiction cannot be cured by the assent of the parties."

"If the Court does not possess an inherent jurisdiction over the subjectmatter, it is not possible that the consent of an individual could confer any such jurisdiction."

"Consent does not give jurisdiction."

"I am extremely unwilling that we should take upon ourselves to exercise a jurisdiction which the law does not vest in us."

"We ought not to overstep our jurisdiction because we think it might be advantageous so to do."

"In case of private jurisdictions, the Court has inclined not to intermeddle."

"If it be a matter within our jurisdiction, we are bound by our oaths to judge of it."

"The title or description of a Court does not often point out the extent of its jurisdiction."

"Those who act under a jurisdiction given by Act of Parliament, must shew their jurisdiction."

"It is of little importance how the jurisdiction originated, if it be found to exist.—Turner, L.J., Boyse v. Rossborough (1854), 23 L. J. Rep. Part 5 (N. S.) Ch. 535. 18- I shall not be afraid to exercise a jurisdiction I find established, and shall adhere to precedents."

"The rule is this: that wherever there is a decision of a Court of concurrent jurisdiction, the other Courts will adopt that as the basis of their decision, provided it can be appealed from. If it cannot be appealed from, then they will exercise their own judgment."

"A Court of law is well justified, according to the comity of our Courts, in overruling the decision of another Court of co-ordinate jurisdiction."

"If a juror accepts as the law that which the judge states then that juror has accepted the exercise of absolute authority of a government employee and has surrendered a power and a right that once was the citizen's safeguard of liberty."

"One often-cited abuse of the nullification power is the acquittal by bigoted juries of whites who commit crimes (lynching, for example) against blacks. That repellent practice cannot be directly arrested without jeopardizing important constitutional protections-the double jeopardy bar and the jury's power of nullification. But the revulsion and sense of shame fostered by that practice fueled the civil rights movement, which in turn made possible the enactment of major civil rights legislation. That same movement spurred on the revitalization of the equal protection clause and, in particular, the recognition of the right to be tried before a jury selected without bias. The lessons we learned from these abuses helped to create a climate in which such abuses could not so easily thrive."

"I think a mistrial from a hung jury is a safeguard to liberty. In many areas it is the sole means by which one or a few may stand out against an overwhelming contemporary public sentiment. Nothing should interfere with its exercise."

"In the ultimate analysis, only the jury can strip a man of his liberty or his life."

"Make every private Sentinel, every Musquetier, both Judge, Jury, and Executioner."

"The people themselves have it in their power effectually to resist usurpation, without being driven to an appeal to arms. An act of usurpation is not obligatory; it is not law; and any man may be justified in his resistance. Let him be considered as a criminal by the general government, yet only his fellow citizens can convict him; they are his jury, and if they pronounce him innocent, not all the powers of Congress can hurt him; and innocent they certainly will pronounce him, if the supposed law he resisted was an act of usurpation."

"A fox should not be of the jury at a goose's trial."

"Were I called upon to decide whether the people had best be omitted in the Legislative or Judiciary department, I would say it is better to leave them out of the Legislative. The execution of the laws is more important than the making of them."

"Where it really matters to us, as in choosing a surgeon to remove an inflamed appendix, we tend to forsake democracy for expertise. But not in jury trials."

"Jurors now expect us to have a DNA test for just about every case, they expect us to have the most advanced technology possible, and they expect it to look like it does on television."

"When juries refuse to convict on the basis of what they think are unjust laws, they are performing their duty as jurors."

"I had no faith in a system that allowed the superstition, ignorance, biases, and prejudices of seven jurymen to determine guilt or innocence."

"[T]ake it to be the bounden duty of the Judge to lay down the law as it strikes him, and that of the jury to accede to it, unless they have superior knowledge on the subject."

"Though a definition, or maxim in law, without an exception, it is said, is hardly to be found, yet this I take to be a maxim, without an exception: ad quœstionem juris non respondent juratores; ad quœstionem facti non respondent judices."

"It is of the greatest consequence to the law of England and to the Subject, that the powers of the Judge and Jury are kept distinct: that the Judge determines the law, and the Jury the fact: and if ever they come to be confounded it will prove the confusion and destruction of the law of England."

"Blackstone considers trial by jury as having been universally established amongst all the northern nations, and so interwoven in their very Constitution, that the earliest accounts of the one gives us also some traces of the other."

"Ad questiones facti non respondent judices; ad qvestiones legis non respondent juratores: Judges do not answer questions of fact; juries do not answer questions of law."

"The jury cannot find evidence : they must find facts."

"It is certainly a rule that the jury must find facts, and not merely evidence of facts."

"It is the Court, not the jury, who are to determine the law."

"I am as jealous of the rights of juries as of those of the Court."

"The constitution trusts, that, under the direction of a Judge, they will not usurp a jurisdiction which is not in their province. They do not know, and are not presumed to know the law; they are not sworn to decide the law; they are not required to decide the law. If it appears upon the record, they ought to leave it there, or they may find the facts subject to the opinion of the Court upon the law. But further, upon the reason of the thing, and the eternal principles of justice, the jury ought not to assume the jurisdiction of the law. As I said before, they do not know, and are not presumed to know anything of the matter; they do not understand the language in which it is conceived, or the meaning of the terms.3 They have no rule to go by but their affections and wishes. It is said, if a man gives a right sentence upon hearing one side only, he is a wicked Judge, because he is right by chance only, and has neglected taking the proper method to be informed; so the jury who usurp the judicature of law, though they happen to be right, are themselves wrong, because they are right by chance only, and have not taken the constitutional way of deciding the question.1 It is the duty of the Judge, in all cases of general justice, to tell the jury how to do right, though they have it in their power to do wrong, which is a matter entirely between God and their own consciences."

"The man, who laugh'd but once to see an ass Mumbling to make the cross-grain'd thistles pass, Might laugh again to see a jury chaw The prickles of unpalatable law."

"I am sure from my experience of juries that, in a criminal case especially, they will obey the law as declared by the Judge; they will take the law from the Judge, whether they like it or do not like it, and apply it honestly to the facts before them."

"It is a strange, wild jurisdiction, where the jurors are judges both of law and fact, and ignorant country fellows2 are to determine the nicest points of law."

"The moment juries or judges go beyond their functions, and take upon themselves to lay down the law or find the facts, not according to the law as it is, but according to the law as they think it ought to be, then the certainty of the law is at an end; there is nothing to rely upon; we are left to the infinite variety and uncertainty of human opinion; to caprice which may at any moment influence the best of us, to feelings and prejudices, perhaps excellent in themselves, but which may distort or disturb our judgment, and distract our minds from the single simple operation of ascertaining whether the facts proved bring the case within the law as we are bound to take it."

"You all very well know what deference I always pay, and ever will, to that part of the office of a jury which properly belongs to them. In regard to the law, I have always been as tenacious of the proper function of a Judge, as I have been of that of the jury. I never will, while I have the honour of executing the office of a Judge, attempt to controul or influence their minds in respect of damages; but only submit to them such observations as occur to me upon the evidence."

"It will be your verdict, and not the verdict of the Court; we are responsible for the law, it is our duty to state the law, and I have laid down principles from great authority."

"The best way in which a jury can execute their duty is to give their verdict according to the evidence before them."

"If I were master of eloquence I would not make the decision of this cause a stage upon which I would display that eloquence. Those things which are very proper for advocates to do,1 become very improper for the Judge/who has nothing to do, but to state to the jury the short grounds upon which the cause ought to proceed."

"Our trials by juries are of such consideration in our law that we allow their determination to be best and most advantageous to the subject; and therefore less evidence is required than by the civil law. So said Fortescue in his commendation of the laws of England."

"Upon trials, the jury ought not to have any evidence laid before them but what is proper."

"Le direction del Judge in civil pleas doit estre hypothetic, si le fait soil trove tiel, donque pur le plaintiff ou defendant, mes ne ungues positive ou coercive, ne le jury finable: The direction of the Judge in civil pleas ought to be hypothetick, if the fact be found such, then for the plaintiff or defendant, but never positive or coercive, nor is the jury finable."

"Le jury est perjure si le verdict soit contra lour proper judgment, coment per direction del Court, car lour serement oblige eux al lour judgment proper: The jury is perjured if the verdict be against their own judgment, tho' by direction of the Court, for their oath obliges them to their own judgment."

"Est le duty dun Judge de examiner le Jury, et de Juror al responder, et si ne voet respondre, ou rendra verdict contr1 lour response, en lun et lauter case, il est finable: It is the duty of a Judge to examine the Jury, and of a Juror to answer, and if he will not answer, or shall give a verdict contrary to their answer, in either case he is finable.2—Vaughan, L.C.J., Bushel's Case (1670), Jones's (Sir Thos.) Rep. 15."

"We do not desire that the unanimity of a jury should be the result of anything but the unanimity of conviction. It is true that a single juryman, or two or three constituting a small minority, may, if their own convictions are not strong and deeply rooted, think themselves justified in giving way to the majority. If is very true, if jurymen have only doubts or weak convictions, they may yield to the stronger and more determined view of their fellows; but I hold it to be of the essence of a juryman's duty, if he has a firm and deeply rooted conviction, either in the affirmative or the negative of the issue he has to try, not to give up that conviction, although the majority may be against him, from any desire to purchase his freedom from confinement or constraint, or the various other inconveniences to which jurors are subject."

"In my mind, he was guilty of no error, he was chargeable with no exaggeration, he was betrayed by his fancy into no metaphor, who once said, that all we see about us, Kings, Lords, and Commons, the whole machinery of the State, all the apparatus of the system, and its varied workings, end in simply bringing twelve good men into a box."

"There is no distinction between a good jury and a common jury."

"It is infinitely better that a cause should be tried upon a view had by any twelve than by six of the first twelve; or by any six; or by fewer than six; or even without any view at all, than that the trial should be delayed from year to year, perhaps for ever: it can never be proper or necessary to grant a view which is asked and used for so unjust a purpose."

"It is and must be admitted, that publications which are calculated with a view to prejudice the minds of men who ought to come to compose a jury, without any pre-conceived opinions to decide upon the subject—I say it must be admitted that any publications of that kind, whether made by the party interested in the question, or by strangers, is sufficient reason to put off the trial of the cause, in order that the minds of those who are to decide may return to a proper tone, and that they may not be put into a situation which no man sitting in judgment ought to be in, namely, having formed a prior opinion upon the point; for that juryman would be extremely disgraced who should put himself into that box, having made up his mind upon that subject before he heard it discussed; non sum doctus rere instructus is the language a juryman ought to hold; he ought to have no wishes in the matter."

"I have always told a jury that if a fact is fully proved by two witnesses it is as good as if proved by a hundred."

"The jury can't find a negative, unless' such an one as is proved by an affirmative."

"Challenges being for the sake of justice, they are greatly favoured in the law."

"I have had the honour of being a considerable time on the bench; I cannot now pretend to bear fatigue as well as formerly, but I hope I shall take care that the jurors or myself shall not be in danger of being destroyed."

"We are all desirous to sit as long as we can, but necessity justifies that which it compels; the strength of man is not adequate to this. Lord Mansfield, as little inclined to give way as any man, did give way at a certain hour in the case of Lord Pomfret."

"We have a duty to discharge to the individual as well as to the public. We cannot make a man serve at the hazard of his life."

"The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, And wretches hang, that jurymen may dine."

"“If you have a case where the law is clearly on your side, but the facts and justice seem to be against you,” said an old lawyer to his son, who was about to begin the practice of the law, “urge upon the jury the vast importance of sustaining the law. On the other hand, if the law is against you, or doubtful, and the facts show that your case is founded in justice, insist that justice be done though the heavens fall.” “But,” said the young man, “how shall I manage a case where both the law and the facts are dead against me?” “In that case,” replied the old lawyer, “talk around it,” and “the worse it is, the harder you pound the table,” adds a modern commentator."

"If you’re weak on the facts and strong on the law, pound the law. If you’re weak on the law and strong on the facts, pound the facts. If you’re weak on both, pound the table."

"It is impossible to say what the opinion of a man or a Judge might be as to what public policy is."

"Public policy is a very unruly horse, and when once you get astride it you never know where it will carry you."

"Public policy is a high horse to mount, and is difficult to ride when you have mounted it."

"Public policy does not admit of definition and is not easily explained. It is a variable quantity; it must vary and does vary with the habits, capacities, and opportunities of the public."

"The great end, for which men enter into society, was to preserve their property. That right is preserved sacred and incommunicable in all instances, where it has not been taken away or abridged by some public law for the good of the whole. . . . Distresses, executions, forfeitures, taxes, &c, are all of this description; wherein every man, by common consent gives up that right, for the sake of justice and general good."

"There are many cases in which individuals sustain an injury, for which the law gives no action; for instance, pulling down houses, or raising bulwarks for the preservation and defence of the kingdom against the King's enemies."

"The principle of public policy is this: ex dolo malo non oritur actio. No Court will lend its aid to a man who founds his cause of action upon an immoral or illegal act."

"The argument of public policy leads you from sound law, and is never argued but when all other points fail."

"Whatever is injurious to the interests of the public is void, on the grounds of public policy."

"Woe unto you, O torrent of human custom! Who shall stay your course? When will you ever run dry? How long will you carry down the sons of Eve into that vast and hideous ocean."

"To make everything yield to custom would be to do the greatest injustice. Were the judgments of mankind correct, custom would be regulated by the good. But it is often far otherwise in point of fact; for, whatever the many are seen to do, forthwith obtains the force of custom. But human affairs have scarcely ever been so happily constituted as that the better course pleased the greater number. Hence the private vices of the multitude have generally resulted in public error."

"Depraved custom is just a kind of general pestilence in which men perish not the less that they fall in a crowd."

"There is no greater tyranny than that of social custom."

"People try to excuse their brutality by saying that it is the custom; but a crime does not cease to be a crime because many commit it. Karma takes no account of custom; and the karma of cruelty is the most terrible of all. In India at least there can be no excuse for such customs, for the duty of harmlessness is well-known to all. The fate of the cruel must fall also upon all who go out intentionally to kill God's creatures, and call it "sport"."

"The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement, being in unceasing antagonism to that disposition to aim at something better than customary."

"A lot of kids are bullied because of their sexual identity or expression. It's often the effeminate boys and the masculine girls, the ones who violate gender norms and expectations, who get bullied."

"Consuetudo est secunda natura."

"Vetus consuetudo natunæ vim obtinet."

"Only that he may conform To (Tyrant) customs."

"Such dupes are men to custom, and so prone To rev'rence what is ancient, and can plead A course of long observance for its use, That even servitude, the worst of ills, Because deliver'd down from sire to son, Is kept and guarded as a sacred thing!"

"The slaves of custom and established mode, With pack-horse constancy we keep the road Crooked or straight, through quags or thorny dells, True to the jingling of our leader's bells."

"Man yields to custom, as he bows to fate, In all things ruled—mind, body, and estate; In pain, in sickness, we for cure apply To them we know not, and we know not why."

"Che l'uso dei mortali è come fronda. In ramo, che sen va, ed altra viene."

"Great things astonish us, and small dishearten us. Custom makes both familiar."

"Consuetudo pro lege servatur."

"Optimus legum interpres consuetudo."

"Vetustas pro lege semper habetur."

"The laws of conscience, which we pretend to be derived from nature, proceed from custom."

"Choose always the way that seems the best, however rough it may be. Custom will render it easy and agreeable."

"Nicht fremder Brauch gedeiht in einem Lande."

"Ein tiefer Sinn wohnt in den alten Bräuchen."

"Custom calls me to 't: What custom wills, in all things should we do't, The dust on antique time would lie unswept, And mountainous error be too highly heap't For truth to o'erpeer."

"But to my mind, though I am native here, And to the manner born, it is a custom More honor'd in the breach than the observance."

"That monster, custom, * * * is angel yet in this, That to the use of actions fair and good He likewise gives a frock or livery, That aptly is put on."

"Nice customs curtesy to great kings."

"New customs, Though they be never so ridiculous, Nay, let 'em be unmanly, yet are followed."

"The tyrant custom, most grave senators, Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war My thrice-driven bed of down."

"The king ... like the vulgar, thinks, feels, acts, and lives Just as his father did; the unconquered powers Of precedent and custom interpose Between a king and virtue."

"'Tis nothing when you are used to it."

"The old order changeth, yielding place to new; And God fulfils himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world."

"No degree of antiquity can give sanction to a usage bad in itself."

"Rights of every kind, which stand upon the foot of usage, gradually receive new strength in point of light and evidence from the continuance of that usage; as it implieth the tacit consent and approbation of every successive age, in which the usage hath prevailed. But when the prerogative hath not only this tacit approbation of all ages, the present as well as the former on its side, but is recognised, or evidently presupposed, by many Acts of Parliament, I see no legal objection that can be made to it."

"Private customs, indeed, are still to be sought from private tradition."

"Proof of the usage of a large capital such as London, is sufficient to show that of the whole world unless it is contradicted."

"The custom of the city of London is a matter of fact."

"We shall go according to the constant usage within memory."

"You say it was in the Saxons' time; you do not come to any time within 600 years; you speak of those times wherein things were obscure."

"In many cases a party undertakes to prove a custom from the time of legal memory, the reign of Richard the Second; but that proof is generally established by evidence of acts done at a much later period, and frequently no evidence is given beyond the present century."

"There can be very few cases, where a custom has been sufficiently proved, in which a Court could hold that it was unreasonable, for that it must be convenient is shown by the fact that it has been established and followed."

"I cannot draw a distinction as to what length of time will render a practice legal."

"I know not how or where to ascertain when an usage becomes of age."

"As usage is a good interpreter of the laws, so non-usage, where there is no example, is a great intendment that the law will not bear it."

"Time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary."

"If the custom be general, it is the law of the realm: if local only, it is lex loci, the law of the place. Now, all laws are general, as far as the law extends; and all customs of England are of course, immemorial.1 No usage, therefore, can be part of that law, or have the force of a custom, that is not immemorial."

"Whatever may be the effect of the prevailing fashions of the times, I do not think that the argument of inconvenience, arising out of those fashions, can at any time be relied upon against a current of decisions."

"All customs must be supposed to have had a good commencement, unless they appear to be inconsistent or against reason."

"Customs which are consistent may be pleaded against each other."

"Modus et conventio vineunt legem: Custom and agreement overrule law."

"In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law."

"Reason is the life of the law; nay, the common law itself is nothing else but reason... The law, which is perfection of reason."

"The Common lawes of the Realme should by no means be delayed for the law is the surest sanctuary, that a man should take, and the strongest fortresse to protect the weakest of all, lex est tutissima cassis."

"Yet the whole structure of the common law is an obvious denial of this theory; it stands as a monument slowly raised, like a coral reef, from the minute accretions of past individuals, of whom each built upon the relics which his predecessors left, and in his turn left a foundation upon which his successors might work."

"The common law is not a brooding omnipresence in the sky, but the articulate voice of some sovereign or quasi sovereign that can be identified; although some decisions with which I have disagreed seem to me to have forgotten the fact."

"The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience... The law embodies the story of a nation's development through many centuries, and it cannot be dealt with as if it contained only the axioms and corollaries of a book of mathematics."

"He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For quartering large bodies of troops among us; For protecting them by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States; For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world; For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent; For depriving us in many cases of the benefits of Trial by Jury; For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses; For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government and enlarging its Boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies; For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and fundamentally altering the Forms of our Governments; For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with the power to to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever."

"We ourselves of the present age, chose our common law, and consented to the most ancient Acts of Parliament, for we lived in our ancestors 1,000 years ago, and those ancestors are still living in us."

"It is difficult to struggle with the common law."

"Common law is common usage, and where there is no law there can be no transgression."

"The common law does not consist of particular cases decided upon particular facts: it consists of a number of principles, which are recognised as having existed during the whole time and course of the common law. The Judges cannot make new law by new decisions; they do not assume a power of that kind: they only endeavour to declare what the common law is and has been from the time when it first existed. But inasmuch as new circumstances, and new complications of fact, and even new facts, are constantly arising, the Judges are obliged to apply to them what they consider to have been the common law during the whole course of its existence, and therefore they seem to be laying down a new law, whereas they are merely applying old principles to a new state of facts."

"I am not for stirring a single pebble of the common law."

"There is no doubt whatever that as far as common law is concerned, the Courts in this country have been bound, most of them, by inflexible rules handed down in great measure from the time of the Plantagenets, and until certain modern statutes were passed there was no possibility of altering or improving them."

"The common law, though not to be found in the written records of the realm, yet has been long well known. It is coeval with civilised society itself, and was formed from time to time by the wisdom of man. Good sense did not come with the Conquest, or at any other one time, but grew and increased from time to time with the wisdom of mankind."

"The common law is the custom of the kingdom, and we are bound to know it, and must be all governed by it."

"The common law of England must direct the determination of a common law question. By common-law determinations we are bound; and to them we must always adhere: for, these are the proper constitutional declarations of the law of the land. They are so considered, even by the Court of Chancery itself. When any doubt arises in a cause of equity concerning a point of common law, it is usually referred to the determination of a Court of Common Law."

"The Court of Common Pleas is the lock and key of the common law."

"Great attention and respect is undoubtedly due to the decisions of a Lord Chancellor: but they are not conclusive upon a Court of common law."

"I here give my opinion as a Common Lawyer; not presuming to say what the Court of Chancery would do upon the same question."

"I shall always as far as I can by law endeavour to support the common law of the land and that excellent method of trial by juries, upon which all our lives, liberties and properties depend; and I shall endeavour as far as I can to prevent the encroachment of any jurisdiction whatever that proceeds by another law and another method of trial."

"Whatever is by the common law, can only be affected by statute."

"In a perfectly new case—a case altogether primae impressionis—I think the Judges are bound to hold fast to the principles of the common law—to remember the maxim, "Salus reipublicae suprema lex," and if the condition be really in principle against the public good, to pronounce it in their judgment void."

"When their lordships asked Bacon How many bribes he had taken He had at least the grace To get very red in the face."

"'Tis pleasant purchasing our fellow-creatures; And all are to be sold, if you consider Their passions, and are dext'rous; some by features Are brought up, others by a warlike leader; Some by a place—as tend their years or natures; The most by ready cash—but all have prices, From crowns to kicks, according to their vices."

"Citizens United v. FEC]] violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it’s just an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or being elected president. And the same thing applies to governors, and U.S. Senators and congress members. So, now we’ve just seen a subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect, and sometimes get, favors for themselves after the election is over... At the present time the incumbents, Democrats and Republicans, look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves. Somebody that is already in Congress has a great deal more to sell, to an avid contributor."

"No abuse of power has so tarnished the corporate image or shown the need for government legislation as the numerous public revelations of wholesale political and foreign bribery that came to light during the 1970s. These revelations are one of the most sordid chapters in American corporate history. Investigations revealed widespread illegal corporate political contributions and extensive bribery of foreign government officials. When the bribes were large, they significantly distorted the corporation's actual financial picture, thus misleading company stockholders as well as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the . When U.S. corporations bribe officials of developing countries, they may help to undermine that country's political stability and in some cases contribute to the spread of anti-American feeling. A particularly serious situation develops when pharmaceutical corporations bribe health officials in other countries to obtain permission to sell dangerous drug products."

"Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold."

"His sons walked not in his ways, but turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment."

"Tis gold Which buys admittance; oft it doth; yea, and Diana's rangers false themselves, yield up Their deer to the stand o' the stealer: and 'tis gold Which makes the true man kill'd and saves the thief; Nay, sometimes hangs both thief and true man."

"There is gold for you. Sell me your good report."

"What, shall one of us, That struck the foremost man of all this world But for supporting robbers, shall we now Contaminate our fingers with base bribes?"

"There is thy gold, worse poison to men's souls, Doing more murders in this loathsome world, Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell. I sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none."

"And ye sail walk in silk attire, And siller hae to spare, Gin ye'll consent to be his bride, Nor think o' Donald mair."

"Flowery oratory he Walpole] despised. He ascribed to the interested views of themselves or their relatives the declarations of pretended patriots, of whom he said, "All those men have their price.""

"A hoarseness caused by swallowing gold and silver."

"Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to importune, He had not the method of making a fortune."

"But here more slow, where all are slaves to gold, Where looks are merchandise, and smiles are sold."

"Our supple tribes repress their patriot throats, And ask no questions but the price of votes."

"Alas! the small discredit of a bribe Scarce hurts the lawyer, but undoes the scribe."

"Auro pulsa fides, auro venalia jura, Aurum lex sequitur, mox sine lege pudor."

"No mortal thing can bear so high a price, But that with mortal thing it may be bought."

"Every man has his price."

"Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder."

"Bankruptcy in my opinion ever was and yet is considered as a crime, whatever tradesmen may now think of it. It was anciently punished with corporal punishment."

"Donald Trump has America back on the road to bankruptcy, an area where he has unparalleled expertise for a president of the United States. The small band of fiscal conservatives who remain in the Trump administration warned the president about the eventual dangers of his out-of-control spending addiction. In one such meeting, Trump reportedly said, "Yeah, but I won't be here." I never heard him say those words, but it doesn't come as a surprise. That's how he thinks. What does he care if the federal government goes belly-up? By then it won't be his problem."

"Taking out a commission of bankruptcy is a well-known mode of recovering a debt."

"Capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without hell."

"It is said that the world is in a state of bankruptcy, that the world owes the world more than the world can pay, and ought to go into chancery, and be sold."

"He who desireth to sleep soundly, let him buy the bed of a bankrupt."

"The privileges of creditors to come in under a bankruptcy, and of bankrupts to be discharged, are co-extensive and commensurate."

"'How did you go bankrupt?' Bill asked. 'Two ways,' Mike said. 'Gradually and then suddenly.'"

"A woman's whole life is a history of the affections. The heart is her world: it is there her ambition strives for empire; it is there her avarice seeks for hidden treasures. She sends forth her sympathies on adventure; she embarks her whole soul on the traffic of affection; and if shipwrecked, her case is hopeless — for it is a bankruptcy of the heart."

"Bankruptcy is considered as a crime, and the bankrupt in the old laws is called an offender: but it is a principle of natural justice, and of our law, that actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea."

"Such was the origin of that debt which has since become the greatest prodigy that ever perplexed the sagacity and confounded the pride of statesmen and philosophers. At every stage in the growth of that debt the nation has set up the same cry of anguish and despair. At every stage in the growth of that debt it has been seriously asserted by wise men that bankruptcy and ruin were at hand. Yet still the debt went on growing; and still bankruptcy and ruin were as remote as ever."

"A man may be a bankrupt, and yet be honest, for he may become so by accident, and not of purpose to deceive his creditors."

"Our national debt after all is an internal debt owed not only by the Nation but to the Nation. If our children have to pay interest on it they will pay that interest to themselves. A reasonable internal debt will not impoverish our children or put the Nation into bankruptcy."

"One of the bad effects of an anti-intellectual philosophy, such as that of Bergson, is that it thrives upon the errors and confusions of the intellect. Hence it is led to prefer bad thinking to good, to declare every momentary difficulty insoluble, and to regard every foolish mistake as revealing the bankruptcy of intellect and the triumph of intuition."

"One of the biggest lies in capitalism is that companies like competition. They don't. Nobody likes competition."

"Blessed is the mending hand."

"Whatever at common law might be amended in civil cases, was at common law amendable in criminal, and so it is at this day."

"The rule is "that whilst all is in paper, you may amend.""

"Mr. Attorney, I have often heard say, ' Blessed is the mending hand.'"

"Amendments ought not to be made, except in cases where the alteration is of such a nature as that no one can be misled by it."

"We must judge upon the case as stated. If it is mis-stated, you must apply to amend it."

"I am very free to own that the strong bias of my mind has always leaned to prevent the manifest justice of a cause from being defeated or delayed by formal slips, which arise from the inadvertence of gentlemen of the profession; because it is extremely hard on the party to be turned round, and put to expense, from such mistakes of the counsel or attorney he employs. It is hard, also, on the profession."

"It is between the stirrup and the ground, Brother; but you may amend by replying."

"The test as to whether the amendment should be allowed is whether or not the defendants can amend without placing the plaintiff in such a position that he cannot be recouped, as it were, by any allowance of costs or otherwise."

"However negligent or careless may have been the first omission, however late the proposed amendment, the amendment should be allowed if it can be made without injustice to the other side. There is no injustice if the other side can be compensated by costs."

"My practice has always been to give leave to amend unless I have been satisfied that the party applying was acting mala fide, or that by his blunder, he had done some injury to his opponent which could not be compensated for by costs or otherwise."

"I have said frequently, and I repeat it, that there is no Judge on the bench who is more willing to allow amendments, even at the last moment, than I, provided there is no surprise."

"I do not think I ought to allow an amendment for the mere purpose of enabling the defendant to raise a purely technical objection to the plaintiff's title to sue."

"An amendment ought not to be allowed if it will occasion injustice; but if it can do no injustice, and will only save expense, it ought to be made."

"And we will conclude with the aphorisme of that great lawyer and sage of the law. Edm. Plowden (which we have heard him often say) Blessed is the amending hand."

"Vitium clerici nocere non debet: A clerical error ought- not to hurt."

"Between the stirrup and the ground He mercy sought and mercy found."

"I do not mean to say that the Court could not give leave to amend, but I cannot conceive that the Court would listen to an application for leave to amend after the trial. That could not have been intended: it would be opposed to all principles of justice."

"How necessary it is carefully to consider the language of learned Judges, especially when you are dealing with language which is admitted to be only a dictum and not a decision, and when it is attempted to use that language for the purpose of founding on it an article of a code of law."

"Speaking for myself, I do not pay much attention to the dicta of modern Judges, as I consider it my duty to decide for myself. This, of course, does not apply to decisions of modern Judges, nor to old recognised dicta by eminent Judges."

"I never allow my construction of a plain enactment to be biassed in the slightest degree by any number of judicial decisions or dicta as to its meaning, when those decisions or dicta are not actually binding upon me. I read the Act for myself. If I think it clear I express my opinion about its meaning, as I consider I am bound to do. Of course, if other Judges have expressed different views as to the construction, and their decisions are binding on this Court, this Court has simply to bow and submit, whatever its own opinion may be. But when there is no such binding decision, in my view a Judge ought not to allow himself to be biassed in the construction of a plain Act of Parliament (for it appears to me to be plain) by any number of dicta or decisions which are not binding on him. The Judge ought with all due respect to examine into them, but he must not allow any number of dicta, or even decisions which are not binding on him, to affect his judgment, except in one peculiar case. That case is peculiar, and therefore I will mention it. Where a series of decisions in inferior Courts have put a construction on an Act of Parliament, and thus have made a law which men follow in their daily dealings, it has been held, even by the House of Lords, that it is better to adhere to the course of the decisions than to reverse them, because of the mischief which would result from such a proceeding. Of course, that requires two things, antiquity of decision, and the practice of mankind in conducting their affairs."

"In the books there are some loose dicta that an Act of Parliament and the common law should respectively stand as originals according to the circumstances of the case; but this is not law, unless it be confined to prohibitions for excess of jurisdiction and to restrain waste.— Heath, J., Jefferson v. Bishop of Durham (1797), 2 Bos. & Pull. 129."

"There are old dicta of great Judges, which have been followed by many decisions and have become maxims of the law; but modern dicta are but attempts to embody in a short form the result of decisions or statutes which any lawyer can examine for himself."

"I believe that obiter dicta, like the proverbial chickens of destiny, come home to roost sooner or later in a very uncomfortable way to the Judges who have uttered them, and are a great source of embarrassment in future cases."

"This mere obiter opinion ought not to weigh against the settled direct authority of the cases which have been deliberately and upon argument determined the other way."

""Obiter Dicta," said John A. Finch at the recent banquet of the Indiana State Bar Association, "is not statutory Latin, and we have no information as to how the words would have been translated by the Commissioners who prepared our first Code, had they been required to make such an attempt. The law dictionaries and the Courts translate these words as a phrase, and give us rather an exegesis than a translation. 'Dicta,' says a Judge of the New York Court of Appeals,' are opinions of a Judge which do not embody the resolution or determination of the Court, and made without argument or full consideration of the point; they are not the professed, deliberate determinations of the Judge himself. ' Obiter dicta,' he says, 'are such opinions, uttered by the way, not upon the point or question pending, as if drawn aside for the time from the main topic of the case to collateral subjects.'"

"An old Judge is quoted as saying, 'An obiter dictum, in the language of the law, is a gratuitous opinion, an individual impertinence.'"

"I am not much of a dictionary maker, but I believe I could improve upon either and say, 'An obiter dictum is the passing opinion of a Judge expressed when it is not called for.'"

"A great Judge was asked, 'What is the difference between law and equity?' 'Very little in the end,' responded his lordship; 'at common law you are done for at once; in equity you are not so easily disposed of. The former is a bullet which is instantaneously and charmingly effective; the latter, the angler's hook, which plays with the victim before it kills him. Common law is prussic acid, equity is laudanum.'"

"Whether a man goes down with a law bullet in a vital part or is wearied out as is the fish before being landed, where he may gasp his life out; whether he dies with one convulsion after a swallow of prussic acid or dreamily passes away in the solace of an opium overdraught, is perhaps no matter in the end. In the processes there is a vast difference, but the tombstones—the reports of that Court which has the last say—read very much alike. The figure is, perhaps, not a bad one."

"There is a deal of difference in what should be on the monument and what is on it, and there is equal difference in what should be in the opinions of the Courts of last resort and what the Judges speaking for the Court find time to inject. The elegies and eulogies on the plain memorial slab and the massive monument are often obiter—not meant seriously—and superfluous. The Judges of the law Courts in bank and the Chancellors in their meditative chambers are as much given to superfluous utterances as are the postmortem inscription in marble. Obiter dicta is a vice common to both."

"A child wandering in a cemetery, after reading the effusive inscriptions, all too superfluous after the statement that a dead man is below, asks where the bad people are buried. A reader of reports, searching for authority, sighs that so much is said when so much less would amply suffice."

"We are taught that we may disregard all obiter dicta, but, as we are never sure what the law in a given case is until some Court has given an opinion in the reports, equally are we never sure what is unnecessary law, the obiter dicta of an opinion, until some later Court so informs us. That which we have for years quoted as authority is, in later expressions, stripped of its conclusiveness and made simply an impertinence. Not only does the superfluous expression which has been cited or acted upon as decisive become indecisive, it becomes a reproach to the Judge who wrote it."

"This sort of thing reminds one of what Artemus Ward said in his lecture on the Mormons: 'One of the principal features of my entertainment is that it contains so many things that don't have anything to do with it.' We have been succeeding or failing because of something in an opinion which turns out to have no right to a place in the judicial utterance. A man who has carefully wound up his clock every night for twenty years and then learns that it is an eight-day clock has less reason for feeling bad than a lawyer who has lost a case or been guided in advice given by something that turns out to be obiter."

"After having bowed to the supposed law, as found in an opinion of a High Court for years, we are suddenly told that the Judge who wrote the opinion was 'off his base,' so to speak, and what he said was not the law at all, or, at least, he had no business to have then said it was the law."

"Take the case of the Home Insurance Company v. Morse, in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that a statute of Wisconsin requiring an insurance company of another State to agree that it would not remove a case against it to the United States Circuit Court was 'illegal and void' and therefore not binding on the company. Then read, and rub your eyes as you read, the same Court in Doyle v. The Continental Insurance Company, in which it was held that the State may prescribe any condition that it may deem proper, whether constitutional or not, upon which corporations of other States may enter its borders, using language which was long held as a sword over companies that contemplated taking a case to the United States Circuit Court in that State, or in other States having a like statute. Years afterwards we have from the same Court Barron v. Burnside, in which it was held that the ominous part of Doyle v. The Continental Insurance Company was obiter dictum; holding further that no conditions can be imposed by a State upon corporations foreign to it which are repugnant to the Constitution and laws of the United states. Such an episode reminds one of the trick on Falstaff that was 'argument for a week, laughter for a month, and a jest for ever.'"

"Borne says, 'Nothing is permanent but change.' And so we have to say of the law. We can never rest secure upon any opinion until we have searched later reports for an opinion modifying or reversing it or declaring some of its vital parts obiter dicta."

"Polonius asked Hamlet what he was reading. 'Words, words, words,' said Hamlet, and called the writer a ' satirical rogue.' Ben Butler was seen in a railroad train reading what appeared to be a law book, and was asked, 'Are you reading law, general?' 'No,' said he; 'only a volume of Massachusetts reports.'"

"There are 166 volumes of Massachusetts reports, 165 volumes of United States Supreme Court reports, and hundreds and thousands of reports of other States. Every year adds to the reports of the Courts of this country about 250 volumes and about sixty volumes of text-books. 'Words, words, words.' Ben Butler to the contrary notwithstanding, all of these words are law unless they have been pronounced obiter dicta."

"Does anybody believe we can allow our presses to go on for ever belching out books that are of such value that every lawyer must know what is or what is not in the motley throng before he can feel safe? Nay, verily. There must, in some way, from somewhere, come relief."

"The supposed great library at Alexandria was destroyed by the men of Mohammed for the, to them, satisfactory reason that if the books in it agreed with the Koran they were unnecessary, and if they did not agree with it they were unsound. Will ever some devoted advocate or some legions of such devotees of the real law—the red-eyed kind, if you please —arise and settle this question by a conflagration?"

"Oliver Wendell Holmes said he doubted not that if all the medicines in the world were dumped into the sea it would be a great deal better for the human family, though a great deal worse for the fishes. Some such remark could be made about our voluminous libraries. If something violent should happen to all the law reports now crowding our shelves, and all, or nearly all, of the books of alleged authors on particular branches of the law—such books being in the main a product of scissors, paste-pot, and a 10-dollars a week drudge—would anybody suffer!"

"A long time ago an old man wished that his adversary would write a book. It needs no argument to prove that no lawyer ever said that; our enemies have written books, lots of them; too many of them such as they are; and the spoiling of paper goes merrily on. 'Much study is a weariness of the flesh," it is true, but winnowing chaff for an occasional grain of wheat is more weariness still. Are we for ever to roll at the ever increasing stone of Sisyphus, or shall we make some effort to relieve ourselves and our successors?"

"I am myself a lecturer on a branch of the law in a reputable law college. At the beginning of my course, or at the end, or, mayhap, many times ad interim, I tell my classes there is no logical, coherent, justifiable law on the subject; that there are decisions galore, and that those decisions will control in the trial Courts, not because they are right, but because they are decisions bound in calf, or sheep, or hide of some other animal. I advise them to search well these volumes in animal skin, and say that the lawyer who finds most opinions leaning his way will succeed the best. It is not a question of logic or elementary law of the sort that is the 'perfection of reason.' It is simply a question of numerical strength. 'The Lord is on the side of the heaviest battalions,' said Napoleon."

"Indiana has more Courts and more Judges and annually issues more reports than all England. Our reports seem to get more voluminous and contain less law. The first volume of Blackford has 432 pages and contains 504 cases. The last volume of Indiana reports has 700 pages and 179 cases. Comparison of the first and 'last volume of reports of any other State will show like numerical results. Does this signify? Yes, verily, it does signify. It signifies all too much. Do lawyers at the bar or Judges on the bench carefully reason or copiously remember 1 Is the law a matter of reasoning, or is it a matter of searching for cases in point?"

"Obiter dicta might be applied to many a volume in its entirety, to many a page of opinion for its mere prolixity."

"It is, if I may so express myself without disrespect, the duty of the Sovereign to confer the peerage as the reward of merit, or the incitement to great and good actions, or for the public benefit, as a mode of placing the individual in a better position to render public service. To suppose, then, that the Sovereign will be at all influenced by any other motives in the exercise of this most important prerogative is indecent, and, in a legal sense, unreasonable."

"The creation of a peer is an exercise of one of the prerogatives of the Crown, which the Crown possesses, like all other prerogatives, for the good of the country, and which ought to be exercised solely with reference to the public welfare and the merits of the individual to be promoted, and the cause or occasion of his promotion."

"It is not only the feeling, of which she cannot divest herself, against making a person of the Jewish religion, a Peer; but she cannot think that one who owes his great wealth to contracts with foreign Governments for Loans, or to successful speculation on the Stock Exchange, can fairly claim a British Peerage. However high Sir L. Rothschild may stand personally in public estimation, this seems to her not less a species of gambling because it is on a gigantic scale and far removed from that legitimate trading which she delights to honour, in which men have raised themselves by patient industry and unswerving probity to positions of wealth and influence."

"The phrase "contempt of court" often misleads persons not lawyers, and causes them to misapprehend its meaning, and to suppose that a proceeding for contempt of court amounts to some process taken for the purpose of vindicating the personal dignity of the Judges, and protecting them from personal insults as individuals. Very often it happens that contempt is committed by a personal attack on a Judge or an insult offered to him; but as far as their dignity as individuals is concerned, it is of very subordinate importance compared with the vindication of the dignity of the Court itself; and there would be scarcely a case, I think, in which any Judge would consider that, as far as his personal dignity goes, it would be worth while to take any steps."

"The object of the discipline enforced by the Court in case of contempt of court is not to vindicate the dignity of the Court or the person of the Judge, but to prevent undue interference with the administration of justice."

"There are three different sorts of contempt. One kind of contempt is scandalizing the Court itself. There may be likewise a contempt of this Court, in abusing parties who are concerned in causes here. There may be also a contempt of this Court, in prejudicing mankind against persons before the cause is heard. There cannot be anything of greater consequence than to keep the streams of justice clear and pure, that parties may proceed with safety both to themselves and their characters."

"Vus nus dirrez en un autre manere comment yl est plus procheyn heyr, ou vous demurrz sanz manger et beyre jekes demyn matyn enclos. (You shall tell us in another way how he was next heir, or you shall remain shut up without eating or drinking until to-morrow morning.)"

"It seems to me that this jurisdiction of committing for contempt being practically arbitrary and unlimited, should be most jealously and carefully watched, and exercised, if I may say so, with the greatest reluctance and the greatest anxiety on the part of Judges to see whether there is no other mode which is not open to the objection of arbitrariness, and which can be brought to bear upon the subject."

"The law has armed the High Court of Justice with the power, and imposed on it the duty of preventing brevi manu and by summary proceedings any attempt to interfere with the administration of justice. It is on that ground, and not on any exaggerated notion of the dignity of individuals that insults to Judges are not allowed."

"It is truly remarked that all the particular instances of contempts it would be endless to enumerate."

"From the earliest period of our history this authority has been exercised. The Year-books record instances of such commitments."

"Committals for contempt of Court are ordinarily in cases where some contempt ex facie of the Court has been committed, or for comments on cases pending in the Courts. However, there can be no doubt that there is a third head of contempt of Court by the publication of scandal matter of the Court itself. . . . Committal for contempt of Court is a weapon to be used sparingly, and always with reference to the interests of the administration of justice. Hence, when a trial has taken place and the case is over the Judge or the jury are given over to criticism. Committals for contempt of Court by scandalising the Court itself have become obsolete in this country. Courts are satisfied to leave to public opinion attacks or comments derogatory or scandalous to them."

"There are many ways of obstructing the Court. Endeavours are not wanting either to disturb the Judge or to influence the jury, or to keep back or pervert the testimony of witnesses, or by other methods, according to the emergency of the occasion, to obstruct the course of justice. These powers are given to the Judges to keep the course of justice free: powers of great importance to society, for by the exercise of them law and order prevail; those who are interested in wrong are shown that the law is irresistible. It is this obstruction which is called in law contempt, and it has nothing to do with the personal feelings of the Judge, and no Judge would allow his personal feelings to have any weight in the matter. According to my experience, the personal feelings of the Judges have never had the slightest influence in the exercise of these powers entrusted to them for the purpose of supporting the dignity of their important office; and so far as my observation goes, they have been uniformly exercised for the good of the people."

"The privilege of committing for contempt is inherent in every deliberative body invested with authority by the Constitution."

"Let us stand by the rules of pleading, which if we infringe here, we may destroy altogether."

"Pleading is an exact setting forth of the truth."

"I hate and detest all frivolous pleas; but I never will make too much haste, in determining matters which may be of consequence to the subject."

"De puys ke vous ne volet respondre a leu verement ke ye vous tendent . . . nous le tenum agrante: Since you will not answer to the averment which they offer to you … we take it for granted."

"Wherever a man neglects to take advantage of any defence which he has at the time, he waives it."

"A plaintiff who comes into a Court of justice must show that he is in a condition to maintain his action."

"The difficulty which I feel as a Judge, and always felt at the Bar, is this: a defendant is entitled to put his back against the wall and to fight from every available point of advantage."

"Each plea must stand or fall by itself."

"Il serroit mervaillouse chose que vous avendrez a dedire et contrepleder cco qe vous avez avant grante en Court de recorde: It would be a strange thing if you could be admitted to deny and counterplead that which you have previously allowed in a Court of record."

"Good matter must be pleaded in good form, in apt time, and in due order, or otherwise great advantage may be lost."

"The substantial rules of pleading are founded in strong sense, and in the soundest and closest logic; and so appear, when well understood and explained : Though, by being misunderstood and misapplied, they are often made use of as instruments of chicane."

"In these days if there is a question to be decided on the evidence before the Court, we are not inclined to restrict the suitor very closely to the pleadings."

"I am sorry when any man is tripped by a formal objection."

"His father was a man of that strictness of conscience, that he gave over the practice of the law, because he could not understand the reason of giving colour in pleadings, which, as he thought, was to tell a lye. And that, with some other things commonly practised, seemed to him contrary to that exactness of truth and justice, which became a Christian, so that he withdrew himself from the Inns of Court to live on his estate in the country."

"The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, ... "The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me.""

"I do not wish to shake titles, and I shall do precisely what our predecessors have always done—leave the case where it is. It is a rock ahead that everybody knows."

"God forbid, that a man should lose his estate by losing his title deeds."

"There is not more difference betwixt a grant and feoffment, than betwixt one egg and another."

"No man ought to be so absurd as to make a purchase without looking at the title deeds; if he is, he must take the consequence of his own negligence."

"Immemorial enjoyment is the most solid of all titles."

"When a general principle for the construction of an instrument is once laid down, the Court will not be restrained from making their own application of that principle, because there are cases in which it may have been applied in a different manner."

"One of the most sacred principles of law is, that a written instrument must be construed upon the face of it, and that no parol evidence can be used for the purpose of inserting any words not therein contained."

"Words having a distinct meaning must bear their primary legal import."

"We can judge of the intent of the parties only by their words."

"Nothing can be more mischievous than the attempt to wrest words from their proper and legal meaning only because those words are superfluous."

"One would wonder, when a word was in use two hundred years ago, that there should remain now any doubt what it is."

"An enactment for the favour and liberty of the subject ought to have a liberal construction."

"No Court ought to depart from the plain meaning of plain English words, unless coerced to do so by some very serious injustice, a hardship which would arise from a literal interpretation, for instance, where the legal interpretation would, in the opinion of the Court, operate so harshly that the Court would be driven to suppose that there must have been some clerical mistake in the language of the Act, or deed, or whatever may be under consideration."

"Wherever a law is productive of tyranny, I shall ever give my consent to narrow the construction."

"I confess a law clearly penned shall have its force in cases it does reach, though it does not reach all cases; but where a law is penned, that it may be expounded one way or other, and there is a question of the meaning of it, it is more natural to believe it was meant in that way that is clear, and that reaches all cases that are in parity of reason, than in that way that has absurd consequences, both by including those which were not intended, and leaving out those which stand in the same degree."

"If in the vast majority of possible cases—in all of ordinary occurrence—the law is in no degree inconsistent or unreasonable, construed according to its plain words, it seems to me to be an untenable proposition, and unsupported by authority, to say that the construction may be varied in every case because there is one possible, but highly improbable one, in which the law would operate with great severity, and against our own notions of justice."

"A casus omissus can in no case be supplied by a Court of law, for that would be to make laws."

"It is very mischievous for a Court to propound views of the law different from those taken by another Court of co-ordinate jurisdiction."

"Such construction is always to be made of a deed that all the words (if possible) agreeable to reason and conformable to law, may take effect according to the intent of the parties without rejecting of any, or by any construction to make them void."

"The rules laid down in respect of the construction of deeds are founded in law, reason, and common sense: That they shall operate according to the intention of the parties, if by law they may: And if they cannot operate in one form, they shall operate in that, which by law will effectuate the intention."

"It is the duty of Courts of Justice to give that construction which most fairly carries out the manifest purpose."

"Does not everybody see from hence, that you must first examine the law before you can apply the rule of construction? For the law must not be bent by the construction, but that must be adapted to the spirit and sense of the law."

"But surely it is a rule, both in law and equity, so to construe the whole deed or will, as that every clause should have its effect."

"How far Judges may be, or ought to be, able to defeat a rule of law of which they disapprove, I cannot say. I think it is the duty of a Judge not to allow himself to be so influenced, but to construe the instrument in a proper way, to arrive at its meaning independently of the results, and then apply the law."

"Definition, founded upon etymology, is not satisfactory, etymology being often in itself unsettled."

"The words of a deed are to be construed like those of any other writing, according to the ordinary use and application of them."

"Expressions used in particular cases are to be understood with relation to the subject-matter then before the Court."

"Very unequal would that interpretation be, which would construe the same words for the plaintiff according to the real substantial truth of the thing, in opposition to legal forms; and against the defendant according to legal notions and forms, contrary to real truth, more especially when the law, from the nature of it, ought to be taken liberally in favour of defendants."

"If once we go upon niceties of construction, we shall not know where to stop. For one nicety is made a foundation for another; and that other for a third; and so on, without end."

"The Court will always incline to lean against niceties in matters of variance. But where it is in the description of a statute or record, it is fatal."

"When a person undertakes to explain his own meaning, we are not to extend the same by construction."

"I should regret to place a narrowing construction upon rules intended to remove expense and delay."

"We should not be too strict in construing instruments or contracts generally drawn up on the spur of the moment."

"Where the law is known, and clear, though it be inequitable and inconvenient, the Judges must determine as the law is, without regarding the unequitableness or inconveniency, but where the law is doubtful and not clear, the Judges ought to interpret the law to be as is most consonant to equity, and least inconvenient."

"I am bound to administer the law here according to the best construction that I can put upon the intent and meaning of the authorities applicable to the cases before me."

"In questions of difficulty and nicety, Lord Coke says that arguments ab inconvenienti ought to have great weight."

"I have been long and deeply impressed with the rule, now, I believe, universally adopted, at least in the Courts of law in Westminster Hall, that in construing wills and indeed statutes, and all written instruments, the grammatical and ordinary sense of the words is to be adhered to, unless that would lead to some absurdity, or some repugnance or inconsistency with the rest of the instrument, in which case the grammatical and ordinary sense of the words may be modified, so as to avoid that absurdity and inconsistency, but no farther. This is laid down by Mr. Justice Burton, in a very excellent opinion, which is to be found in the case of Warburton v. Loveland."

"The golden ride of construction is, that words are to be construed according to their natural meaning,2 unless such a construction would either render them senseless, or would be opposed to the general scope and intent of the instrument, or unless there be some cogent reason of convenience in favour of a different interpretation."

"It has been a general rule for drawing deeds and other legal documents from the earliest times, which one is taught when one first becomes a pupil to a conveyancer, never to change the form of words unless you are going to change the meaning, and it would be as well if those who are engaged in the preparation of Acts of Parliament would bear in mind that that is the real principle of construction."

"As a Judge sitting here to interpret the rule, I must take it exactly as it is."

"Millions perished in the two s and upheavals for an equitable world, their sacrifices have gone in vain."

"Equity is as long as the chancellor's foot."

"He who seeks equity must do equity."

"A Court of equity ought to follow the law."

"Equity and common law are two distinct systems, unlike any existing in any foreign country."

"Whilom there was dwellyng in my countre, An erchedeken, a man of great degre, That boldely did execucioun, In punyschyng of fornicacioun, Of wicchecraft, and eek of bauderye, Of diffamacioun, and avoutrie, Of chirche—reves, and of testamentes, Of contractus, and of lak of sacraments, And eek of many another maner cryme, Which needith not to reherse at this tyme."

"Equity is no part of the law, but a moral virtue, which qualifies, moderates, and reforms the rigor, hardness and edge of the law, and is a universal truth. It does also assist the law, where it is defective and weak in the constitution (which is the life of the law), and defends the law from crafty evasions, delusions and mere subtleties, invented and contrived to evade and elude the common law, whereby such as have undoubted right are made remediless. And thus is the office of equity to protect and support the common law from shifts and contrivances against the justice of the law. Equity, therefore, does not destroy the law, nor create it, but assists it."

"Lex aliquando sequitur cequitatein: Law sometimes follows equity."

"All nations have equity. But some have law and equity mixed in the same Court, which is worse; and some have it distinguished in several Courts, which is better."

"I do not think that Courts of equity ought to go otherwise than the Courts of law."

"Equity will go no further than the law."

"It is true that Courts of equity, in administering justice, sometimes go further than the Courts of law."

"A Court of equity can mould interests differently from a Court of law; and can give relief in cases where a Court of law cannot."

"Courts of equity make their decrees so as to arrive at the justice of the case without violating the rules of law."

"Nor doth the law of the land speak against him. But that and equity ought to join hand in hand, in moderating and restraining all extremities and hardships. . . . They both aim at one and the same end, which is, to do right."

"The course of equity is a part of the constitution of the law and judicial proceedings in this kingdom."

"It appears to me to be the duty of every Court, whether a Court of equity or a Court of law, to give effect to the plain meaning of the Legislature, whatever may be the views entertained of its policy or applicability in particular cases."

"The Chancellor hath power to moderate and temper the written law, and subjecteth himself only to the law of nature and reason."

"Law, without equity, though hard and disagreeable, is much more desirable for the public good, than equity without law."

"A Judge ought to prepare his way to a just sentence, as God useth to prepare his way, by raising valleys and taking down hills: so when there appeareth on either side a high hand, violent prosecution, cunning advantages taken, combination, power, great counsel, then is the virtue of a Judge seen to make inequality equal; that he may plant his judgment as upon even ground."

"A Court of equity knows its own province."

"A party who seeks equity must do equity."

"I do not pretend to dispense equity at large, but only by the consent of the parties, upon a rule of Court."

"Courts of equity in ancient times, were more in the habit of taking to themselves the decision of questions of fact than they have thought wise and discreet in later times. All the Judges have demonstrated their opinion, to send the question of fact to a jury, where any reasonable doubt is raised; and I cannot suppose there is any prejudice in a tribunal appointed according to the constitution of the country to try the fact."

"Courts of equity have always considered it of the greatest possible importance that parties should not sleep on their rights."

"We ought not to interpose in a matter which seems peculiarly to belong to the jurisdiction of a Court of equity."

"We are now Courts of equity, and must decide the thing according to all the rights."

"I have always thought that formerly there was too confined a way of thinking in the Judges of the common law Courts, and that Courts of equity have risen by the Judges not properly applying the principles of the common law, being too narrowly governed by old cases and maxims, which have too much prevented the public from having the benefit of the common law."

"Equity in its true and genuine meaning, is the soul and spirit of all law; positive law is construed, and rational law is made, by it. In this, equity is synonymous to justice; in that, to the true sense and sound interpretation of the rule."

"I cannot agree that the doctrines of this Court are to be changed with every succeeding Judge. Nothing would inflict on me greater pain in quitting this place, than the recollection that I had done anything to justify the reproach that the equity of this Court varies like the Chancellor's foot."

"It must not be forgotten that the rules of Courts of equity are not, like the rules of the common law, supposed to have been established from time immemorial. It is perfectly well known that they have been established from time to time—altered, improved, and refined from time to time. In many cases we know the names of the Chancellors who invented them. No doubt they were invented for the purpose of securing the better administration of justice, but still they were invented. Take such things as these: the separate use of a married woman, the restraint on alienation, the modern rule against perpetuities, and the rules of equitable waste. We can name the Chancellors who first invented them, and state the date when they were first introduced into Equity jurisprudence; and therefore, in cases of this kind, the older precedents in equity are of little value. The doctrines are progressive, refined, and improved; and if we want to know what the rules of Equity are, we must look, of course, rather to the more modern than the more ancient cases."

"I think that common law is better than equity."

""Equity is a roguish thing : for law we have a measure ; know what to trust to. Equity is according to the conscience of him that is Chancellor; and, as that is larger or narrower, so is equity. 'Tis all one, as if they should make his foot the standard for the measure we call a foot 'a Chancellor's foot'; what an uncertain measure would this be! One Chancellor has a long foot. another a short foot, a third an indifferent foot; 'tis the same thing in the Chancellor's conscience."

"This Court should determine upon broad principles which will meet the common sense of mankind."

"A Court of equity may do great things, but cannot alter things, or make them to operate contrary to their essential natures and properties."

"Equity has not relieved against gross improvidence."

"A man must come into a Court of equity with clean hands."

"It is a rule that those who come into a Court of justice to seek redress, must come with clean hands, and must disclose a transaction warranted by law."

"When any one comes into a Court of equity to ask that which would not be granted in a Court of law, that person must come into Court with clean hands."

"In this case the plaintiff does not come into Court with clean hands; he alleges his own turpitude, and is indictable for his fraud."

"The strict primary decree of this Court, as a Court of equity, is in personam."

"The paternal jurisdiction of Courts of equity."

"Though proceedings in equity are said to be seeundem discretkmem boni viri, yet when it is asked, "Vir bonus est quis?" the answer is, "Qui consulta patrum, qui leges juraque servat.""

"When this is said, it does not mean a general depravity; it must have an immediate and necessary relation to the equity sued for ; it must be a depravity in a legal, as well as in a moral sense."

"He has been emphatically called 'the father of equity.'""

"A Court of equity interposes only according to conscience."

"A Court of equity which is never active in relief against conscience, or public convenience, has always refused its aid to stale demands where the party has slept upon his right, and acquiesced for a great length of time. Nothing can call forth this Court into activity, but conscience, good faith and reasonable diligence; where these are wanting, the Court is passive and does nothing."

"It is the constant practice of Courts of equity to discourage stale demands."

"Altho' the surety is not troubled or molested for the debt, yet at any time after the money becomes payable on the original bond, this Court will decree the principal to discharge the debt; it being unreasonable that a man shall always have such a cloud hang over him."

"Confederacies and combinations are very proper heads of relief."

"II est fort equitable et de publique convenience que gens ferront aide en recovery de lour duties (It is very agreeable to Equity, and of public convenience, that people should be aided in recovering their duties)."

"It is not the function of a Court of justice to enforce or give effect to moral obligations which do not carry with them legal or equitable rights."

"It would not be correct to say that every moral obligation involves a legal duty; but every legal duty is founded on a moral obligation."

"All laws stand on the best and broadest basis which go to enforce moral and social duties."

"Do you think things outside the United States cannot be relevant to an understanding of how to apply the American Constitution? That's what's at issue. What is at issue is the extent to which you might learn from other places facts that would help you apply the Constitution of the United States. And in today's world, as I've said, where experiences are becoming more and more similar, I think that there is often -- not a lot, not always -- but in a finite number of instances there is something to learn about how to interpret this document."

"But that's the document, I'm interpreting that document. And to think that one might learn from other countries in how best to apply this American Constitution is something I think -- I've been reading about the Founding Fathers, and I think Franklin and Hamilton and Jefferson and Madison and maybe even George Washington all would have thought that we, on occasion at least, can learn something about our country and our law and our document from what happens elsewhere."

"I don't know what it means to express confidence that judges will do what they ought to do, after having read the foreign law. My problem is I don't know what they ought to do. What is it that they ought to do? You have to ask yourselves, Why is it that foreign law would be relevant to what an American judge does when he interprets -- interprets, not writes -- I mean, the Founders used a lot of foreign law. If you read the Federalist Papers, it's full of discussions of the Swiss system, German system. It's full of that. It is very useful in devising a constitution. But why is it useful in interpreting one?"

"If you have that philosophy, obviously foreign law is irrelevant with one exception: Old English law, because phrases like "due process," the "right of confrontation" and things of that sort were all taken from English law. So the reality is I use foreign law more than anybody on the Court. But it's all old English law."

"The sentences of foreign Courts have always some degree of regard paid to them by the Courts of justice here: and it is very right that an attention should be paid to them, as far as they ought to have weight in the case depending."

"The Judge has not organs to know and to deal with the text of the foreign law, and therefore requires the assistance of a foreign lawyer who knows how to interpret it."

"To learn what the laws of a country are, is not the work of a day even in pacific times, and to persons accustomed to legal enquiries."

"It is every day's practice with us to decide cases which turn upon the laws of foreign countries, or the laws administered in Courts of peculiar jurisdiction in this country. Of this we have no judicial knowledge; but we acquire the necessary knowledge by evidence."

"Unless Parliament has conferred upon the Court that power in language which is unmistakable, the Court is not to assume that Parliament intended to do that which so seriously affect foreigners who are not resident here, and might give offence to foreign Governments. Unless Parliament has used such plain terms as show that they really intended us to do that, we ought not to do it."

"We should treat with great respect the opinion of eminent American lawyers on points which arise before us, but the practice, which seems to be increasing, of quoting American decisions as authorities, in the same way as if they were decisions of our own Courts, is wrong. Among other things it involves an inquiry, which often is not an easy one, whether the law of America on the subject in which the point arises is the same as our own."

"Arguments from the American statute are not of much force, because Englishmen are not bound to know it."

"Decisions in the American Courts are entitled to great respect, but are not binding here; and there are many circumstances affecting questions arising between the laws of different States which may or may not be applicable to questions arising here."

"I also have been struck by the waste of time occasioned by the growing practice of citing American authorities."

"I have often protested against the citation of American authorities."

"I have no power to follow the authorities cited to me from the United States if by so doing I were to contravene the law of England."

"To us the judgments of Courts in the United States are merely what our decisions have been to them. To us they are merely the opinions of eminent and learned men on a question of law, which is common to them and to us. Eminent Judges have given their opinion one way, and other eminent Judges have given their opinion another way."

"I need hardly say that I am always anxious to hear if there be any American decisions bearing upon the question before me, not because they are binding authorities upon me, but in order that I may get the very assistance which I have over and over again derived from the decisions of accomplished Judges, who are dealing with what is very much the same law as our own."

"Although American decisions are not binding on us in this country, I have always found those on insurance law to be based on sound reasoning and to be such as ought to be carefully considered by us and with an earnest desire to endeavour to agree with them."

"Although the decisions of the American Courts are of course not binding on us, yet the sound and enlightened views of American lawyers in the administration and development of the law—a law, except so far as altered by statutory enactment, derived from a common source with our own—entitle their decisions to the utmost respect and confidence on our part."

"The house of every one is to him as his castle and fortress, as well for his defence against injury and violence, as for his repose."

"For a man's house is his castle, Et domut sua cuique tutissimum refugium."

"By the laws of England, every invasion of private property, be it ever so minute, is a trespass. No man can set his foot upon my ground without my licence, but he is liable to an action, though the damage be nothing."

"Though it is not always of necessity, nor perhaps here, to go upon the original foundation of a right of law, yet I will beg leave to observe, when we apply the maxim, that every man's house is his castle, we mean not to persuade the inhabiter of a poor hut, that it is provided with draw-bridges or portcullises, but only that it is under such sufficient protection as may provide for his security in a more pleasant, or perhaps, a better way—that it is fortified by the law."

"The rule that every man's house is his castle, when applied to arrests on legal process, has been carried as far as political justice will warrant; and perhaps farther than the scale of reason and sound policy this will warrant. In the case of life, as we have before hinted generally,—but in the case of life more particularly,—this privilege, and the maxim which supports it, will admit of no extension. It must be confined to breaking the outer door, or window, for the protection of the family, and security from without; and it belongs to those whose domicile it is; for it is not the sanctuary of a stranger. And when a man escapes from the arrest, he is not privileged by his house."

"Whenever a person has any authority by law to do any particular act, and he abuses that authority, he makes himself a trespasser ab initio."

"A gentleman of Lincoln's-inn."

"A gentleman at the Bar."

"No counsel in the world that understand themselves, can argue anything against what has been often settled and always practised."

"If any whimsical notions are put into you, by some enthusiastic counsel, the Court is not to take notice of their crotchets."

"In a common case, it is the usual course for the counsel to take the memorandums in his hand, for the cross-examination."

"It is impossible the cause can go on, unless the gentlemen at the bar will a little understand one another, and by mutual forbearance, assist one another; you are a little too apt to break out, and I think there has been a little inclination sometimes to observe more upon that than the occasion calls for."

"It is fit they should speak what they can for the advantage of their client."

"It has been always the practice heretofore, that when the Court have delivered their opinion, the counsel should sit down and not dispute it any further."

"Consider a little how you treat the Court; the objection hath been solemnly taken in this Court, argued and adjudged by this Court, and now you come to arraign that judgment that was then given."

"The point now before us is a settled case, and therefore there is no need to enter into arguments about it."

"There is usually a decency about counsel which prevents them from pressing that to a conclusion which can never be concluded."

"Counsel are frequently induced, and they are justified in taking the most favourable view of their clients' case; and it is not fair to pass over any piece of evidence they find difficult to deal with, provided they cite, fairly and correctly, those parts of the evidence they comment upon."

"A counsel's position is one of the utmost difficulty. He is not to speak of that which he knows; he is not called upon to consider whether the facts with which he is dealing are true or false. What he has to do, is to argue as best he can, without degrading himself, in order to maintain the proposition which will carry with it either the protection or the remedy which he desires for his client. If amidst the difficulties of his position he were to be called upon during the heat of his argument to consider whether what he says is true or false, whether what he says is relevant or irrelevant, he would have his mind so embarrassed that he could not do the duty which he is called upon to perform. For, more than a Judge, infinitely more than a witness, he wants protection on the ground of benefit to the public. The rule of law is that what is said in the course of the administration of the law is privileged; and the reason of that rule covers a counsel even more than a Judge or a witness."

"And let not the counsel at the bar chop with the Judge, nor wind himself into the handling of the cause anew, after the Judge hath declared his sentence."

"Absurdum est affirjnare (re judicata) eredendum esse non judici: It is absurd to say, after judgment, that any one else than the Judge should be hearkened to."

"It is expected you should do your best for those you are assigned for, as it is expected in any other case, that you do your duty for your client."

"The Court is greatly obliged to the gentlemen of the Bar who have spoke on the subject; and by whose care and abilities so much has been effected, that the rule of decision will be reduced to a very easy compass. I cannot omit to express particular happiness in seeing young men, just called to the Bar, have been able so much to profit by their reading."

"No man has a higher sense of the importance of the rights and privileges of counsel in discharge of their arduous and important duties, and I should regret if they had not that privilege, not for their sake only, but for the sake of the whole community."

"You need not cite cases that are familiar."

"An overspeaking Judge is a no well-timed cymbal. It is no grace to a Judge first to find that which he might have heard in due time from the Bar, or to show quickness of conceit in cutting off evidence or counsel too short, or to prevent (anticipate) information by questions, though pertinent."

"You need not cite cases: 'Tis a principle."

"I remember Lord Eldon saying to counsel, " You have told us how far the cases have gone, will you now tell us where they are to stop?" I think it is now time that we should say where the cases are to stop."

"A man's rights are to be determined by the Court, not by his attorney or counsel. It is for want of remembering this that foolish people object to lawyers that they will advocate a case against their own opinions. A client is entitled to say to his counsel, I want your advocacy, not your judgment; I prefer that of the Court."

"When counsel addresses an argument on the ground of natural justice to a Court of law, he addresses it to the wrong tribunal. It may be a good argument for inducing the legislature to alter the law; but in a Court of law all that we can deal with is the law of the land as we find it."

"First settle what the case is, before you argue it."

"Don't you foist in a proposition which is not allowed."

"It seems to me that the argument of the defendant's counsel blows hot and cold at the same time."

"Allegans contraria non est audiendus (Jenk. Cent. 16): "He is not to be heard who alleges things contradictory to each other." This elementary rule of logic expresses, in technical language, the saying that a man shall not be permitted to "blow hot and cold" with reference to the same transaction, or insist, at different times, on the truth of each of two conflicting allegations, according to the promptings of his private interest. Says the Satyr, if you have gotten a trick of blowing hot and cold out of the same mouth, I've e'en done with ye."

"A grosser perversion of English justice it is impossible to imagine, and I should indeed be sorry if, under any circumstances, it could be proved to be English law."

"It is the duty of all Courts to keep counsel to the points before them."

"I wish to uphold counsel in the exercise of their discretion."

"I cannot allow that the counsel is the agent of the party."

"I always said, I will be my client's advocate, not his agent. To hire himself to any particular course, is a position in which no member of the profession ought to place himself."

"A judgment for too little, is as bad as a judgment for too much."

"A Judge ought to be severe in awarding costs when he finds that expenses have been incurred through a wrongful suppression of material documents."

"It is unconscionable in a defendant, to take advantage of the apices litigandi, to turn a plaintiff round, and make him pay costs where his demand is just. Against such objections every possible presumption ought to be made, which ingenuity can suggest. How disgraceful then would it be to the administration of justice to allow Chicane to obstruct Bight; by the help of a legal fiction contrary to the help of the fact!"

"I will be no party to paying out of charity property costs which are not properly payable out of it."

"By the rule of law, the King neither receives or pays costs."

"The Crown was always an unequal match for the subjects: but if the weight of costs were thrown into the scale, this would become such an addition as would make its prosecutions heavier than they would be able to bear."

"Damages are designed not only as a satisfaction to the injured person, but likewise as a punishment to the guilty, to deter from any such proceeding for the future, and as a proof of the detestation of the jury to the action itself."

"I wish to know, in a case where a man disregards every principle which actuates the conduct of gentlemen, what is to restrain him except large damages?"

"Vita reipubliete pax, et animus libertat et libertatis, firmissimum propugnaculum sua caique domus legibus munita."

"Nobiles magis plectuntur pecunia; plebes vera in corpure."

"Every injury imports a damage, though it does not cost the party one farthing, and it is impossible to prove the contrary; for a damage is not merely pecuniary, but an injury imports a damage, when a man is hereby hindered of his right. As in an action for slanderous words, though a man does not lose a penny by reason of the speaking them, yet he shall have an action. So if a man give another a cuff on the ear, though it cost him nothing, no, not so much as a little diachylon, yet he shall have his action, for it is a personal injury."

"To excuse himself from damage, must say, was ready always and at all times."

"Nominal damages are in effect, only a peg to hang costs on."

""Nominal damages," is a technical phrase which means that you have negatived anything like real damage, but that you are affirming by your nominal damages that there is an infraction of a legal right which, though it gives you no right to any real damages at all, yet gives you a right to the verdict or judgment because your legal right has been infringed. But the term "nominal damages" does not mean small damages. The extent to which a person has a right to recover what is called by the compendious phrase damages, but may be also represented as compensation for the use of something that belongs to him, depends upon a variety of circumstances, and it certainly does not in the smallest degree suggest that because they are small they are necessarily nominal damages. Of course, the whole region of inquiry into damages, is one of extreme difficulty. You very often cannot even lay down any principle upon which you can give damages; nevertheless, it is remitted to the jury, or those who stand in place of the jury, to consider what compensation in money shall be given for what is a wrongful act."

"An ejectment is an ingenious fiction, for the trial of titles to the possession of land."

"This case of removing a man who lives upon his own, is a case of a tender nature: and the Court ought not to give too readily in to it."

"The King has no interest in this money : he is only Royal trustee for the party."

"I have looked into the books in order to discover the origin of the proceeding of paying money into Court, but without being able to fix the period of its commencement, though I think it highly probable that it took its rise early in the present century."

"Specific performance is relief which this Court will not give, unless in cases where the parties seeking it come promptly, and as soon as the nature of the case will permit."

"By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes his duty against the influence of authority and majorities, custom and opinion."

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it."

"All authority must be out of a man's self, turned * * * either upon an art, or upon a man."

"The peaceful transfer of authority is rare in history, yet common in our country. With a simple oath, we affirm old traditions and make new beginnings."

"Authority intoxicates, And makes mere sots of magistrates; The fumes of it invade the brain, And make men giddy, proud, and vain."

"Authority is exercised legitimately only when it seeks the common good of the group concerned and if it employs morally licit means to attain it. If rulers were to enact unjust laws or take measures contrary to the moral order, such arrangements would not be binding in conscience. In such a case, "authority breaks down completely and results in shameful abuse.""

"In Amazon societies, women were mothers and their society's only warriors; mothers and their society's only hunters; mothers and their society's only political and religious leaders. No division of labor based on sex seems to have existed in such societies. Although Amazon leaders existed and queens were elected, the societies seem to have been...ones in which any woman could aspire to and achieve full human expression."

"I think it only makes sense to seek out and identify structures of authority, hierarchy, and domination in every aspect of life, and to challenge them; unless a justification for them can be given, they are illegitimate, and should be dismantled, to increase the scope of human freedom."

"There is no greater mindlessness and absurdity than to force conscience and the spirit with external power, when only their creator has authority for them."

"Autoritätsdusel ist der größte Feind der Wahrheit."

"Nearest the king, nearest the gallows."

"All authority is violence. [...] We may well assume that not all those who govern have the courage to make such a confession; and furthermore it might be dangerous for them to make it too loudly. They try to mask the crime from themselves; at least they try to conceal it from the notice of those who submit to their law. If they can not totally deny it, they attempt to justify it. The most radical justification would be to demonstrate that it is necessary: it then ceases to be a crime, it becomes fatality."

"It's utterly incomprehensible to me how someone could say we don’t need a teaching authority of the Church. If we have five Bible scriptures and 18 opinions regarding them, who is to determine? Either it's the fact that My intellect is better than yours; I've studied more than you; I can persuade better than you can; I'm more passionate than you that makes my opinion win over yours. Or we have a teaching authority that says, The rule book says this is how you settle this issue."

"Authorities [...] are where they are only because God is allowing them to be there. They exist only at his sufferance. And if God is willing to put up with [...] the Roman Empire, you ought to be willing to put up with it, too. There is no indication God has called you to clear it out of the way or get it converted for him. You can't fight an Empire without becoming like the Roman Empire; so you had better leave such matters in God's hands where they belong."

"Auctoritas siquidem ex vera ratione processit, ratio vero nequaquam ex auctoritate. Omnis enim auctoritas, quae vera ratione non approbatur, infirma videtur esse. Vera autem ratio, quum virtutibus suis rata atque immutabilis munitur, nullius auctoritatis adstipulatione roborari indigent."

"Let’s look at the real world and set who is causing all this violence and repression of human rights. The wholesale murder by standing armies in World Wars I and II, the pillage and tape of former colonial counties, military invasions or so-called “police operations” in Korea and Vietnam — all of these have been done by governments. It is government and state/class rule, which is the source of all violence. This includes all governments. The so-called “Communist” world is not communist and the “Free” world is not free. East and West, Capitalism, private or state remains an inhuman type of society where the vast majority is bossed at work, at home, and in the community. Propaganda (news and literary), policemen and soldiers, prisons and schools, traditional values and morality all serve to reinforce the power of the few and to convince or correct the many into passive acceptance of a brutal degrading and irrational system. This is what Anarchists mean by authority being oppression, and it is just such authoritarian rule which is at work in the United States of America, as well as the “Communist” governments of China or Cuba."

"I feel boundless anger against parental authority, which crushed me under the high-sounding name of parental love, and against state and social authority, which abused me in the name of universal love."

"Because the wielders of power continue to defend their authority in the usual manner and oppress the weak – and because my past experience has been a story of oppression by all sources of authority – I decided to deny the rights of all authority, rebel against them, and stake not only my own life but that of all humanity on this endeavor."

"Direct action against the authority in the shop, direct action against the authority of the law, direct action against the invasive, meddlesome authority of our moral code, is the logical, consistent method of Anarchism."

"Mistakes made by influential scholars are indeed liable to be repeated by later generations content to rest in the unstable shade of authority."

"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"

"I have worked for this restlessness oriented toward inward deepening. But “without authority.” Instead of conceitedly making myself out to be a witness for the truth and causing others rashly to want to be the same, I am an unauthorized poet who influences by means of the ideas."

"If, in order to make someone get out of my room, I have to use force, I have to change my own behaviour to realise the act in question, and I show through this behaviour that I have no authority; things are completely different if I do not move and this person leaves the room, that is to say, changes, as a result of my simply saying 'get out!' If the given order provokes a discussion, that is to say, forces the one who gives it to do something himself – namely engage in a discussion – as a function of this order, then there is no authority. And even less so if the discussion leads to giving up the order or even to a compromise, that is to say, precisely to changing the act that was supposed to provoke an outward change without itself changing."

"Obviously, absolute Authority in the strong sense of the word is never realised in fact. Only God is held to possess it."

"Think for yourself and question authority."

"This my dear friend is the one truly great contribution of my Wonder Woman strip to moral education of the young. The only hope for peace is to teach people who are full of pep and unbound force to enjoy being bound--enjoy submission to kind authority, wise authority, not merely tolerate such submission. Wars will only cease when humans enjoy being bound."

"I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects' strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects' ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation."

"Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority."

"Both political Parties, and the remnants of Liberalism as well, stand bound by the great vested interests of "Right" and "Left" which created them. In Opposition, there is the same profusion of promise; in office, the same apathy and inertia. In post-War England,their creeds have become platitudes; they consistently fail to grapple with the problems of the time. Their rule has led, with tragic inevitability, to the present chaos. Therefore our Fascist Movement seeks on the one hand authority as the basis of all solid achievement; we seek, on the other hand, progress, which can be achieved only by the executive instrument that order, authority and decision alone can give."

"I appeal unto Cæsar."

"Officium officialium, quorum te numero aggregasti, hodie est, jura confundere, suscitare lites, transactiones rescindere, innectere dilationes, suprimere veritatem, fovere mendacium, quaestum sequi, aeqitatem vendere, inhiare exactionibus, versutias concinnare."

"Authority is not mere power, and it is extremely unhelpful, even dangerous, to confuse the two. When people exert power over others, they compel them, forcefully. They apply the threat of privation or punishment so their subordinates have little choice but to act in a manner contrary to their personal needs, desires, and values. When people wield authority, by contrast, they do so because of their competence—a competence that is spontaneously recognized and appreciated by others, and generally followed willingly, with a certain relief, and with the sense that justice is being served. […]"

"To modern educated people, it seems obvious that matters of fact are to be ascertained by observation, not by consulting ancient authorities. But this is an entirely modern conception, which hardly existed before the seventeenth century. Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths. He said also that children would be healthier if conceived when the wind is in the north. One gathers that the two Mrs. Aristotles both had to run out and look at the weathercock every evening before going to bed. He states that a man bitten by a mad dog will not go mad, but any other animal will (Hiss. Am., 704a); that the bite of the shrewmouse is dangerous to horses, especially if the mouse is pregnant (ibid., 604.b); that elephants suffering from insomnia can be cured by rubbing their shoulders with salt, olive oil, and warm water (ibid., 605.a); and so on and so on. Nevertheless, classical dons, who have never observed any animal except the cat and the dog, continue to praise Aristotle for his fidelity to observation."

"There is no fettering of authority."

"Shall remain! Hear you this Triton of the minnows? mark you His absolute "shall"?"

"Thou hast seen a farmer's dog bark at a beggar, And the creature run from the cur: There, thou might'st behold the great image of authority; A dog's obeyed in office."

"Those he commands, move only in command, Nothing in love: now does he feel his title Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe Upon a dwarfish thief."

"Thus can the demi-god Authority Make us pay down for our offense by weight."

"But man, proud man, Drest in a little brief authority, Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd, His glassy essence, like an angry ape, Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven, As make the angels weep."

"And though authority be a stubborn bear, yet he is oft led by the nose with gold."

"William T. Riker: Wes, responsibility and authority go hand in hand. I know you're responsible, now we've got to teach you a little bit of authority. One of the reasons you've been given command is so you can make a few right decisions, that will establish a pattern of success and help build self-confidence. If you don't trust your own judgment, you don't belong in the command chair."

"[W]hen reason’s voice, Loud as the voice of Nature, shall have waked The nations; and mankind perceive that vice Is discord, war and misery; that virtue Is peace and happiness and harmony; When man’s maturer nature shall disdain The playthings of its childhood; -kingly glare Will lose its power to dazzle, its authority Will silently pass by; the gorgeous throne Shall stand unnoticed in the regal hall, Fast falling to decay; whilst falsehood’s trade Shall be as hateful and unprofitable As that of truth is now."

"Whatever the man in authority said, it was not pleasant. Whatever the man in authority said, it was not right."

"Punitis ingeniis, gliscit auctoritas."

"Authority forgets a dying king Laid widow'd of the power in his eye That bow'd the will."

"The order of authority derives from God, as the Apostle says &#91;in Romans 13:1-7&#93;. For this reason, the duty of obedience is, for the Christian, a consequence of this derivation of authority from God, and ceases when that ceases. But, as we have already said, authority may fail to derive from God for two reasons: either because of the way in which authority has been obtained, or in consequence of the use which is made of it. There are two ways in which the first may occur. Either because of a defect in the person, if he is unworthy; or because of some defect in the way itself by which power was acquired, if, for example, through violence, or simony or some other illegal method."

"With regard to the abuse of authority, this also may come about in two ways. First, when what is ordered by an authority is opposed to the object for which that authority was constituted (if, for example, some sinful action is commanded or one which is contrary to virtue, when it is precisely for the protection and fostering of virtue that authority is instituted). In such a case, not only is there no obligation to obey the authority, but one is obliged to disobey it, as did the holy martyrs who suffered death rather than obey the impious commands of tyrants. Secondly, when those who bear such authority command things which exceed the competence of such authority; as, for example, when a master demands payment from a servant which the latter is not bound to make, and other similar cases. In this instance the subject is free to obey or disobey."

"The ambiguity of leadership in the sense of authority starts the moment that actual authority, which is based on the division of experience, is frozen into an authority bound to a particular social position. [...] All institutional hierarchy is based on this transformation of actual into established authority."

"Authority is [...] open to rejection in the name of justice. Established authority tries to prevent such rejection, and here an ambiguity appears: a successful rejection of authority would undercut the social structure of life, whereas a surrender to authority would destroy the basis of authority—the personal self and its claim for justice."

"Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is divine. Far from being rivals or enemies religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistance. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other."

"It seemed even the smallest exercise of arbitrary authority could go to one’s head like wine. I told myself to remember this when I was older."

"You can't make up for two thousand years of exile in a few years."

"By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. There on the poplars we hung our harps, for there our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy; they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” How can we sing the songs of the LORD while in a foreign land? If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy."

"Better to be cast out of the church than to deny Christ."

"EXILE, n. One who serves his country by residing abroad, yet is not an ambassador."

"I’m in exile from the mother tongue—in exile from the foreign tongue—in exile from all the tongues that wag with the familiarity of knowing—with the credibility and the certainty—and without any kind of doubt that this is their town and country. I laugh out loud—and my laughter is as mother tongue as any laughter in any foreign tongue—but the joke is on me—because my laughter is not cheering for the other team which is roasting the barbaric tongue over an open flame of racist jokes and innuendos which is what the mother of all eggs laid in the foreign tongue wants—to leave me speechless—without a motherland—a land to mother my thoughts or a bed to lie down in."

"You are engaged with an elsewhere that cannot be reached: Isn't that the defining characteristic of exile?"

"Here in this Babylon, that’s festering forth as much evil as the rest of the earth; Here where true Love deprecates his worth, as his powerful mother pollutes everything. Here where evil is refined and good is cursed, and tyranny, not honor, has its way; Here where the Monarchy, in disarray, blindly attempts to mislead God, and worse. Here in this labyrinth, where Royalty, willingly, chooses to succumb before the Gates of Greed and Infamy; Here in this murky chaos and delirium, I carry out my tragic destiny, but never will I forget you, Jerusalem!"

"Of troubles none is greater than to be robbed of one's native land."

"When you are exiled from a space, you are exiled from a time."

"… political exile is not exile from influence."

"An exile is a person compelled to leave or remain outside his country of origin on account of well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, or political opinion; a person who considers his exile temporary (even though it may last a lifetime), hoping to return to his fatherland when circumstances permit—but unwilling or unable to do so as long as the factors that made him an exile persist."

"You know, when you go outside on the streets after having spent the day writing, you feel like a foreign body, even in your own country. This sensation perhaps feels more natural when you are really outside your country."

"The world was all before them, where to choose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide; They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow, Through Eden took their solitary way."

"Had we no other quarrel else to Rome, but that Thou art thence banish'd, we would muster all From twelve to seventy; and pouring war Into the bowels of ungrateful Rome, Like a bold flood o'erbear."

"No, my good lord: banish Peto, banish Bardolph, banish Poins; but for sweet Jack Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff, and therefore more valiant, being as he is old Jack Falstaff, banish not him thy Harry's company: banish plump Jack and banish all the world."

"Have stooped my neck under your injuries And sighed my English breath in foreign clouds, Eating the bitter bread of banishment."

"Banished? O friar, the damned use that word in hell; Howlings attend it: How hast thou the heart, Being a divine, a ghostly confessor, A sin-absolver, and my friend profess'd, To mangle me with that word—banished?"

"For 32 years (1884-1916) the president of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society was Charles Taze Russell. He was a fearless preacher and a prolific writer. He boldly denounced and refuted the Trinity doctrine, the immortal soul and eternal hellfire teachings. At one time Russell’s sermons were being featured every week in some 3,000 newspapers in the United States, Canada and Europe. Consequently he was under constant attack, mainly by the clergy. Many of his enemies stooped to personal attacks in an attempt to discredit him. How did he view these slanderers? He once said: “If you stop to kick at every dog that barks at you, you’ll never get very far.”"

"Such a businessman has never become rich whose mouth was full of slander and his heart full of envy of success of the others, who could with great skill reveal the mistakes of his competitor. However that one has never been and will never be poor who serves his customers with words of cordial kindness and whose eyes can see rather the positive than the negative features of the competitor so that he could use them."

"When squint-eyed Slander plies the unhallow'd tongue, From poison'd maw when Treason weaves his line, And Muse apostate (infamy to song!) Grovels, low muttering, at Sedition's shrine."

"Calomniez, calomniez; il en reste toujours quelque chose."

"Slander is a poison which extinguishes charity, both in the slanderer and in the persons who listen to it."

"DEFAME, v.t. To lie about another. To tell the truth about another."

"Abandoning false speech, the ascetic Gotama dwells refraining from false speech, a truth-speaker, one to be relied on, trustworthy, dependable, not a deceiver of the world. Abandoning malicious speech, he does not repeat there what he has heard here to the detriment of these, or repeat here what he has heard there to the detriment of those. Thus he is a reconciler of those at variance and an encourager of those at one, rejoicing in peace, loving it, delighting in it, one who speaks up for peace. Abandoning harsh speech, he refrains from it. He speaks whatever is blameless, pleasing to the ear, agreeable, reaching the heart, urbane, pleasing and attractive to the multitude. Abandoning idle chatter, he speaks at the right time, what is correct and to the point, of Dhamma and discipline. He is a speaker whose words are to be treasured, seasonable, reasoned, well-defined and connected with the goal."

""Or he might say: 'Having abandoned slander, the recluse Gotama abstains from slander. He does not repeat elsewhere what he has heard here in order to divide others from the people here, nor does he repeat here what he has heard elsewhere in order to divide these from the people there. Thus he is a reconciler of those who are divided and a promoter of friendships. Rejoicing, delighting, and exulting in concord, he speaks only words that are conducive to concord.'"

"Every libel, which is called famosus libellus, is made either against a private man, or against a public person. If it be against a private man, it deserves a severe punishment."

"I hate the man who builds his name On ruins of another's fame. Thus prudes, by characters o'erthrown, Imagine that they raise their own. Thus Scribblers, covetous of praise, Think slander can transplant the bays."

"Slander is compared to an arrow, not to any other handy weapon, such as a sword, etc., because like an arrow it kills at a distance. It can be uttered in Rome and have its baneful effect in Syria."

"Dens Theonina."

"…repeating defamation taken from another source is still defamation. The fact that the victim has not sued others who spread the defamation first does not authorize anybody to repeat their slanderous statements."

"Not all defamation is art; some is incitement."

"Peter Parker: Spider-Man wasn't terrorizing the city, he was trying to save it! It's slander!"

"Persisting in a charge which one does not know to be true, is simply malicious slander."

"If you think you can, by slandering a woman make her love you, or by vilifying a man make him vote with you, go on and try it."

"Truth is generally the best vindication against slander."

"Audacter calumniare, quia semper aliquid adhæret. Hurl your calumnies boldly, for something is sure to stick."

"This is not a book. This is libel, slander, defamation of character. This is not a book, in the ordinary sense of the word. No, this is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of Art, a kick in the pants to God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty … what you will."

"For oh, 'twas nuts to the Father of Lies, (As this wily fiend is named in the Bible) To find it settled by Laws so wise That the greater the truth, the worse the libel."

"'T was Slander filled her mouth with lying words, Slander, the foulest whelp of Sin."

"A generous heart repairs a slanderous tongue."

"Do not repeat slander; you should not hear it, for it is the result of hot temper."

"Woe unto every slandering traducer."

"Alexander von Humboldt (seeing a newspaper containing slanderous falsehoods against Jefferson on the President's desk) : Why do you not have the fellow hung who dares to write these abominable lies? Thomas Jefferson : What! hang the guardians of the public morals? No, sir, — rather would I protect the spirit of freedom which dictates even that degree of abuse. Put that paper into your pocket, my good friend, carry it with you to Europe, and when you hear any one doubt the reality of American freedom, show them that paper, and tell them where you found it. Humboldt : But is it not shocking that virtuous characters should be defamed? Jefferson : Let their actions refute such libels. Believe me, virtue is not long darkened by the clouds of calumny; and the temporary pain which it causes is infinitely overweighed by the safety it insures against degeneracy in the principles and conduct of public functionaries. When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property."

"For slander lives upon succession, Forever housed where it gets possession."

"'Tis slander, Whose edge is sharper than the sword, whose tongue Outvenoms all the worms of Nile, whose breath Rides on the posting winds and doth belie All corners of the world; kings, queens and states, Maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave This viperous slander enters."

"Virtue itself 'scapes not calumnious strokes."

"Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny."

"King: So haply slander- Whose whisper o'er the world's diameter, As level as the cannon to his blank, Transports his poisoned shot- may miss our name And hit the woundless air.- O, come away! My soul is full of discord and dismay."

"No might nor greatness in mortality Can censure 'scape; back-wounding calumny The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong, Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?"

"One doth not know How much an ill word may empoison liking."

"Slander'd to death by villains, That dare as well answer a man indeed As I dare take a serpent by the tongue: Boys, apes, braggarts, Jacks, milksops!"

"Done to death by slanderous tongues, Was the Hero that here lies."

"I will be hang'd, if some eternal villain, Some busy and insinuating rogue, Some cogging, cozening slave, to get some office, Have not devis'd this slander."

"I am disgrac'd, impeach'd and baffled here,— Pierc'd to the soul with slander's venom'd spear."

"That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect, For slander's mark was ever yet the fair; * * * * So thou be good, slander doth but approve Thy worth the greater."

"If I can do it By aught that I can speak in his dispraise, She shall not long continue love to him."

"With ridiculous and awkward action, Which, slanderer, he imitation calls."

"Calumny will sear Virtue itself;—these shrugs, these hums, and ha's."

"The breath Of accusation kills an innocent name, And leaves for lame acquittal the poor life, Which is a mask without it."

"Silence to man and prayer to God are the best cures for the evil of slander."

"The eyes of the slanderer always move around as shiftily as a spindle. You should never remain in his presence; his intentions should not be allowed to have an effect on you."

"It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you to the heart; the one to slander you and the other to get the news to you."

"An injurious lie is an uncommendable thing; and so, also, and in the same degree, is an injurious truth—a fact that is recognized by the law of libel."

"There are * * * robberies that leave man or woman forever beggared of peace and joy, yet kept secret by the sufferer."

"If slander be a snake, it is a winged one—it flies as well as creeps."

"Where it concerns himself, Who's angry at a slander, makes it true."

"Cut Men's throats with whisperings."

"For enemies carry about slander not in the form in which it took its rise. * * * The scandal of men is everlasting; even then does it survive when you would suppose it to be dead."

"Homines qui gestant, quique auscultant crimina, Si meo arbitratu liceat, omnes pendeant, Gestores linguis, auditores auribus."

"Soft-buzzing Slander; silly moths that eat An honest name."

"Nihil est autem tam volucre, quam maledictum; nihil facilius emittitur; nihil citius excipitur, latius dissipatur."

"Calumny is only the noise of madmen."

"A nickname a man may chance to wear out; but a system of calumny, pursued by a faction, may descend even to posterity. This principle has taken full effect on this state favorite."

"There are calumnies against which even innocence loses courage."

"Everything printed or written, which reflects on the character of another, and is published without lawful justification or excuse, is a libel, whatever the intention may have been."

"It is not the truth or falsehood that makes a libel, but the temper with which it is published."

"It was the rule of Holt, Chief Justice, to make words actionable whenever they sound to the disreputation of the person of whom they were spoken; and this was also Hale's and Twieden's rule; and I think it a very good rule."

"Libelling against a private man is a moral offence; but when it is against a government, it tends to the destruction of it."

"Why are libels against individuals prosecuted? Because they have a tendency to provoke the party to whom they are sent to a breach of the peace."

"His reputation is his property, and, if possible, more valuable than other property."

"A good name is better than precious ointment."

"He that filches from me my good name, Robs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed."

"The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works."

"The Lord anciently enjoined the people of Israel that they should repeat the words after the priest, and make public confession of their iniquities in the temple; because he foresaw that this was a necessary help to enable each one to form a just idea of himself. And it is proper that by confession of our misery, we should manifest the mercy of our God both among ourselves and before the whole world. It is proper that this mode of confession should both be ordinary in the Church, and also be specially employed on extraordinary occasions, when the people in common happen to have fallen into any fault. Of this latter description we have an example in the solemn confession which the whole people made under the authority and guidance of Ezra and Nehemiah (Neh. 1:6, 7). ... And it matters not though in one assembly it may sometimes happen that a few are innocent, seeing that the members of a languid and sickly body cannot boast of soundness. Nay, it is scarcely possible that these few have not contracted some taint, and so bear part of the blame."

"One thing they specially commend, that the blush of shame in the penitent is a severe punishment, which makes him more cautious for the future, and anticipates divine punishment, by his punishing himself. As if a man was not sufficiently humbled with shame when brought under the cognizance of God at his supreme tribunal. Admirable proficiency—if we cease to sin because we are ashamed to make one man acquainted with it, and blush not at having God as the witness of our evil conscience!"

"A confession is wholly and incontestably voluntary only if a guilty person gives himself up to the law and becomes his own accuser."

"If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein."

"Confess and be hanged."

"Stan: We're goin' to church. We've sinned and so we have to confess again."

"Stan: But our friend Timmy can't really talk. All he can do is say his own name, so he can't really confess his sins. So is he goin' to go to hell?"

"He's half absolved, who has confessed."

"Open Confession is good for the Soul."

"Nor do we find him forward to be sounded But, with a crafty madness, keeps aloof, When we would bring him on to some confession Of his true state."

"Confess yourself to heaven; Repent what's past; avoid what is to come."

"Confess thee freely of thy sin; For to deny each article with oath Cannot remove nor choke the strong conception That I do groan withal."

"I own the soft impeachment."

"Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy."

"Proximum ab innocentia tenet locum verecunda peccati confessio."

"There is no refuge from confession but suicide; and suicide is confession."

"It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution."

"Confess debt, and beg days. Confessing a fault makes half amends for it."

"Year-books, books written of the law of England, and judgments in Parliament, are three of the authorities, and they are thesauri aperti. Judicial records and precedents are the fourth, and they are thesauri absconditi."

"I cannot help observing, that many of those who have written in support of our ancient system of jurisprudence, the growth of the wisdom of man for so many ages, are not as they are alleged by some to be men writing from their closets without any knowledge of the affairs of life, but persons mixing with the mass of society, and capable of receiving practical experience of the soundness of the maxims they inculcate."

"It is certainly true that from the reign of Edward VI. to the end of the reign of James I., many decisions will be found turning on many nice points, and many now apparently frivolous objections have been entertained, but it was not because the Judges who graced the bench in those days were inferior, either in intellect or in learning, to those who now sit on it; in the last, I fear, they would be found our masters; but it is because a greater liberality of sentiment now prevails in the decisions of Courts of justice."

"To be sure the Court regularly adheres to regular judgments, if in the support of the merits and justice; but if against the merits and justice they always get rid of the mere formality of them; but they do it upon terms."

"Lord Chief Justice Gibbs used to say that he could get authorities in the Year-Books for any side in any thing."

"This Court is bound to adhere loyally to former decisions unless clearly satisfied that they are wrong. But, if we are satisfied that a former decision is clearly wrong, and not warranted by law, we ought not blindly to follow it: and I am satisfied that the Court has acted upon that principle on more than one occasion. … I agree also that the Court should use the utmost circumspection in overruling a case which has been acted upon for several years, and especially after subsequent legislation upon the subject, which has left the decision untouched."

"It is my misfortune to differ in opinion from some decisions of this Court, not from captious motives, but from a conscientious conviction, that those decisions are not founded upon the true principles of law and justice; and therefore I feel it my duty to endeavour to effect a restoration of the law to its true constitutional and legitimate standard1: when I shall be told by the highest Court of Judicature in this kingdom, assisted by the other Judges of Westminster Hall (as I suppose that assistance would be called in), that the decisions I oppose are right; I shall then acquiesce and conform to them."

"It is the duty of the Court not to alter a decision brought in review before it, merely because another view, perhaps as good, may be presented. In matters involving discretion it is often very difficult to say with certainty which decision is right."

"Judgments are in their nature equal till they are reversed, in what Court soever they are obtained; a judgment in a Court of record by grant, is equal to a judgment in a Court of record by prescription; and a judgment in a Court piepoudre is equal to a judgment in any of the superior Courts."

"Judicia posteriora sunt in lege fortiora: The later decisions are the stronger in law."

"Judiciis posterioribus fides est adhibenda : Credit is to be taken to the later decisions."

"I have often said, and I repeat it, that the only thing in a Judge's decision binding as an authority upon a subsequent Judge is the principle upon which the case was decided: but it is not sufficient that the case should have been decided on a principle if that principle is not itself a right principle, or one not applicable to the case; and it is for a subsequent Judge to say whether or not it is a right principle, and, if not, he may himself lay down the true principle. In that case the prior decision ceases to be a binding authority or guide for any subsequent Judge, for the second Judge who lays down the principle in effect reverses the decision."

"Decisions are to be followed as precedents."

"Judicial opinion has varied a great deal, and must vary a great deal, when you consider the ground upon which that judicial opinion or those judicial opinions have been founded."

"It is the principle of the decision by which we are bound, not a mere rule that in exactly the same circumstances we are to arrive at the same conclusions. Therefore to say that the decisions are wrong in point of principle, if that principle was clearly laid down, does not relieve us from the obligation of following the principle of the decision, because the whole theory of our system is, that the decision of a superior Court is binding on an inferior Court and on a Court of co-ordinate jurisdiction, in so far as it is a statement of the law which the Court is bound to accept."

"Judicial decisions in Courts of justice are ranked by Lord Hale as one of the grounds or constituents of the common law."

"A considerable part of the law of England consists of judicial decisions, and in the very nature of things this must be so. Every decision upon a debated point adds a little to the law by making that point certain for the future."

"It is very dangerous for a Judge who does not agree with particular decisions, to deal in distinctions from those decisions."

"I think that the proper and safe course is to follow a decision of a Court of co-ordinate jurisdiction, unless some cogent reason is given to the contrary."

"It is a matter of great difficulty to a Judge who disapproves of a decision to be quite sure that he is honestly distinguishing the case in which it was given from the case before him. Of course, the inclination of his mind is to find every distinction sufficient, and therefore he must be particularly on his guard to see that he does not unfairly distinguish with a view to getting rid of the original decision. I have tried in every instance before me to be thus on my guard, but whether I have succeeded or not will be for others to say."

"I will have it done, that it may remain a decision in perpetuam rei memoriam."

"A great deal of difficulty has been caused in the administration of the law, and particularly of the common law, by decisions in which technical rules have been formulated which were not true—that is, were not in accordance with the facts of the case."

"When we find a series of decisions running down from the time of Sir William Grant, we should be very cautious, and very slow to overrule them."

"A series of decisions based upon grounds of public policy, however eminent the Judges by whom they were delivered, cannot possess the same binding authority as decisions which deal with and formulate principles which are purely legal."

"A collection of records may be the result of professional knowledge, research, and skill, just as a collection of curiosities is the result of the skill and knowledge of the antiquarian or virtuoso."

"I must look at the decision with reference to all the circumstances which led to it."

"Where there is a decision precisely in point, it is better to follow it."

"The headnote is the fair epitome of the decision."

"Mankind naturally give evidence to the constituted Courts, and reputation is incurably damaged by their decisions, whether erroneous or not."

"While God created Adam, who was alone, He said, 'It is not good for man to be alone. He also created a woman, from the earth, as He had created Adam himself, and called her Lilith. Adam and Lilith immediately began to fight. She said, 'I will not lie below,' and he said, 'I will not lie beneath you, but only on top. For you are fit only to be in the bottom position, while I am to be the superior one.' Lilith responded, 'We are equal to each other inasmuch as we were both created from the earth.' But they would not listen to one another. When Lilith saw this, she pronounced the Ineffable Name and flew away into the air."

"I do not demand equal pay for any women save those who do equal work in value. Scorn to be coddled by your employers; make them understand that you are in their service as workers, not as women."

"Equality as it is currently pursued is incompatible with true liberty; for liberty involves an inner working with reference to standards, the right subordination, in other words, of man's ordinary will to a higher will. There is an inevitable clash, in short, between equality and humility."

"Equalisation laws, made at the expense of existing rights and expectations, are alike destructive to present security in respect to property, and to permanent security in respect of subsistence. The desire to establish such laws, or to cause them to be established — the love, the passion for equality, has its root, not in virtue, but in vice; not in benevolence, but in malevolence. . . . The passion for equality has no root in the benevolent affections: its root is either simply in the selfish affections, or in the selfish, combined with the malevolent. . . . The lover of equality, in its most refined form, is the man to whose eyes the spectacle of another’s prosperity is intolerable. What is the envious man but the same? What, then, is this so much boasted passion for equality? It is a propensity which begins in vice and leads to ruin. In the scale of merit, it is as much below selfishness as selfishness is below the virtue of benevolence."

"Political Freedom without economic equality is a pretense, a fraud, a lie; and the workers want no lying."

"As political equality is the remedy for political tyranny, so is economic equality the only way of putting an end to the economic tyranny exercised by the few over the many through superiority of wealth. The industrial system of a nation, like its political system, should be a government of the people, by the people, for the people. Until economic equality shall give a basis to political equality, the latter is but a sham."

"Shariputra, the bodhisattva treats all things and beings, each one of them, with perfect equality."

"At every turn, the struggle for equality was resisted by many of the powerful... Some have said we should not judge their failures by the standards of a later time, yet in every time there were men and women who clearly saw this sin and called it by name. We can fairly judge the past... Men and women, black and white, burned with a zeal for freedom and they left behind a different and better nation. Their moral vision caused Americans to examine our hearts, to correct our Constitution and to teach our children the dignity and equality of every person of every race."

"We are not yet speaking about equality if we have not yet spoken about equal grievability, or the equal attribution of grievability. Grievability is a defining feature of equality. Those whose grievability is not assumed are those who suffer inequality—unequal value."

"For we are not all equally afflicted with the same disease or all in need of the same severe cure. This is the reason why we see different persons disciplined with different crosses. The heavenly Physician takes care of the well-being of all his patients; he gives some a milder medicine and purifies others by more shocking treatments, but he omits no one; for the whole world, without exception, is ill (Deut 32:15)."

"If a man is genuinely superior to his fellows the first thing that he believes in is the equality of man. We can see this, for instance, in that strange and innocent rationality with which Christ addressed any motley crowd that happened to stand about Him. [...] This plainness, this almost prosaic camaraderie, is the note of all very great minds."

"Dogs look up to you, cats look down on you. Give me a pig! He looks you in the eye and treats you as an equal."

"The more opportunities there are in a Society for some persons to live upon the toil of others, and the less those others may enjoy the fruits of their work themselves, the more is diligence killed, the former become insolent, the latter despairing, and both negligent."

"It is not true that equality is a law of nature. Nature has made nothing equal; her sovereign law is subordination and dependence."

"Humanity can not be made equal by declarations on paper. Unless the material conditions for equality exist, it is worse than mockery to pronounce men equal."

"All men are born equally free and independent, and have certain natural, inherent and inalienable rights, amongst which are, the enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety."

"All men are born equally free and independent, and have certain inherent and indefeasible rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, of acquiring, possessing and protecting property and reputation, and of pursuing their own happiness."

"All men are born equally free and independent, and have certain natural, inherent and unalienable rights, amongst which are the enjoying and defending life and liberty; acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety. Therefore, no male person, born in this country, or brought from over sea, ought to be holden by law, to serve any person, as a servant, slave or apprentice."

"We all subscribe to the principle of religious liberty and toleration and equality of rights. This principle is in accordance with the fundamental law of the land. It is the very spirit of the American Constitution. We all recognize and admit that it ought to be put into practical operation. We know that every argument of right and reason requires such action. Yet in time of stress and public agitation we have too great a tendency to disregard this policy and indulge in race hatred, religious intolerance, and disregard of equal rights. Such sentiments are bound to react upon those who harbor them. Instead of being a benefit they are a positive injury."

"Equality, in a social sense, may be divided into that of condition and that of rights. Equality of condition is incompatible with civilization, and is found only to exist in those communities that are but slightly removed from the savage state. In practice, it can only mean a common misery"

"The Elgin writer says that we shall "jeopardize the best interests of the Socialist Party" if we insist upon the political equality of the Negro. I say that the Socialist Party would be false to its historic mission, violate the fundamental principles of Socialism, deny its philosophy and repudiate its own teachings if, on account of race considerations, it sought to exclude any human being from political equality and economic freedom. Then, indeed, would it not only "jeopardize" its best interests, but forfeit its very life, for it would soon be scorned and deserted as a thing unclean, leaving but a stench in the nostrils of honest men."

"Shigalyov is a man of genius. He invented equality. In his copybook it is well described. He provides for a mutual espionage. Each member of the society has to supervise the others and to denounce them. Everybody belongs to all and all belong to each individually. All are slaves and are equal in their serfdom. In the extreme case there is calumny and murder, but the most important thing is equality."

"Nature smiles at the union of freedom and equality in our utopias. For freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies. Leave men free, and their natural inequalities will multiply almost geometrically, as in England and America in the nineteenth century under laissez-faire. To check the growth of inequality, liberty must be sacrificed, as in Russia after 1917. Even when repressed, inequality grows; only the man who is below the average in economic ability desires equality; those who are conscious of superior ability desire freedom; and in the end superior ability has its way."

"Utopias of equality are biologically doomed, and the best that the amiable philosopher can hope for is an approximate equality of legal justice and educational opportunity."

"As long as I have any choice, I will only stay in a country where political liberty, tolerance, and equality of all citizens before the law prevail... These conditions do not obtain in Germany at the present time."

"Legislation to apply the principle of equal pay for equal work without discrimination because of sex is a matter of simple justice."

"La majestueuse égalité des lois, qui interdit au riche comme au pauvre de coucher sous les ponts, de mendier dans les rues et de voler du pain."

"It is a wise man who said that there is no greater inequality than the equal treatment of unequals."

"Every man of the commonalty (excepting infants, insane persons, and criminals) is, of common right, and by the laws of God, a freeman, and entitled to the free enjoyment of liberty. ...liberty or freedom consists in having an actual share in the appointment of those who are to frame the laws and who are to be the guardians of every man's life, property, and peace. For the all of one man is as dear to him as the all of another; and the poor man has an equal right, but more need to have representatives in the Legislature than the rich one. ...they who have no voice or vote in the electing of representatives, do not enjoy liberty, but are absolutely enslaved to those who have votes and their representatives; for to be enslaved is to have governors whom other men have set over us, and to be subject to laws made by the representatives of others, without having had representatives of our own to give consent in our behalf."

"The society that puts equality before freedom will end up with neither. The society that puts freedom before equality will end up with a great measure of both."

"I am uncompromising in the matter of woman's rights. In my opinion she should labour under no legal disability not suffered by man, I should treat the daughters and sons on a footing of perfect equality."

"...if inequalities stare us in the face the essential equality too is not to be missed. Every man has an equal right to the necessaries of life even as birds and beasts have. And since every right carries with it a corresponding duty and the corresponding remedy for resisting any attack upon it, it is merely a matter of finding out the corresponding duties and remedies to vindicate the elementary fundamental equality."

"I know very well that we are not all equal, nor can be so; but it is my opinion that he who deems it important to keep aloof from the so-called rabble, in order to maintain their respect, is as much to blame as a coward who hides himself from his enemy because he fears defeat."

"The principle of universal equality requires us truly to see all human beings as fundamentally neighbor. Even special relations such as spouses, children, and so on are neighbors first."

"In the good home, equality, considerateness, co-operation and helpfulness hold sway. Applied to the great people's and citizens' home this should mean the demolition of all social and economic ranks which now divide citizens into privileged and disadvantaged, into rulers and dependants, into rich and poor, propertied and miserable, plunderers and plundered."

"There is all the difference in the world between treating people equally and attempting to make them equal. While the first is the condition of a free society, the second means as De Tocqueville describes it, 'a new form of servitude.'"

"The National Socialist State recognizes no ‘classes’. But, under the political aspect, it recognizes only citizens with absolutely equal rights and equal obligations corresponding thereto. And, side by side with these, it recognizes subjects of the State who have no political rights whatsoever."

"...the völkisch view recognizes the importance of the racial subdivisions of mankind. In principle, it sees in the state only a means to an end, and it considers the preservation of the racial existence of men as its end. Thus, it by no means believes in the equality of all races, but along with their differences it also recognizes their superior and inferior nature, and by this recognition it feels the obligation, in accordance with the Eternal Will that dominates this universe, to promote the victory of the better and stronger and to demand the submission of the inferior and weaker in accordance with the eternal will that dominates the universe."

"...(if) it is asserted – and that even by those engaged in business – that in the political sphere special abilities are not needed but that here an absolute equality in achievement reigns, then one day this same theory will be transferred from politics to economic life. But in the economic sphere communism is analogous to democracy in the political sphere. We find ourselves today in a period in which these two fundamental principles contend with each other in all contiguous spheres and are already intruding into economics."

"The so-called granting of equal rights to women, which Marxism demands, in reality does not grant equal rights but constitutes a deprivation of rights, since it draws the woman into an area in which she will necessarily be inferior. It places the woman in situations that cannot strengthen her position — vis-a-vis both man and society — but only weaken it."

"For if all things were equally in all men, nothing would be prized."

"Those who see their lives as spoiled and wasted crave equality and fraternity more than they do freedom. If they clamor for freedom, it is but freedom to establish equality and uniformity. The passion for equality is partly a passion for anonymity: to be one thread of the many which make up a tunic; one thread not distinguishable from the others. No one can then point us out, measure us against others and expose our inferiority. They who clamor loudest for freedom are often the ones least likely to be happy in a free society. The frustrated, oppressed by their shortcomings, blame their failure on existing restraints. Actually, their innermost desire is for an end to the "free for all." They want to eliminate free competition and the ruthless testing to which the individual is continually subjected in a free society."

"Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of the masses. Where equality is real, freedom is the passion of a small minority. Equality without freedom creates a more stable social pattern than freedom without equality."

"There is a deep reassurance for the frustrated in witnessing the downfall of the fortunate and the disgrace of the righteous. They see in a general downfall an approach to the brotherhood of all. Chaos, like the grave, is a haven of equality. ...the old will have to be razed to the ground before the new can be built. Their clamor for a millennium is shot through with a hatred for all that exists, and a craving for the end of the world."

"I have no respect for the passion of equality, which seems to me merely idealizing envy — I don't disparage envy but I don't accept it as legitimately my master."

"Today, whenever women hear political leaders call their sex important, they grow suspicious. In the importance of the sex too often has lain the unimportance of the citizen, the worker and the human being. The ‘normal’ woman knows that, given freedom and equality before the law, she can be trusted to safeguard her own interests as wife, mother, daughter, or what you will."

"Winifred Holtby, "Black Words for Women Only" (1934), in Paul Berry and Alan Bishop, Testament of a Generation: The Journalism of Vera Brittain and Winifred Holtby, London : Virago, 1985. Also quoted in Patrick Deane, History in Our Hands : A Critical Anthology of Writings on Literature, Culture and Politics from the 1930s, Leicester University Press, 1998."

"The solitude of my walk led me into a train of reflections on that unequal division of property which occasions the numberless instances of wretchedness which I had observed all over Europe. The property of this country is absolutely concentrated in a very few hands... These employ the flower of the country as servants... They employ also a great number of manufacturers and tradesmen, and lastly the class of laboring husbandmen. But after all there comes the most numerous of all classes, that is the poor who cannot find work. I asked myself what could be the reason that so many should be permitted to beg who are willing to work, in a country where there is a very considerable proportion of uncultivated lands? ...I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable. But the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property, only taking care to let their subdivisions go hand in hand with the natural affections of the human mind. The descent of property of every kind therefore to all the children, or to all the brothers and sisters, or other relations in equal degree is a politic measure, and a practicable one. Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise. Whenever there is in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labor and live on. If for the encouragement of industry we allow it to be appropriated, we must take care that other employment be provided to those excluded from the appropriation. If we do not, the fundamental right to labor the earth returns to the unemployed. It is too soon yet in our country to say that every man who cannot find employment but who can find uncultivated land shall be at liberty to cultivate it, paying a moderate rent. But it is not too soon to provide by every possible means that as few as possible shall be without a little portion of land. The small land holders are the most precious part of a State."

"We must want equality, and we must grasp that equality does not coexist with class structure."

"What battles there have been to establish in a worldly way the woman in equal rights with the man – but Christianity makes only infinity’s change and therefore quietly. Outwardly the old more or less remains. The man is to be the woman’s master and she subservient to him: but inwardly everything is changed, changed by means of this little question to the woman, whether she has consulted with her conscience about having this man – as mate, for otherwise she does not get him. Yet the conscience-question about the conscience-matter makes her in inwardness before God absolutely equal with the man. What Christ said about his kingdom, that it is not of this world, holds true of everything Christian. As a higher order of things, it wants to be present everywhere but not to be seized. Just as a friendly spirit surrounds the dear ones, follows their every step but cannot be pointed to, so the essentially Christian wants to be a stranger in life because it belongs to another world. In the name of Christianity, fatuously people have fatuously been busy about making it obvious in a worldly way that the woman should be established in equal rights with the man-Christianity has never required or desired this. It has done everything for the woman, provided she Christianly will be satisfied with what is Christian; if she is unwilling, then for what she loses she gains only a mediocre compensation in the fragment of externality she can in a worldly way obtain by defiance."

"By nonviolent resistance, the Negro can also enlist all men of good will in his struggle for equality. The problem is not a purely racial one, with Negroes set against whites. In the end, it is not a struggle between people at all, but a tension between justice and injustice."

"Now our struggle is for genuine equality, which means economic equality. For we know now, that it isn't enough to integrate lunch counters. What does it profit a man to be able to eat at an integrated lunch counter if he doesn't have enough money to buy a hamburger?"

"We must furthermore always bear in mind that equality presupposes the perpetual application of force; equality after all is an unnatural condition — it is just as unnatural as a completely straight line, a geometrical plain, a perfect circle, distilled water, etc. It needs the intervention of human agencies who have to curtail and to stem the natural growth and development sometimes in the most brutal and cynical way. Docteur Guillotin, Procrustes, the mythological Hellenic bandit, and the magistrate of Strasbourg who decided during the French Revolution to demolish the tower of the medieval cathedral because it was higher than the surrounding houses, belong all to the same category."

"It must furthermore be borne in mind that equality stands for monotony and not for harmony. A harmonious melody can only be established by different unidentical musical tones. These tones must be assembled and have to follow in a certain sequence; otherwise they will result in chaos and not in melody. Human society presupposes such an inequality and unity."

"It is most amazing that one encounters fairly well-educated Christians who believe that "we are all equal before God." If Judas Iskariot were equal to John the Baptist or John the Evangelist, Christianity would have to close shop. Dominican R.L. Bruckburger said rightly that the New Testament is a message of human inequality. (Could one imagine that, at the Day of Judgment, all sentences could be equal? That God would not "discriminate" between saints and sinners?)"

"But there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal — there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution, gentlemen, is a court. It can be the Supreme Court of the United States or the humblest J.P. court in the land, or this honourable court which you serve. Our courts have their faults, as does any human institution, but in this country our courts are the great levellers, and in our courts all men are created equal."

"Mr. Tugan repeats the old trick of the reactionaries: first to misinterpret socialism by making it out to be an absurdity, and then to triumphantly refute the absurdity! When we say that experience and reason prove that men are not equal, we mean by equality, equality in abilities or similarity in physical strength and mental ability.It goes without saying that in this respect men are not equal. No sensible person and no socialist forgets this. But this kind of equality has nothing whatever to do with socialism. If Mr. Tugan is quite unable to think, he is at least able to read; were he to take the well-known work of one of the founders of scientific socialism, Frederick Engels, directed against Dühring, he would find there a special section explaining the absurdity of imagining that economic equality means anything else than the abolition of classes. But when professors set out to refute socialism, one never knows what to wonder at most—their stupidity, their ignorance, or their unscrupulousness."

"By political equality Social-Democrats mean equal rights, and by economic equality, as we have already said, they mean the abolition of classes. As for establishing human equality in the sense of equality of strength and abilities (physical and mental), socialists do not even think of such things."

"Complete equality of rights for all nations; the right of nations to self-determination; the unity of the workers of all nations — such is the national programme that Marxism, the experience of the whole world, and the experience of Russia, teach the workers."

"In the United States of America, as in other advanced countries, there are no medieval privileges. All citizens, are equal in political rights. But are they equal as regards their position in social production?No, Mr. Tugan, they are not. Some own land, factories and capital and live on the unpaid labour of the workers; these form an insignificant minority. Others, namely, the vast mass of the population, own no means of production and live only by selling their labour-power; these are proletarians."

"Theirs was the task (and nobly they performed it) to possess themselves, and through themselves us, of this goodly land, and to uprear upon its hills and its valleys a political edifice of liberty and equal rights; 'tis ours only to transmit these—the former unprofaned by the foot of an invader, the latter undecayed by the lapse of time and untorn by usurpation—to the latest generation that fate shall permit the world to know."

"When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than self-government — that is despotism. If the negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me that "all men are created equal," and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of another."

"Allow all the governed an equal voice in the government, and that, and that only, is self-government."

"As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal except negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal except negroes and foreigners and Catholics." When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty—to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy."

"I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include all men; but they did not intend to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral developments, or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness, in what respects they did consider all men created equal—equal with "certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." This they said, and this meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth, that all were then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. In fact, they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit. They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be familiar to all, and revered by all; constantly looked to; constantly labored for; and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated; and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere. The assertion that "all men are created equal" was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain; and it was placed in the Declaration, not for that but for future use. Its authors meant it to be as, thank God, it is now proving itself, a stumbling-block to all those who, in after-times, might seek to turn a free people back into the hateful paths of despotism. They knew the proneness of prosperity to breed tyrants, and they meant when such should reappear in this fair land and commence their vocation, they should find left for them at least one hard nut to crack. I have now briefly expressed my view of the meaning and objects of that part of the Declaration of Independence which declares that "all men are created equal"."

"All should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in that Declaration of Independence. Now, my friends, can this country be saved upon that basis? If it can, I will consider myself one of the happiest men in the world if I can help to save it. If it can't be saved upon that principle, it will be truly awful. But, if this country cannot be saved without giving up that principle. I was about to say I would rather be assassinated on this spot than to surrender it."

"Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."

"Socioeconomic equality and legal equality both fall short of the radicalism of Lockean equality. For neither of those forms of equality calls into question the authority of those who administer the legal system. … Both forms of equality call upon that power structure to do certain things; but in so doing, they both assume, and indeed require, an inequality in authority between those who administer the legal framework and everybody else."

"Given the extensive involvement of state violence in the process by which the corporate elite not only achieved its wealth in the past but continues to maintain and augment it in the present, it is clear that the massive inequalities of wealth that characterise present-day “capitalist” society are radically inconsistent with any approach to justice in holdings that is even remotely Nozickian."

"Merely pointing to the fact that some people have a lot more than others is less compelling as a critique; it invites the response “So what? Those who have more aren’t hurting anybody; you’re just appealing to envy.” By contrast, being able to show that those who enjoy a higher socioeconomic status have to a considerable extent achieved and maintained that status by forcibly expropriating and oppressing the less affluent provides for a far more effective indictment."

"For some must follow, and some command Though all are made of clay!"

"In its proper meaning equality before the law means the right to participate in the making of the laws by which one is governed, a constitution which guarantees democratic rights to all sections of the population, the right to approach the court for protection or relief in the case of the violation of rights guaranteed in the constitution, and the right to take part in the administration of justice as judges, magistrates, attorneys-general, law advisers and similar positions."

"Among unequals what society Can sort, what harmony, or true delight?"

"Every claim of political equality in our history has been met by fierce resistance from those who relished for themselves what they would deny others. After President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation it took a century before Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965—a hundred years of Jim Crow law and Jim Crow lynchings, of forced labor and coerced segregation, of beatings and bombings, of public humiliation and degradation, of courageous but costly protests and demonstrations. Think of it: another hundred years before the freedom won on the bloody battlefields of the Civil War was finally secured in the law of the land.And here’s something else to think about: Only one of the women present at the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls in 1848—only one, Charlotte Woodward—lived long enough to see women actually get to vote."

"Even as the fingers of the two hands are equal, so are human beings equal to one another. No one has any right, nor any preference to claim over another. You are brothers."

"Fascism denies that numbers, as such, can direct human society. It denies that numbers can govern by means of periodical consultations: It asserts the unavoidable fruitful and beneficent inequality of men who cannot be leveled by any such mechanical and extrinsic device as universal suffrage."

"The representatives of the people of France, formed into a National Assembly, considering that ignorance, neglect, or contempt of human rights, are the sole causes of public misfortunes and corruptions of Government, have resolved to set forth, in a solemn declaration, these natural, imprescriptible, and inalienable rights; that this declaration being constantly present to the minds of the members of the body social, they may be ever kept attentive to their rights and their duties; that the acts of the legislative and executive powers of Government, being capable of being every moment compared with the end of political institutions, may be more respected; and also, that the future claims of the citizens, being directed by simple and incontestable principles, may always tend to the maintenance of the Constitution, and the general happiness. For these reasons the National Assembly doth recognize and declare, in the presence of the Supreme Being and with the hope of his blessing and favor, the following sacred rights of men and of citizens: I. Men are born, and always continue, free and equal in respect of their rights. Civil distinctions, therefore, can be founded only on public utility."

"The apostles ... did not seek excessive gain by exploiting each other. ... One was not rich while another was destitute, nor did one overeat while another starved. The generosity of those who were well off made good what others lacked, this willingness to share eliminating every anomaly and establishing equality and fairness. ... Inequality still existed, produced not as it is now by the mad struggle for social status, but by a great desire to live more humbly than others. Envy, malice, arrogance and haughtiness were banished, along with all that leads to discord."

"‘Equality’, a certain definite process of making everybody uniform, which only finds its expression in the theory of equal rights, is essentially bound up with a declining culture: the chasm between man and man, class and class, the multiplicity of types, the will to be one’s self and to distinguish one’s self – that, in fact, which I call the pathos of distance is proper to all strong ages."

"All animals are equal But some animals are more equal than others."

"It is better to continue to try to teach or live equality and love, than it would be to have hatred and prejudice."

"The new regime will be a social hierarchy. It will no longer be based on the false idea of man's natural equality."

"Ἐπ’ ἀληθείας καταλαμβάνομαι ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν προσωπολήμπτης ὁ Θεός, ἀλλ’ ἐν παντὶ ἔθνει ὁ φοβούμενος αὐτὸν καὶ ἐργαζόμενος δικαιοσύνην δεκτὸς αὐτῷ ἐστιν."

"Who wants equality? Those who do not have it."

"Equality is not the empirical claim that all groups of humans are interchangeable; it is the moral principle that individuals should not be judged or constrained by the average properties of their group. … If we recognize this principle, no one has to spin myths about the indistinguishability of the sexes to justify equality."

"In our infinite ignorance we are all equal."

"Islam prescribes the basic principles of social justice and establishes the claim of the poor to the wealth of the rich."

"In Islam, there is no priesthood, and no intermediary between the creature and The Creator; but every Muslim from the ends of earth or in the paths of the sea has the ability of himself to approach his Lord without priest or minister. Nor again can the Muslim administrator derive his authority from any papacy, or from Heaven; but he derives it solely from the Muslim community. Similarly, he derives his principles of administration from the religious law, which is universal in its understanding and application and before which all men come everywhere as equals."

"Liberty and equality are incompatible. One can only achieve equality by restraining liberty, by eliminating individual differences. Democracy proclaims popular sovereignty, the sovereignty of the number."

"In regard to this principle, that all men are born free and equal, if there is an animal on earth to which it does not apply—that is not born free, it is man—he is born in a state of the most abject want, and in a state of perfect helplessness and ignorance, which is the foundation of the connubial tie…. Who should say that all the soil in the world is equally rich, the first rate land in Kentucky and the Highlands of Scotland because the superficial content of the acre is the same, would be just as right as he who should maintain the absolute equality of man in virtue of his birth. The ricketty and scrofulous little wretch who first sees the light in a work-house, or in a brothel, and who feels the effects of alcohol before the effects of vital air, is not equal in any respect to the ruddy offspring of the honest yeoman; nay, I will go further, and say that a prince, provided he is no better born than royal blood will make him, is not equal to the healthy son of a peasant."

"In terms of earthly life as you understand it, it is overly optimistic to imagine that eventually all illnesses will be conquered, all relationships be inevitably fulfilling, or to foresee a future in which all people on earth are treated with equality and respect."

"Ignoring the potential force possessed by a homogeneous race, bemused by the slogans of human equality, all parliaments adopted the dogma of infinite toleration."

"Equality means equal concern and respect across difference. It does not pre-suppose the elimination or suppression of difference. Respect for human rights requires the affirmation of self, not the denial of self. Equality therefore does not imply a levelling or homogenisation of behaviour or extolling one form as supreme, and another as inferior, but an acknowledgement and acceptance of difference. At the very least, it affirms that difference should not be the basis for exclusion, marginalisation and stigma. At best, it celebrates the vitality that difference brings to any society."

"Despite the absence of physical equality in nature, political systems engage in grand endeavors to dictate perfection and equality in a universe devoid of both. In their egalitarian and quixotic quest to redistribute wealth, they rob Peter to pay Paul, which only creates a state of dependency, not of equality. Any attempt to impose equality can only bring about more inequality. Rev. William J. H. Boetcker expressed this same insight in 1916, writing, 'You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.'"

"The parity pushers fail to see the subtle grays of complexity in all of its tortured and messy manifestations. With swords held high, they ride forth and exploit every possible weapon in the political arsenal. Equality is to be imposed, unevenness and nonlinearity banished to the nether world. Science is politicalized for mass consumption, and natural laws are summarily supplanted by ideological 'correctness.'"

"Equality of two domestic powers Breeds scrupulous faction."

"Mean and mighty, rotting Together, have one dust."

"Heralds, from off our towers we might behold, From first to last, the onset and retire Of both your armies; whose equality By our best eyes cannot be censured: Blood hath bought blood and blows have answer'd blows; Strength match'd with strength, and power confronted power: Both are alike; and both alike we like."

"She in beauty, education, blood, Holds hand with any princess of the world."

"Picket lines, school boycotts/They try to say it's a communist plot/All I want is equality/For my sister, my brother, my people, and me"

"In economic terms, taking what others have produced and giving it to those who have not produced as much (or at all, in some cases) is make-believe equality - as contrasted with real equality, which would be enabling the less productive to become more productive, so that they could create for themselves what they are trying to take from others."

"Neither in nature nor among human beings are either equal or randomly distributed outcomes automatic. On the contrary, grossly unequal distributions of outcomes are common, both in nature and among people, in circumstances where neither genes nor discrimination are involved... The idea that it would be a level playing field, if it were not for either genes or discrimination, is a preconception in defiance of both logic and facts."

"If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 50 years ago, a liberal 25 years ago and a racist today."

"For nearly 40 years, the Supreme Court has been evading the 14th Amendment's provision of "equal protection" of the law for all, in order to let government-imposed group preferences and quotas continue, under the name of "affirmative action." Equal rights under the law have been made to vanish by saying the magic word "diversity," whose sweeping benefits are simply assumed and proclaimed endlessly, rather than demonstrated."

"Mere equality does not imply equal liberty, however, for slaves are equal in their slavery. Equal opportunity to rob others is not equal liberty, but its violation; it abridges ‘liberty to possess,’ and the ‘liberty to produce and to own the product.’ These liberties are implied by equality of liberty, just as equal opportunity is; equal robbery or equal slavery have no relation to equal liberty, but are its opposite."

"Equality is the life of conversation; and he is as much out who assumes to himself any part above another, as he who considers himself below the rest of the society."

"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable Rights; that among these, are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness; that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

"When I have control of Native Education, I will reform it so that the Natives will be taught from childhood to realise that equality with Europeans is not for them. People who believe in equality are not desirable teachers for Natives."

"THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General."

"Every man shall be entitled to a sound and objective education and there shall be genuine equality of opportunity. Education shall be a matter of environment as well as of instruction, and everyone shall be entitled to an education untouched by the interests of any party or religion."

"It is not until a community or an individual has advanced a fair distance along the path of civilisation and shows by its laws its elimination of many of its most mischievous dispositions—notably sadism—that it can bear to admit the equality of women."

"All Men being naturally equal, as descended from a common Parent, enbued with like Faculties and Propensities, having originally equal Rights and Properties, the Earth being given to the Children of Men in general, without any difference, distinction, natural Preheminence, or Dominion of one over another, yet Men not being equally industrious and frugal, their Properties and Enjoyments would be unequal."

"Equality before the law of all men, no matter where they were born, or from what race they sprung, is the sentiment of the people... Wherever and whenever we have the power to do it, I would give to all men, of every clime and race, of every faith and creed, freedom and equality before the law."

"Men are made by nature unequal. It is vain, therefore, to treat them as if they were equal."

"Sir, your levellers wish to level down as far as themselves: but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves."

"For the colonel's lady an' Judy O'Grady, Are sisters under their skins."

"Par in parem imperium non habet."

"Quod ad jus naturale attinet, omnes homines æquales sunt."

"Et sceleratis sol oritur."

"The trickling rain doth fall Upon us one and all; The south-wind kisses The saucy milkmaid's cheek, The nun's, demure and meek, Nor any misses."

"The tall, the wise, the reverend head, Must be as low as ours."

"Hellenes ... think that as men and animals beget men and animals, so from good men a good man springs. But this is what nature, though she may intend it, cannot always accomplish."

"And all to leave what with his toil he won, To that unfeather'd two-legged thing, a son."

"What we have inherited from our fathers and mothers is not all that 'walks in us.' There are all sorts of dead ideas and lifeless old beliefs. They have no tangibility, but they haunt us all the same and we can not get rid of them. Whenever I take up a newspaper I seem to see Ghosts gliding between the lines. Ghosts must be all over the country, as thick as the sands of the sea."

"The privilege of executors is too great already. They ought to be properly informed when they bring actions."

"Whenever the rate of return on capital is significantly and durably higher than the growth rate of the economy, it is all but inevitable that inheritance (of fortunes accumulated in the past) predominates over saving (wealth accumulated in the present). ... The inequality r > g in one sense implies that the past tends to devour the future: wealth originating in the past automatically grows more rapidly, even without labor, than wealth stemming from work, which can be saved. Almost inevitably, this tends to give lasting disproportionate importance to inequalities created in the past, and therefore to inheritance."

"He lives to build, not boast, a generous race; No tenth transmitter of a foolish face."

"American families are in the process of passing along a $9 trillion legacy from one generation to the next. This is a lot of money, but it is distributed very unevenly.. ... Hand in hand with this money, I submit, what is really being handed down from generation to generation is the profound legacy of reproducing racial inequality. The legacy is difficult to discern because the language of family heritage hides it from our political consciousness."

"Mainstream sociological theory sees differences in jobs, skills, and education as the primary causes of inequality, and substantial wealth transfers embarrass this theory. The classical sociologist Emil Durkheim, for example, predicted that family inheritances would decline over time in favor of giving to charitable and nonprofit organizations, but studies examining actual bequests invalidate this predication. ... In 1989 charitable bequests constituted less than 10 percent of proceeds of estates valued at over $600,000 in the United States."

"He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind. And the fool shall be servant to the wise in heart."

"A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children: and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just."

"De male quæsitis vix gaudet tertius pæres, Nec habet eventus sordida præda bonos."

"People can ignore important things…but they cannot escape the consequences of ignoring important things."

"A wise and salutary neglect."

"Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace: Robes loosely flowing, hair as free; Such sweet neglect more taketh me Than all the adulteries of art; They strike mine eyes, but not my heart."

"I consider a good reputation is a great part of the human happiness. Some people, if they are very, very rich can permit themselves certain negligence to their reputations."

"His noble negligences teach What others' toils despair to reach."

"There is a great Man living in this country — a composer. He has solved the problem how to preserve one's self and to learn. He responds to negligence by contempt. He is not forced to accept praise or blame. His name is Ives."

"Celerity is never more admired Than by the negligent."

"The negligence of Nature wide and wild, Where, undisguised by mimic art, she spreads Unbounded beauty to the roving eye."

"Laurent Gierula is an engineer, author, and observer of everyday life. His writings explore the relationship between inner freedom, materialism, and personal balance. He also writes about simplicity as a form of wealth and the harmony between the inner and material worlds."

"Theft will be abolished with the elimination of privately owned property."

"The feeling of ownership is measured not by things but by thoughts...The Teacher sends the wish that evolution grow lawfully. The Teacher can distinguish those who have liberated their consciousness. Thus said the Blessed One; and He asked in general not to think about ownership of property, for renunciation is a cleansing of thought."

"It is difficult to renounce the feeling of ownership; it is like wise difficult to overcome babbling."

"I die,—but first I have possess'd, And come what may, I have been bless'd."

"There's a reason education sucks, and it's the same reason it will never ever ever be fixed. It's never going to get any better. Don't look for it. Be happy with what you've got... because the owners of this country don't want that. I'm talking about the real owners now... the real owners. The big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls. They got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying. Lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interests. That's right."

"This is the truth as I see it, my dear, Out in the wind and the rain: They who have nothing have little to fear,— Nothing to lose or to gain."

"A man is not really a true man until he owns his own home, and they that own their homes are made more honorable and honest and pure, true and economical and careful, by owning the home."

"A man has not possession of that of the existence of which he is unaware."

"Prostitutes are the inevitable product of a society that places ultimate importance on money, possessions, and competition."

"Altera figlia Di quel monarca a cui Nè anco, quando annotta, il Sol tramonta."

"The landlord, qua landlord, performs no function in the economy of industry or of food production. He is a rent receiver; that, and nothing more. Were the landlord to be abolished, the soil and the people who till it would still remain, and the disappearance of the landowner would pass almost unnoticed. So too with the capitalist. ... By capitalist, I mean the investor who puts his money into a concern and draws profits there from without participating in the organisation or management of the business. Were all these to disappear in the night, leaving no trace behind, nothing would be changed."

"Possession is very strong; rather more than nine points of the law."

"It is preoccupation with possession, more than anything else, that prevents men from living freely and nobly."

"That what we have we prize not to the worth Whiles we enjoy it, but being lack'd and lost, Why, then we rack the value, then we find The virtue that possession would not show us While it was ours."

"I ne'er could any lustre see In eyes that would not look on me; I ne'er saw nectar on a lip But where my own did hope to sip."

"The Illusion of Ownership. To “own” something – what does it really mean? What does it mean to make something “mine”? If you stand on a street in New York, point to a huge skyscraper and say, “That building is mine. I own it,” you are either very wealthy or you are delusional or a liar. In any case, you are telling a story in which the thought form “I” and the thought form “building” merge into one. That’s how the mental concept of ownership works. If everybody agrees with your story, there will be signed pieces of paper to certify their agreement with it. You are wealthy. If nobody agrees with the story, they will send you to a psychiatrist. You are delusional, or a compulsive liar. It is important to recognize here that the story and the thought forms that make up the story, whether people agree with it or not, have absolutely nothing to do with who you are. Even if people agree with it, it is ultimately a fiction. Many people don’t realize until they are on their deathbed and everything external falls away that no thing ever had anything to do with who they are. In the proximity of death, the whole concept of ownership stands revealed as ultimately meaningless. In the last moments of their life, they then also realize that while they were looking throughout their lives for a more complete sense of self, what they were really looking for, their Being, had actually always already been there, but had been largely obscured by their identification with things..."

"One of the unconscious assumptions is that by identifying with an object through the fiction of ownership, the apparent solidity and permanency of that material object will endow your sense of self with greater solidity and permanency. This applies particularly to buildings and even more so to land since it is the only thing you think you can own that cannot be destroyed. The absurdity of owning something becomes even more apparent in the case of land. In the days of the white settlement, the natives of North America found ownership of land an incomprehensible concept. And so they lost it when the Europeans made them sign pieces of paper that were equally incomprehensible to them. They felt they belonged to the land, but the land did not belong to them."

"The ego tends to equate having with Being: I have, therefore I am. And the more I have, the more I am. The ego lives through comparison. How you are seen by others turns into how you see yourself. If everyone lived in a mansion or everyone was wealthy, your mansion or your wealth would no longer serve to enhance your sense of self... The ego’s sense of selfworth is in most cases bound up with the worth you have in the eyes of others. You need others to give you a sense of self, and if you live in a culture that to a large extent equates selfworth with how much and what you have, if you cannot look through this collective delusion, you will be condemned to chasing after things for the rest of your life in the vain hope of finding your worth and completion of your sense of self there."

"The pronouns "my" and "mine" look innocent enough in print, but their constant and universal use is significant. They express the real nature of the old Adamic man better than a thousand volumes of theology could do. They are verbal symptoms of our deep disease. The roots of our hearts have grown down into things, and we dare not pull up one rootlet lest we die. Things have become necessary to us, a development never originally intended. God's gifts now take the place of God, and the whole course of nature is upset by the monstrous substitution."

"For why? because the good old rule Sufficeth them, the simple plan That they should take, who have the power, And they should keep, who can."

"Nothing but what has visible substance, is capable of actual possession."

"When I behold what pleasure is Pursuit, What life, what glorious eagerness it is, Then mark how full Possession falls from this, How fairer seems the blossom than the fruit,— I am perplext, and often stricken mute, Wondering which attained the higher bliss, The wing'd insect, or the chrysalis It thrust aside with unreluctant foot."

"La propriété exclusive est un vol dans la nature."

"Quand on n'a pas ce que l'on aime, Il faut aimer ce que l'on a."

"Britannia needs no bulwarks, no towers along the steep: Her march is o'er the mountain waves; her home is on the deep."

"Providence has given to the French the empire of the land, to the English that of the sea, to the Germans that of—the air!"

"Male parta, male dilabuntur.'"

"As having nothing, and yet possessing all things."

"Ah, yet, e'er I descend to th' grave, May I a small House and a large Garden have. And a few Friends, and many Books both true, Both wise, and both delightful too. And since Love ne'er will from me flee, A Mistress moderately fair, And good as Guardian angels are, Only belov'd and loving me."

"Of a rich man who was mean and niggardly, he said, "That man does not possess his estate, but his estate possesses him.""

"Property has its duties as well as its rights."

"My apple trees will never get across And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors.""

"It maybe said of them [the Hollanders], as of the Spaniards, that the sun never sets upon their Dominions."

"Denn was man schwarz auf weiss besitzt Kann man getrost nach Hause tragen."

"Wouldst thou both eat thy cake and have it?"

"Possession means to sit astride the world Instead of having it astride of you."

"Un tiens vaut, ce dit-on, mieux que deux tu l'auras. L'un est sûr, l'autre ne l'est pas."

"Les Anglais, nation trop fière, S'arrogent l'empire des mers; Les Français, nation légère, S'emparent de celui des airs."

"Aspiration sees only one side of every question; possession, many."

"Cleon hath ten thousand acres,— Ne'er a one have I; Cleon dwelleth in a palace,— In a cottage I."

"Property in land is capital; property in the funds is income without capital; property in mortgage is both capital and income."

"Extra fortunam est, quidquid donatur amicis; Quas dederis, selas semper habebis opes."

"Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?"

"Unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance; but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath."

"Ce chien est à moi, disaient ces pauvres enfants; c'est là ma place au soleil. Voilà le commencement et l'image de l'usurpation de toute la terre."

"Male partum, male disperit."

"What is yours is mine, and all mine is yours."

"on tibi illud apparere si sumas potest."

"Nihil enim æque gratum est adeptis, quam concupiscentibus."

"La propriété, c'est le vol."

"The goods we spend we keep; and what we save We lose; and only what we lose we have."

"Ich heisse Der reichste Mann in der getauften Welt; Die Sonne geht in meinem Staat nicht unter."

"The king of Spain is a great potentate, who stands with one foot in the east and the other in the west; and the sun never sets that it does not shine on some of his dominions."

"The sun never sets on the immense empire of Charles V."

"Why should the brave Spanish soldiers brag? The sunne never sets in the Spanish dominions, but ever shineth on one part or other we have conquered for our king."

"Possession, they say, is eleven points of the law."

"Others may use the ocean as their road; Only the English make it their abode."

"A power which has dotted over the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts, whose morning drum-beat, following the sun, and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England."

"Germany must have her place in the sun."

"People may have too much of a good thing: Full as an egg of wisdom thus I sing."

"Lord of himselfe, though not of lands, And having nothing, yet hath all."

"I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they did not wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way against holders of power, increasing as the power increases."

"Presumption has many forms; and it is worth considering, whether a great and good Being would most disapprove the presumption which expected too much from His goodness, or the presumption which dared positively to disbelieve His promise."

"Our sun is one of 100 billion stars in our galaxy. Our galaxy is one of billions of galaxies populating the universe. It would be the height of presumption to think that we are the only living things in that enormous immensity."

"Presume to lay their hand upon the ark Of her magnificent and awful cause."

"Principle I : Legal rights are presumptive rights."

"Principle II : The presumptions of the law are creative presumptions : they are aimed at conditions to be brought about, and only for that reason ignore conditions which exist."

"If we pretend to respect the artist at all we must allow him his freedom of choice, in the face, in particular cases, of innumerable presumptions that the choice will not fructify."

"Presumption should never make us neglect that which appears easy to us, nor despair make us lose courage at the sight of difficulties."

"It is not so with Him that all things knows As 'tis with us that square our guess by shows: But most it is presumption in us when The help of heaven we count the act of men."

"He will steal himself into a man's favour and for a week escape a great deal of discoveries; but when you find him out, you have him ever after."

"How dare the plants look up to heaven, from whence They have their nourishment?"

"When truth and reason cannot be heard, then must presumption rule."

"Presumption means nothing more than, as stated by Lord Mansfield, the weighing of probabilities, and deciding, by the powers of common sense, on which side the truth is."

"It is a strong presumption that that which never has been done cannot by law be done at all."

"It is a familiar principle that all things are presumed to have been rightly done unless there is reasonable ground shown for doubting it."

"When one or more things are proved, from which our experience enables us to ascertain that another, not proved, must have happened, we presume that it did happen, as well in criminal as in civil cases."

"It is certainly true, and I most ardently hope that it will ever continue to be the case, that by the law of England, as it was urged and admitted in the case of the Seven Bishops,1 no man is to be convicted of any crime upon mere naked presumption."

"No one can doubt that presumptions may be made in criminal as well as in civil cases. It is constantly the practice to act upon them, and I apprehend that more than one half of the persons convicted of crimes are convicted on presumptive evidence."

"I readily admit that the law which requires presumption or custom to be carried back for a period of nearly 700 years, is a bad and mischievous law, and one which is discreditable to us as a civilised and enlightened people, but such is the law; and while it so continues, I consider myself, in administering it, as bound to administer it as I find it; nor do I feel myself warranted in undermining or frittering it away by subtle fictions or artificial presumptions inconsistent with truth and fact."

"It follows almost necessarily, from the imperfection and irregularity of human nature, that a uniform course is not preserved during a long period: a little advance is made at one time, a retreat at another; something is added, or taken away, from indiscretion, or ignorance, or through other causes: and, when by the lapse of years the evidence is lost which would explain these irregularities, they are easily made the foundation of cavils against the legality of the whole practice. So also with regard to title: if that which has existed from time immemorial be scrutinised with the same severity which may properly be employed in canvassing a modern grant, without making allowance for the changes and accidents of time, no ancient title will be found free from objection : that, indeed, will become a source of weakness, which ought to give security and strength. It has therefore always been the well-established principle of our law to presume everything in favour of long possession."

"A presumption of any fact is, properly, an inferring of that fact from other facts that are known; it is an act of reasoning; and much of human knowledge on all subjects is derived from this source."

"Prima facie, every estate, whether given by will or otherwise, is supposed to be beneficial to the party to whom it is so given."

"If a man go into the London Docks sober without means of getting drunk, and comes out of one of the cellars very drunk wherein are a million gallons of wine, I think that would be reasonable evidence that he had stolen some of the wine in that cellar, though you could not prove that any wine was stolen, or any wine was missed."

"There is no presumption in this country that every person knows the law: it would be contrary to common sense and reason if it were so."

"Kar vasselage par sens nen est folie, Mielz valt mesure que ne fait estultie."

"Know that coyness has a certain extent and if exceeded, shall turn to weakness; generosity has a certain extent and if exceeded, shall become wasting; economy has a certain extent and if exceeded, shall be stinginess; and courage has a certain extent, which if exceeded, becomes recklessness."

"I tell thee, be not rash; a golden bridge Is for a flying enemy."

"Who falls from all he knows of bliss, Cares little into what abyss."

"If a king is energetic, his subjects will be equally energetic. If he is reckless, they will not only be reckless likewise, but also eat into his works. Besides, a reckless king will easily fall into the hands of his enemies. Hence the king shall ever be wakeful."

"You better check yo self before you wreck yo self."

"Ay, to those lofty beings, be they who they will, who look down from their starry thrones on the strange figures flitting to and fro over this earth of ours, the wild recklessness of us mortals with each other may well lose its painful interest."

"Αὐτῶν γὰρ σφετέρῃσιν ἀτασθαλίῃσιν ὄλοντο."

"I am one, my liege, Whom the vile blows and buffets of the world Have so incens'd that I am reckless what I do to spite the world."

"Life cannot move forward just by being drenched in emotions."

"REFORM, v. A thing that mostly satisfies reformers opposed to reformation."

"The oyster-women lock'd their fish up, And trudged away to cry, No Bishop."

"What sort of reformers and workers are you, that work only on the rotten material? That never think of meddling with the material while it continues sound; that stress it and strain it with new rates and assessments, till once it has given way and declared itself rotten; whereupon you snatch greedily at it, and say, Now let us try to do some good upon it! You mistake in every way, my friends: the fact is, you fancy yourselves men of virtue, benevolence, what not; and you are not even men of sincerity and honest sense. I grieve to say it; but it is true. Good from you, and your operations, is not to be expected."

"But he was an altered man, and he could not bear the thought of returning to a place where his repentance would be scoffed at, and his reformation disbelieved."

"A rayformer thinks he was ilicted because he was a rayformer, whin th' thruth iv th' matther is he was ilicted because no wan knew him."

"Contemporary man has begun to lose his naiveté as ... the deep causes of the situation in which he finds himself are becoming clearer. He realizes that to attack these deep causes is the indispensable prerequisite for radical change. And so he has gradually abandoned a simple reformist attitude regarding the existing social order, for, by its very shallowness this reformism perpetuates the existing system."

"Government and the infrastructure of the enemy capitalist state must be destroyed to get at the heart of the problem: property relations. Otherwise there is no revolution. Reshuffle the governmental personnel and forms, without changing property relations and economic institutions, and you have produced simply another reform stage in the old bourgeois revolution"

"The revolution has failed. Fascism has temporarily succeeded under the guise of reform. The only way we can destroy it is to refuse to compromise with the enemy state and its ruling class."

"The voice of great events is proclaiming to us, Reform, that you may preserve."

"My desolation does begin to make A better life."

"And like bright metal on a sullen ground, My reformation, glittering o'er my fault, Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes Than that which hath no foil to set it off."

"Never came reformation in a flood."

"The best reformers the world has ever seen are those who commence on themselves."

"Because James II had attempted to destroy the institutions of the country, it long remained impossible for anyone else to attempt their reform."

"In dialectics, we know everything contains positive and negative attributes. Reforms can be used to advance Revolution or to forestall Revolution. Dialectics inform us that when the negative dominates the positive in reform it becomes an obstacle on the road to freedom; it must give way to Revolution."

"The capitalist press supports reform movements which forestall Revolution; these reform movements come to depend on the press and even tailor their activities to fit headlines. The capitalist press wants to intoxicate the masses with this reform movement. Intoxicated reform “leaders” believe that political power grows out of the lens of press cameras, and the more lenses, the more power. Just political power comes only from the organized masses."

"The purpose of a university should be to make a son as unlike his father as possible. By the time a man has grown old enough to have a son in college he has specialized. The university should generalize the treatment of its undergraduates, should struggle to put them in touch with every force of life. Every man of established success is dangerous to society. His tendency is to keep society as it is. His success has been founded upon it. You will not find many reformers among the successful men."

"Grant that the old Adam in these persons may be so buried, that the new man may be raised up in them."

"All zeal for a reform, that gives offence To peace and charity, is mere pretence."

"But 'tis the talent of our English nation, Still to be plotting some new reformation."

"He bought a Bible of the new translation, And in his life he show'd great reformation; He walkèd mannerly and talked meekly; He heard three lectures and two sermons weekly; He vow'd to shun all companions unruly, And in his speech he used no oath but "truly;" And zealously to keep the Sabbath's rest."

"The Bolshevists would blow up the fabric with high explosive, with horror. Others would pull down with the crowbars and with cranks—especially with cranks…. Sweating, slums, the sense of semi-slavery in labour, must go. We must cultivate a sense of manhood by treating men as men."

"I do not mean to be disrespectful, but the attempt of the Lords to stop the progress of reform, reminds me very forcibly of the great storm of Sidmouth, and of the conduct of the excellent Mrs. Partington on that occasion. In the winter of 1824, there set in a great flood upon that town—the tide rose to an incredible height: the waves rushed in upon the houses, and everything was threatened with destruction. In the midst of this sublime and terrible storm, Dame Partington, who lived upon the beach, was seen at the door of her house with mop and pattens, trundling her mop, squeezing out the sea water, and vigorously pushing away the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic was roused. Mrs. Partington's spirit was up; but I need not tell you that the contest was unequal. The Atlantic Ocean beat Mrs. Partington. She was excellent at a slop or a puddle, but she should not have meddled with a tempest."

"When statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties … they lead their country by a short route to chaos."

"Statesmanship […] must consider first the fortunes of the common people. No statesman has a right to risk these fortunes unless he be reasonably assured of success."

"It is strange so great a statesman should Be so sublime a poet."

"But a good patriot, and a true politician, always considers how he shall make the most of the existing materials of his country. A disposition, to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman. Everything else is vulgar in the conception, perilous in the execution."

"Learn to think imperially."

"La cordiale entente qui existe entre le gouvernement français et celui de la Grande-Bretagne."

"Si l'on n'a pas de meilleurs moyen de sèduction a lui offrir, l'entente cordiale nous paraît fort compromise."

"No statesman e'er will find it worth his pains To tax our labours and excise our brains."

"The people of the two nations [French and English] must be brought into mutual dependence by the supply of each other's wants. There is no other way of counteracting the antagonism of language and race. It is God's own method of producing an entente cordiale, and no other plan is worth a farthing."

"The truth is, gentlemen, a statesman is the creature of his age, the child of circumstances, the creation of his times. A statesman is essentially a practical character ; and when he is called upon to take office, he is not to inquire what his opinions might or might not have been upon this or that subject he is only to ascertain the needful, and the beneficial, and the most feasible manner in which affairs are to be carried on. I laugh, therefore, at the objections against a man, that, at a former period of his career, he advocated a policy different to his present one."

"I have the courage of my opinions, but I have not the temerity to give a political blank cheque to Lord Salisbury."

"Gli ambasciadori sono l'occhio e l'orecchio degli stati."

"D'ye think that statesmen's kindnesses proceed From any principles but their own need."

"Winston Churchill famously claimed that of all human qualities, courage was the most esteemed, because it guaranteed all others. He was right. Courage—moral courage—is the companion of great leadership. No politician could ever be viewed as exceptional unless he or she had it in spades. And historically there would have been no social progress if not for the presence of specific humans dissenting and breaking from herd-inspired suspicion and fear... At best, courage is self-sacrificing, non-violent, modest and based on universal principles — and immensely powerful.... Look at today’s politicians... keen to be viewed as the virile leaders of their respective countries; eager to inflate their image by harming migrants and refugees, the most vulnerable in society. If there is courage in that, I fail to see it. Authoritarian leaders, or elected leaders inclined toward it, are bullies, deceivers, selfish cowards. If they are growing in number it is because (with exceptions) many other politicians are mediocre... focused on their own image... too afraid to stand up... What if 100m or more people marched around the world in protest at what it is we now see: the ineptitude, selfishness, the cruelties and the threats to our collective well-being? ...it might just deliver a sort of shock therapy to those dangerous or useless politicians who now threaten humanity."

"Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations—entangling alliances with none."

"The first among the sciences is that of statesmanship. That cannot be learnt in academies. No great minister, from Suger to Richelieu, ever occupied himself with physics or mathematics. The genius of the natural sciences makes impossible that other kind of genius, which is a talent unto itself."

"A great statesman is he who knows when to depart from traditions, as well as when to adhere to them."

"Who would not praise Patricio's high desert, His hand unstain'd, his uncorrupted heart, His comprehensive head? all interests weigh'd, All Europe sav'd, yet Britain not betray'd."

"If you wish to preserve your secret wrap it up in frankness."

"And lives to clutch the golden keys, To mould a mighty state's decrees, And shape the whisper of the throne."

"There is a remedy against the domination imposed, not by generals, statesmen, and men of action, whose power dissolves when they retire, but by the great sort-crossers, whose power increases when they die- the remedy of becoming aware of metaphor..."

"Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation?—Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground?—Why by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humour or caprice?"

"'Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances, with any portion of the foreign world—so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it."

"Statesmen have to bend to the collective will of their peoples or be broken."

"Legatus est vir bonus peregre missus ad mentiendem rei publicæ causæ."

"Spheres of influence."

"Learn to think continentally."

"Nursed by stern men with empires in their brains."

"Statesman, yet friend to truth; of soul sincere, In action faithful, and in honour clear; Who broke no promise, serv'd no private end, Who gain'd no title, and who lost no friend; Ennobled by himself, by all approv'd, And prais'd, unenvy'd, by the Muse he lov'd."

"It is well indeed for our land that we of this generation have learned to think nationally."

"And statesmen at her council met Who knew the seasons when to take Occasion by the hand, and make The bounds of freedom wider yet."

"Why don't you show us a statesman who can rise up to the emergency, and cave in the emergency's head."

"Tell the truth, and so puzzle and confound your adversaries."

"Justice without power is incompetence. Power without justice is also incompetence."

"There in no virtue so truly great and godlike as justice.... To be perfectly just is an attribute in the divine nature; to be so to the utmost of our abilities, is the glory of man."

"Justice discards party, friendship, kindred, and is therefore always represented as blind."

"Justice puts everything in its place and generosity takes it out of its place. Justice is the protector of all, and generosity includes only the one to whom forgiveness has been bestowed. Therefore, justice is more honorable and superior than generosity."

"Justice is not a prize tendered to the good-natured, nor is it to be withheld from the ill-bred."

"The blessings we associate with a life of refinement and culture can be made universal. The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life."

"Justice turns the scale, bringing to some learning through suffering."

"Swift-footed is the approach of fate, And none can justice violate, But feels its stern hand soon or late."

"Justice, voiceless, unseen, seeth thee when thou sleepest and when thou goest forth and when thou liest down. Continually doth she attend thee, now aslant thy course, now at a later time."

"Justice demands more than punishment. It demands truth."

"Liberty, equality — bad principles! The only true principle for humanity is justice; and justice to the feeble becomes necessarily protection or kindness."

"It is necessary therefore that the person who is to study, with any tolerable chance of profit, the principles of nobleness and justice and politics generally, should have received a good moral training. For our data here are moral judgments, and if a man knows what it is right to do, he does not require a formal reason. And a person that has been thus trained, either possesses these first principles already, or can easily acquire them. As for him who neither possesses nor can acquire them, let him take to heart the words of Hesiod:"

"‘ He is the best of all who thinks for himself in all things."

"He, too, is good who takes advice from a wiser (person)."

"But he who neither thinks for himself, nor lays to heart another's wisdom, this is a useless man.’"

"Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the Lord God Almighty will be with you, just as you say He is. Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts. Perhaps the Lord God Almighty will have mercy on the remnant of Joseph."

"Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts."

"Justice and equity are neither absolutely identical nor generically different. … If they are different, either the just or the equitable is not good; if both are good, they are the same thing. … For equity, while superior to one sort of justice, is itself just … Justice and equity are therefore the same thing, and both are good, though equity is the better. The source of the difficulty is that equity, though just, is not legal justice, but a rectification of legal justice. The reason for this is that law is always a general statement, yet there are cases which it is not possible to cover in a general statement."

"I agree that those of us who believe we are pursuing justice must always ask ourselves about our own methods. It also occurs to me that, although we must strive to pursue justice in ways that win over even those who initially disagree with us, we must continue to pursue justice even when we are vilified."

"Consequently, if the republic is the weal of the people, and there is no people if it be not associated by a common acknowledgment of right, and if there is no right where there is no justice, then most certainly it follows that there is no republic where there is no justice."

"Justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but great robberies? For what are robberies themselves, but little kingdoms? The band itself is made up of men; it is ruled by the authority of a prince, it is knit together by the pact of the confederacy; the booty is divided by the law agreed on. If, by the admittance of abandoned men, this evil increases to such a degree that it holds places, fixes abodes, takes possession of cities, and subdues peoples, it assumes the more plainly the name of a kingdom, because the reality is now manifestly conferred on it, not by the removal of covetousness, but by the addition of impunity."

"Justice is equality of rights in treatment, proportionate compensation for labour and punishment for crime, and compassion and relief for sufferers."

"Words like "freedom," "justice," "democracy" are not common concepts; on the contrary, they are rare. People are not born knowing what these are. It takes enormous and, above all, individual effort to arrive at the respect for other people that these words imply."

"if one really wishes to know how justice is administered in a country, one does not question the policemen, the lawyers, the judges, or the protected members of the middle class. One goes to the unprotected — those, precisely, who need the law's protection most! — and listens to their testimony. Ask any Mexican, any Puerto Rican, any black man, any poor person — ask the wretched how they fare in the halls of justice, and then you will know, not whether or not the country is just, but whether or not it has any love for justice, or any concept of it. It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have."

"The aim of justice is, as the Romans used to say, to give each his due, and in order for each to be given what is his, it is necessary that it already belong to him; to "give", in this sense, means to protect the right of possession. Each man gets "what belongs to him" in the course of voluntary exchanges that constitute the economic process, and, by virtue of the operation of the market, each receives for his contribution, precisely the amount that will impel him to increase the supply of the most urgently demanded commodities… Only when each man thereby gets what belongs to him, and someone wants to take it away from him, does a question of justice arise."

"'But whom do I treat unjustly,' you say, 'by keeping what is my own?' Tell me, what is your own? What did you bring into this life? From where did you receive it? It is as if someone were to take the first seat in the theater, then bar everyone else from attending, so that one person alone enjoys what is offered for the benefit of all in common — this is what the rich do. They seize common goods before others have the opportunity, then claim them as their own by right of preemption. For if we all took only what was necessary to satisfy our own needs, giving the rest to those who lack, no one would be rich, no one would be poor, and no one would be in need."

"The Invariability of Law. That we live in a realm of law, that we arc surrounded by laws that we cannot break, this is a truism. Yet when the fact is recognised in a real and vital way, and when it is seen to be a fact in the mental and moral world as much as in the physical, a certain sense of helplessness is apt to overpower us, as though we felt ourselves in the grip of some mighty Power, that, seizing us, whirls us away whither it will. The very reverse of this is in reality the case, for the mighty Power, when it is understood, will obediently carry us whither we will; all forces in Nature can be used in proportion as they are understood “Nature is conquered by obedience ” — and her resistless energies are at our bidding as soon as we, by knowledge, work with them and not against them. We can choose out of her boundless stores the forces that serve our purpose in momentum, in direction, and so on, and their very invariability becomes the guarantee of our success. p. 6"

"That law should be as invariable in the mental and moral worlds as in the physical is to be expected, since the universe is the emanation of the One, and what we call Law is but the expression of the Divine Nature. As there is one Lite emanating all, so there is one Law sustaining all ; the worlds rest on this rock of the Divine Nature as on a secure, immutable foundation. p.7"

"This assurance that perfect Justice rules the world finds support from the increasing knowledge of the evolving Soul; for as it advances and begins to see on higher planes and to transmit its knowledge to the waking consciousness, we learn with ever-growing certainty, and therefore with ever-increasing joy, that the Good Law is working with undeviating accuracy, that its Agents apply it everywhere with unerring insight, with unfailing strength, and that all is therefore very well with the world and with its struggling Souls."

"Ere man could know what was right, he had to learn the existence of the law, and this he could only learn by following all that attracted him in the outer world, by grasping every desirable object, and then by learning from experience, sweet or bitter, whether his delight was in harmony or in conflict with the law. Let us take an obvious example, the taking of pleasant food, and see how infant man might learn there from the presence of a natural law. At the first taking, his hunger was appeased, his taste was gratified, and only pleasure resulted from the experience, for his action was in harmony with law. On another occasion, desiring to increase pleasure, he ate overmuch and suffered in consequence, for he transgressed against the law. A confusing experience to the dawning intelligence, how the pleasurable became painful by excess."

"That which is altogether just shalt thou follow, that thou mayest live, and inherit the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee"

"Justice is a fallacy of inequality, and power reaffirms itself through instances of inequality. Watch for those daily struggles of inequality. Thirst is uneven—and smell smells better when it is uneven. Noses are particular but more uneven than eleven. But who needs a formula to prove the unevenness of life."

"The path of the righteous one is upright. Because you are upright, You will smooth out the course of the righteous. As we follow the path of your judgments, O Jehovah, Our hope is in you. We long for your name and your memorial. In the night I long for you with my whole being, Yes, my spirit keeps looking for you; For when there are judgments from you for the earth, The inhabitants of the land learn about righteousness."

"Shalt thou reign, because thou closest thyself in cedar? Did not thy father eat and drink, and do judgment and justice, and then it was well with him?"

"What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?"

"JUSTICE, n. A commodity which in a more or less adulterated condition the State sells to the citizen as a reward for his allegiance, taxes and personal service."

"Men were singing the praises of Justice."

"Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe."

"Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all."

"So justice while she winks at crimes, Stumbles on innocence sometimes."

"When the imagination sleeps, words are emptied of their meaning: a deaf population absent-mindedly registers the condemnation of a man. … there is no other solution but to speak out and show the obscenity hidden under the verbal cloak."

"Justice is not to be taken by storm. She is to be wooed by slow advances. Substitute statute for decision, and you shift the center of authority, but add no quota of inspired wisdom."

"Amongst the sons of men how few are known Who dare be just to merit not their own."

"Justitia suum cuique distribuit."

"Justitia nihil exprimit præmii, nihil pretii: per se igitur expetitur."

"Meminerimus etiam adversus infimos justitiam esse servandam."

"Summum jus, summa injuria."

"Fundamenta justitiæ sunt, ut ne cui noceatur, deinde ut communi utilitati serviatur."

"If there has been any crime, it must be prosecuted. If there has been any property of the United States illegally transferred or leased, it must be recovered…. I propose to employ special counsel of high rank drawn from both political parties to bring such actions for the enforcement of the law. Counsel will be instructed to prosecute these cases in the courts so that if there is any guilt it will be punished; if there is any civil liability it will be enforced; if there is any fraud it will be revealed; and if there are any contracts which are illegal they will be canceled. Every law will be enforced. And every right of the people and the Government will be protected."

"Cima di giudizio non s'avvalla."

"There is no such thing as justice — in or out of court."

"In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice."

"Now my friends, I am opposed to the system of society in which we live today, not because I lack the natural equipment to do for myself, but because I am not satisfied to make myself comfortable knowing that there are thousands of my fellow men who suffer for the barest necessities of life. We were taught under the old ethic that man's business on this earth was to look out for himself. That was the ethic of the jungle; the ethic of the wild beast. Take care of yourself, no matter what may become of your fellow man. Thousands of years ago the question was asked: "Am I my brother's keeper?" That question has never yet been answered in a way that is satisfactory to civilized society. Yes, I am my brother's keeper. I am under a moral obligation to him that is inspired, not by any maudlin sentimentality, but by the higher duty I owe to myself. What would you think of me if I were capable of seating myself at a table and gorging myself with food and saw about me the children of my fellow beings starving to death?"

"So long as the soul is worldly-minded, it remains unmoved and untroubled however much it sees people trampling justice under foot. Preoccupied with its own desires, it pays no attention to the justice of God. When, however, because of its disdain for this world and its love for God, it begins to rise above its passions, it cannot bear, even in its dreams, to see justice set at naught."

"Sir, I say that justice is truth in action."

"Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe."

"Let the nation try justice and the problem will be solved."

"Because the sentence against an evil deed is not promptly executed, the human heart is filled with the desire to commit evil—because the sinner does evil a hundred times and survives. Though indeed I know that it shall be well with those who fear God, for their reverence toward him; and that it shall not be well with the wicked, who shall not prolong their shadowy days, for their lack of reverence toward God. This is a vanity that occurs on earth: there are those who are just but are treated as though they had done evil, and those who are wicked but are treated as though they had done justly. This, too, I say is vanity."

"We look upon this shaken Earth, and we declare our firm and fixed purpose — the building of a peace with justice in a world where moral law prevails. The building of such a peace is a bold and solemn purpose. To proclaim it is easy. To serve it will be hard. And to attain it, we must be aware of its full meaning — and ready to pay its full price. We know clearly what we seek, and why. We seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom. And now, as in no other age, we seek it because we have been warned, by the power of modern weapons, that peace may be the only climate possible for human life itself. Yet this peace we seek cannot be born of fear alone: it must be rooted in the lives of nations. There must be justice, sensed and shared by all peoples, for, without justice the world can know only a tense and unstable truce. There must be law, steadily invoked and respected by all nations, for without law, the world promises only such meager justice as the pity of the strong upon the weak. But the law of which we speak, comprehending the values of freedom, affirms the equality of all nations, great and small. Splendid as can be the blessings of such a peace, high will be its cost: in toil patiently sustained, in help honorably given, in sacrifice calmly borne."

"A just city should favour justice and the just, hate tyranny and injustice, and give them both their just deserts."

"“I didn’t come to gamble,” Morgan said. “I came for justice.” “Seeking justice is always a gamble,” Hellfire answered reasonably. “Justice doesn’t exist in nature. It’s just the use of force, backed up by self-righteous judgment.”"

"The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine."

"Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been, and ever will be, pursued, until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit. … If men were angels, no government would be necessary."

"We are accused also of condemning all who are not of our mind and who act not as we do. That we deny. We condemn no man, but we show to men their reprobate life and warn them of condemnation."

"Fiat iustitia et pereat mundus."

"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

"I understand the victim’s feelings on this. And I sympathize, I do. But for good or ill, the justice system doesn’t work on behalf of victims; it works on behalf of justice."

"Justice is a machine that, when someone has once given it the starting push, rolls on of itself."

"Nor is this world inhabited by man the first of things earthly created by God. He made several worlds before ours, but He destroyed them all, because He was pleased with none until He created ours. But even this last world would have had no permanence, if God had executed His original plan of ruling it according to the principle of strict justice. It was only when He saw that justice by itself would undermine the world that He associated mercy with justice, and made them to rule jointly. Thus, from the beginning of all things prevailed Divine goodness, without which nothing could have continued to exist. If not for it, the myriads of evil spirits had soon put an end to the generations of men."

"Justice remains the tool of a few powerful interests; legal interpretations will continue to be made to suit the convenience of the oppressor powers."

"The eye of Zeus sees all and knows all, And, if he wants, he's looking here right now, And the kind of justice this city harbors Doesn't fool him one bit."

"It's no good at all for a man to be just When the unjust man gets more than what's just."

"Love, like truth and beauty, is concrete. Love is not fundamentally a sweet feeling; not, at heart, a matter of sentiment, attachment, or being "drawn toward". Love is active, effective, a matter of making reciprocal and mutually beneficial relation with one's friends and enemies. Love creates righteousness, or justice, here on earth. To make love is to make justice. As advocates and activists for justice know, loving involves struggle, resistance, risk. People working today on behalf of women, blacks, lesbians and gay men, the aging, the poor in this country and elsewhere know that making justice is not a warm, fuzzy experience. I think also that sexual lovers and good friends know that the most compelling relationships demand hard work, patience, and a willingness to endure tensions and anxiety in creating mutually empowering bonds. For this reason loving involves commitment. We are not automatic lovers of self, others, world, or God. Love does not just happen. We are not love machines, puppets on the strings of a deity called "love". Love is a choice — not simply, or necessarily, a rational choice, but rather a willingness to be present to others without pretense or guile. Love is a conversion to humanity — a willingness to participate with others in the healing of a broken world and broken lives. Love is the choice to experience life as a member of the human family, a partner in the dance of life, rather than as an alien in the world or as a deity above the world, aloof and apart from human flesh."

"Justice should not only be done, but should ... be seen to be done."

"We ought always to deal justly, not only with those who are just to us, but likewise to those who endeavor to injure us; and this, for fear lest by rendering them evil for evil, we should fall into the same vice."

"Only the man who has enough good in him to feel the justice of the penalty can be punished; the others can only be hurt."

"...in our Brotherhood, all personalities sink into one idea — abstract right and absolute practical justice for all. And that, though we may not say with the Christians, return good for evil — we repeat with Confucius — return good for good, for evil — justice."

"What appears to us to be an accurate definition of justice does not also appear to be so to the Gods. For we, looking to that which is most brief, direct our attention to things present, and to this momentary life, and the manner in which it subsists. But the Powers that are superior to us know the whole life of the Soul, and all its former lives."

"…if democracy means anything, it must mean justice—even for those whose faith, voice, or conscience challenge the powers that be."

"When [the] law becomes optional, justice becomes elusive."

"Justice is never one-dimensional. It is a tapestry woven from respect for nature, cultures, and the dignity of every being."

"He made the people follow the proper path, and ousted the enemy from . He removed the wicked tongues, and made justice shine forth like copper. That fathers should be feared and mothers respected, that sons should pay heed to the words of their fathers, and that mercy, compassion and pity should be shown, that one should provide even one's paternal grandparents with food and drink -- all this he established in Sumer and ."

"Take your evil deeds out of my sight;"

"Justice is indiscriminately due to all, without regard to numbers, wealth, or rank."

"They fill their houses through the plunder and losses of others, so that the saying of the philosophers may be fulfilled, 'Every rich man is unjust or the heir of an unjust one.' (Omnis dives aut iniquis aut iniqui haeres.)"

"Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment."

"A single Jail, in A golden Reign, Could half the Nation's Criminals contain; Fair Justice then, without Constraint ador'd, Sustain'd the Ballance but resign'd the Sword; No Spies were paid, no Special Juries known; Blest Age! But ah! how diff'rent from our own!"

"Karma is a beneficent law wholly merciful, relentlessly just, for true mercy is not favor but impartial justice... With reincarnation the doctrine of karma explains the misery and suffering of the world, and no room is left to accuse Nature of injustice."

"Justice is a constant and perpetual will to render to everyone that which is his own."

"We must remember: what is beautiful is the resistance, and that people can-and must-resist from their own authentic place in the world…It is from this solid, self-knowing place that we can work towards peace and justice"

"All of our punishment institutions, including jails, laws, church confessionals, and so forth, are systems of illusion. The order of the universe, the infinite justice of yin and yang, naturally takes care of all motion and compensation. We don't need to invent arbitrary ways to make balance with punishments."

"The legal system doesn't work. Or more accurately, it doesn't work for anyone except those with the most resources. Not because the system is corrupt. I don't think our legal system (at the federal level, at least) is at all corrupt. I mean simply because the costs of our legal system are so astonishingly high that justice can practically never be done."

"Human justice is very prolix, and yet at times quite mediocre; divine justice is more concise and needs no information from the prosecution, no legal papers, no interrogation of witnesses, but makes the guilty one his own informer and helps him with eternity’s memory."

"We regard it as an onerous but yet in another regard also a satisfying and fascinating task to be a servant of justice who discovers guilt and crime. We are amazed at such a person’s acquaintance with the human heart, with all the evasions and fabrications, even the most sophistical: how he is able to remember from year to year the most insignificant things merely in order to secure, if possible, a clue; how he, just by looking at the circumstances, seems to be able to conjure them into giving evidence against the guilty one; how nothing is too trivial for his attention, provided it could clarify his construction of the crime."

"True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice."

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

"There is another side called justice. And justice is really love in calculation. Justice is love correcting that which revolts against love."

"My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?"

"Compassion is no substitute for justice."

"I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice."

"Man is unjust, but God is just; and finally justice Triumphs."

"King whom one cannot reach in the distant sky! Suen whom one cannot reach in the distant sky! King who loves justice, who hates evil! Suen who loves justice, who hates evil! Justice brings joy justly to your heart."

"Peace is more important than all justice; and peace was not made for the sake of justice, but justice for the sake of peace."

"Justice is a temporary thing that must at last come to an end; but the conscience is eternal and will never die."

"Let me make one more remark suggested by this trial and by others. There is no accepted test of civilization. It is not wealth, or the degree of comfort, or the average duration of life, or the increase of knowledge. All such tests would be disputed. In default of any other measure, may it not be suggested that as good a measure as any is the degree to which justice is carried out, the degree to which men are sensitive as to wrong-doing and desirous to right it? If that be the test, a trial such as that of Servetus is a trial of the people among whom it takes place, and his condemnation is theirs also."

"Problems or successes, they all are the results of our own actions. Karma. The philosophy of action is that no one else is the giver of peace or happiness. One's own karma, one's own actions are responsible to come to bring either happiness or success or whatever... As you sow, so shall you reap. It's a very old proverb of mankind. As you sow, so shall you reap. Sometime you may have killed that man, and then sometime now he comes to kill you... What we have done, the result of that comes to us whenever it comes, either today, tomorrow, hundred years later, hundred lives later, whatever, whatever. And so, it's our own karma."

"There is no creature on earth half so terrifying as a truly just man."

"No one can define or measure justice, democracy, security, freedom, truth, or love. [...] But if no one speaks up for them, if systems aren't designed to produce them, if we don't speak about them and point toward their presence or absence, they will cease to exist."

"Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice."

"Yet I shall temper so Justice with mercy, as may illustrate most Them fully satisfied, and thee appease."

"Just are the ways of God, And justifiable to men."

"The Rock, perfect is his activity, For all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness who is never unjust; Righteous and upright is he."

"Normal concepts of fairness and justice can be relevant only if susceptible to being assigned economic value."

"The vision of a just society is an impossible one, which can be approximated only by those who do not regard it as impossible."

"Whatever arises from a just situation by just steps is itself just."

"What the marchers on Washington knew, what the marchers in Selma knew, what folks like Julian Bond knew, what the marchers in this room still know, is that justice is not only the absence of oppression, it is the presence of opportunity. Justice is giving every child a shot at a great education no matter what zip code they’re born into. Justice is giving everyone willing to work hard the chance at a good job with good wages, no matter what their name is, what their skin color is, where they live. Justice is living up to the common creed that says, I am my brother’s keeper and my sister’s keeper. Justice is making sure every young person knows they are special and they are important and that their lives matter -- not because they heard it in a hashtag, but because of the love they feel every single day not just love from their parents, not just love from their neighborhood, but love from police, love from politicians. Love from somebody who lives on the other side of the country, but says, that young person is still important to me. That’s what justice is."

"Conscience is the chamber of justice."

"Laws change, depending on who's making them...but justice is justice."

"Al amigo todo, al enemigo ni justicia."

"There is no sweeter delight than that the soul should be charged through and through with justice, exercising itself in her eternal principles and doctrines and leaving no vacant place into which injustice can make its way."

"He shook his head. "There's no justice." Death sighed. he said,"

"Justice has been described as a lady who has been subject to so many miscarriages as to cast serious reflections upon her virtue."

"As man seeks justice in equality, so society seeks order in anarchy."

"Better a little with justice,than a large income with injustice."

"Superman (Christopher Reeve). I’m here to fight for truth, and justice, and the American way."

"O you who believe! Be maintainers of justice and witnesses for the sake of God, even if it should be against yourselves or (your) parents and near relatives, and whether it be (someone) rich or poor, for God has a greater right over them. So do not follow (your) vain desires, lest you should be unfair, and if you distort (the testimony) or disregard (it), God is indeed well aware of what you do."

"(We said), "O David, We have made you a ruler upon the earth, so judge between the people in truth and do not follow (your own) desire, as it will lead you astray from the way of God." Indeed, those who go astray from the way of God will have a severe punishment for having forgotten the Day of Account."

"Justice in the extreme is often unjust."

"Social and economic inequalities, for example inequalities of wealth and authority, are just only if they result in compensating benefits for everyone, and in particular for the least advantaged members of society."

"The natural distribution is neither just nor unjust; nor is it unjust that persons are born into society at some particular position. These are simply natural facts. What is just and unjust is the way that institutions deal with these facts. Aristocratic and caste societies are unjust because they make these contingencies the ascriptive basis for belonging to more or less enclosed and privileged social classes. The basic structure of these societies incorporates the arbitrariness found in nature. But there is no necessity for men to resign themselves to these contingencies. The social system is not an unchangeable order beyond human control but a pattern of human action."

"…laws should always embody justice, otherwise justice becomes what laws arbitrarily decide it to be. And, as the Tai Ji Men case shows all too well after 29 years, and in this special year 2025, laws can sometimes be unjust."

"Now let us imagine the situation of Moses if he had not resisted evil and had allowed the worst and crudest elements to destroy the best—the one which was able to assimilate the ideas of morality and order. What would have happened to his task? His duty as a leader and an earthly lawgiver was to protect his people and to maintain order. Therefore, the resistance to evil was basically necessary. All teachings of antiquity declare active resistance to evil. Thus, the well-known sage and lawgiver of China, Confucius, used to say, "God for good, but for evil — justice.""

"When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?"

"Of all the officers of the Government, those of the Department of Justice should be kept most free from any suspicion of improper action on partisan or factional grounds, so that there shall be gradually a growth, even though a slow growth, in the knowledge that the Federal courts and the representatives of the Federal Department of Justice insist on meting out even-handed justice to all."

"Sometimes there's truth in old cliches. There can be no real peace without justice. And without resistance there will be no justice."

"Die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht."

"In a just world, there would be no possibility of 'charity'."

"There is more owing her than is paid; and more shall be paid her than she'll demand."

"Use every man after his desert, and who should 'Scape whipping!"

"Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just, And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel, Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted."

"This shows you are above Your justicers; that these our nether crimes So speedily can venge!"

"This even-handed justice Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice To our own lips."

"I show it most of all when I show justice; For then I pity those I do not know, Which a dismiss'd offence would after gall; And do him right that, answering one foul wrong, Lives not to act another."

"This bond is forfeit; And lawfully by this the Jew may claim A pound of flesh."

"Thyself shalt see the act: For, as thou urgest justice, be assur'd Thou shalt have justice more than thou desir'st."

"He shall have merely justice and his bond."

"O, I were damn'd beneath all depth in hell, But that I did proceed upon just grounds To this extremity."

"I have done the state some service, and they know't; No more of that, I pray you, in your letters, When you shall these unlucky deeds relate, Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate, Nor set down aught in malice."

"The world in which we live falls short in terms of justice in many different ways. We have reason to do what we can to remove diagnosable injustice to the extent possible. Subjecting our values to scrutiny by asking probing questions, drawing on many sources, may be a good beginning. Broadening that exercise by considering the perspectives of others – from far as well as near – would make sense here, for reasons that Smith had discussed with much clarity a quarter of a millennium ago."

"Justice of the world is in its creativity, in solving problems, in our activity and struggle. While I am alive there is the possibility to act, to strive for happiness, this is justice."

"Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity. Those who clearly recognize the voice of their own conscience usually recognize also the voice of justice."

"But Justice, though her dome [doom] she doe prolong, Yet at the last she will her owne cause right."

"Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice."

"Nature offers nothing that can be called this man's rather than another's; but under nature everything belongs to all — that is, they have authority to claim it for themselves. But under dominion, where it is by common law determined what belongs to this man, and what to that, he is called just who has a constant will to render to every man his own, but he unjust who strives, on the contrary, to make his own that which belongs to another."

"Law and justice are not always the same. When they aren't, destroying the law may be the first step toward changing it."

"Who can compare with justice? It creates life."

"That which is not just, is not Law; and that which is not Law, ought not to be obeyed."

"A sense of justice is a noble fancy."

"To assume that international law can be applied at the expense of justice is a contradiction in terms."

"There are different kinds of justice. Retributive justice is largely Western. The African understanding is far more restorative - not so much to punish as to redress or restore a balance that has been knocked askew."

"At some time, here or hereafter, every account must be settled, and every debt paid in full."

"It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive."

"Justice is what love looks like in public."

"Justice, under capitalism, works not from a notion of obedience to moral law, or to conscience, or to compassion, but from the assumption of a duty to preserve a social order and the legal “rights” that constitute that order, especially the right to property. … It comes to this: that decision will seem most just which preserves the system of justice even if the system is itself routinely unjust."

"Justice delayed is justice denied."

"You condemn on hearsay evidence alone, your sins increase."

"Deal justly with your servants in the palace, deal justly before the face of the Sun."

"Fiat justitia, ruat caelum."

"'Equality among human-being can be explained in Justice."

"Nothing is settled till it is settled right."

"There is no virtue so truly great and godlike as justice."

"Justice is that virtue of the soul which is distributive according to desert."

"God's justice, tardy though it prove perchance, Rests never on the track until it reach Delinquency."

"It looks to me to be narrow and pedantic to apply the ordinary ideas of criminal justice to this great public contest. I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people."

"Observantior æqui Fit populus, nec ferre negat, cum viderit ipsum Auctorem parere sibi."

"Justice is truth in action."

"Whoever fights, whoever falls, Justice conquers evermore."

"Justice without wisdom is impossible."

"That which is unjust can really profit no one; that which is just can really harm no one."

"Dilexi justitiam et odi iniquitatem, propterea morior in exilio."

"The spirits of just men made perfect."

"Raro antecedentem scelestum Deseruit pede pœna claudo."

"L'amour de la justice n'est, en la plupart des hommes, que la crainte de souffrir l'injustice."

"Arma tenenti Omnia dat qui justa negat."

"But the sunshine aye shall light the sky, As round and round we run; And the Truth shall ever come uppermost, And Justice shall be done."

"I'm armed with more than complete steel,— The justice of my quarrel."

"Prompt sense of equity! to thee belongs The swift redress of unexamined wrongs! Eager to serve, the cause perhaps untried, But always apt to choose the suffering side!"

"A just man is not one who does no ill, But he, who with the power, has not the will."

"Render therefore to all their dues."

"Qui statuit aliquid, parte inaudita altera, Aequum licet statuerit, haud æquus fuerit."

"Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just; And four times he who gets his fist in fust."

"Truth is its [justice's] handmaid, freedom is its child, peace is its companion, safety walks in its steps, victory follows in its train; it is the brightest emanation from the gospel; it is the attribute of God."

"The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day."

"There is a point at which even justice does injury."

"Suo sibi gladio hunc jugulo."

"On ne peut être juste si on n'est pas humain."

"Discite justitiam moniti et non temnere divos."

"Fiat justitia, ruat cœlum."

"Justice, sir, is the great interest of man on earth."

"The world is a garden the fence of which is the dynasty. The dynasty is an authority through which life is given proper behavior. Proper behavior is a policy directed by the ruler. The ruler is an institution supported by the soldiers. The soldiers are helpers who are maintained by money. Money is sustenance brought together by the subjects. The subjects are servants who are protected by justice. Justice is something familiar (harmonious) and through it, the world persists. The world is a garden... and then it begins again … they are held together in a circle with no definite beginning or end."

"No one is fit to govern, save he who is mild without weakness and strong without harshness. They used to say : There can be no government without men, No men without money, No money without prosperity, And no prosperity without justice and good administration."

"The world is a garden for the state to master. The state is power supported by the law. The law is policy administered by the king. The king is a shepherd supported by the army. The army are assistants provided for by taxation. Taxation is sustenance gathered by subjects. Subjects are slaves provided for by justice. Justice is that by which the rectitude of the world subsists."

"Justice must not give way to policy."

"Uncertain justice by a verdict is much better than certain injustice."

"There is not in this country one rule by which the rich are governed, and another for the poor. No man has justice meted out to him by a different measure on account of his rank or fortune, from what would be done if he were destitute of both. Every invasion of property is judged of by the same rule; every injury is compensated in the same way; and every crime is restrained by the same punishment, be the condition of the offender what it may. It is in this alone that true equality can exist in society."

"The law is well known, and is the same for all ranks and degrees."

"It is the right of her Majesty's subjects to make claims and to have them tried in the constitutional way."

"The humanity of the Court has been loudly and repeatedly invoked. Humanity is the second virtue of Courts, but undoubtedly the first is Justice."

"When the Court see reason to suspect that justice has not been done to any particular defendant, they will in their discretion direct a further enquiry into the merits of the cause."

""No, no!" said the Queen. Sentence first—verdict afterwards."

""There's the King's Messenger. He's in prison now, being punished: and the trial doesn't begin until next Wednesday: and of course the crime comes last of all". "Suppose he never commits the crime?" said Alice. "That would be all the better, wouldn't it?" the Queen said."

"That it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer, is a Maxim that has been long and generally approved."

"Oh Justice, when expelled from other habitations, make this thy dwelling place."

"Dear son, if you come to reign do that which befits a king, that is, be so just as to deviate in nothing from justice, whatever may befall you. If a poor man goes to law with one who is rich, support the poor rather than the rich man until you know the truth, and when the truth is known, do that which is just."

"We said that a single injustice, a single crime, a single illegality, particularly if it is officially recorded, confirmed, a single wrong to humanity, a single wrong to justice and to right, particularly if it is universally, legally, nationally, commodiously accepted, that a single crime shatters and is sufficient to shatter the whole social pact, the whole social contract, that a single legal crime, a single dishonorable act will bring about the loss of one's honor, the dishonor of a whole people. It is a touch of gangrene that corrupts the entire body."

"They have a Right to censure, that have a Heart to help: The rest is Cruelty, not Justice."

"Salvation for a race, nation, or class must come from within. Freedom is never granted; it is won. Justice is never given; it is exacted. Freedom and justice must be struggled for by the oppressed of all lands and races, and the struggle must be continuous, for freedom is never a final fact, but a continuing evolving process to higher and higher levels of human, social, economic, political and religious relationships."

"Justice in the life and conduct of the State is possible only as first it resides in the hearts and souls of the citizens."

"The more corrupt a society, the more numerous its laws."

"A government of laws and not of men."

"One day humanity will play with law just as children play with disused objects, not in order to restore them to their canonical use but to free them from it for good."

"Law is king of all."

"Law is a Bottomless-Pit, it is a Cormorant, a Harpy, that devours every thing."

"Law is order, and good law is good order."

"Surely we will not dare say that these laws are unjust, or rather, that they are not laws at all. For it seems to me that an unjust law is no law at all."

"The Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes that 'if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression', human rights should be protected by the rule of law. That just laws which uphold human rights are the necessary foundation of peace and security would be denied only by closed minds which interpret peace as the silence of all opposition and security as the assurance of their own power."

"All those which have written of laws, have written either as philosophers or as lawyers, and none as statesmen. As for the philosophers, they make imaginary laws for imaginary commonwealths; and their discourses are as the stars, which give little light because they are so high. For the lawyers, they write according to the states where they live what is received law, and not what ought to be law: for the wisdom of a lawmaker is one, and of a lawyer is another."

"It was a thing not to be done suddenly nor at one Parliament; nor scarce a whole year would suffice, to purge the statute-book nor lessen the volume of laws;-being so many in number that neither common people can half practise them, nor the lawyer sufficiently understand them."

"Corporations have no internal constraints to stop them from flouting the law. Their legal makeup compels them to pursue profit and growth but say nothing about whether they have to abide by the law in doing so. As a result, decisions to break the law depend, as do all others, on whether the benefits outweigh the costs."

"La loi est bonne, elle est nécessaire, l'exécution en est mauvaise, et les mœurs jugent les lois d'après la manière dont elles s'exécutent."

"Lorsque la Spoliation est devenue le moyen d’existence d’une agglomération d’hommes unis entre eux par le lien social, ils se font bientôt une loi qui la sanctionne, une morale qui la glorifie."

"You would oppose law to socialism. But it is the law which socialism invokes. It aspires to legal, not extra-legal plunder…. You wish to prevent it from taking any part in the making of laws. You would keep it outside the Legislative Palace. In this you will not succeed, I venture to prophesy, so long as legal plunder is the basis of the legislation within. It is absolutely necessary that this question of legal plunder should be determined, and there are only three solutions of it:— 1. When the few plunder the many. 2. When everybody plunders everybody else. 3. When nobody plunders anybody. Partial plunder, universal plunder, absence of plunder, amongst these we have to make our choice. The law can only produce one of these results. Partial plunder.—This is the system which prevailed so long as the elective privilege was partial; a system which is resorted to, to avoid the invasion of socialism. Universal plunder.—We have been threatened by this system when the elective privilege has become universal; the masses having conceived the idea of making law, on the principle of legislators who had preceded them. Absence of plunder.—This is the principle of justice, peace, order, stability, conciliation, and of good sense."

"Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place."

"The quest for other, and better, forms of life, society, technology, ethics, and law may not reveal that they are actually elsewhere; but it may in the long run help us to make some of them actual on earth."

"Any law that takes hold of a man's daily life cannot prevail in a community, unless the vast majority of the community are actively in favor of it. The laws that are the most operative are the laws which protect life."

"When laws, customs, or institutions cease to be beneficial to man, they cease to be obligatory."

"The Invariability of Law. That we live in a realm of law, that we arc surrounded by laws that we cannot break, this is a truism. Yet when the fact is recognised in a real and vital way, and when it is seen to be a fact in the mental and moral world as much as in the physical, a certain sense of helplessness is apt to overpower us, as though we felt ourselves in the grip of some mighty Power, that, seizing us, whirls us away whither it will. The very reverse of this is in reality the case, for the mighty Power, when it is understood, will obediently carry us whither we will; all forces in Nature can be used in proportion as they are understood “Nature is conquered by obedience ” — and her resistless energies are at our bidding as soon as we, by knowledge, work with them and not against them. We can choose out of her boundless stores the forces that serve our purpose in momentum, in direction, and so on, and their very invariability becomes the guarantee of our success. p. 6"

"On the invariability of law depend the security of scientific experiment, and all power of planning a result and of predicting the future. On this the chemist rests, sure that Nature will ever respond in the same way, if he be precise in putting his questions. A variation in his results is taken by him as implying a change in his procedure, not a change in Nature. And so with all human action; the more it is based on knowledge, the more secure is it in its forecastings, for all “accident" is the result of ignorance, and is due to the working of laws whose presence was unknown or overlooked. In the mental and moral worlds, as much as in the physical, results can be foreseen, planned for, calculated on. Nature never betrays us; we are betrayed by our own blindness. p. 7"

"That law should be as invariable in the mental and moral worlds as in the physical is to be expected, since the universe is the emanation of the One, and what we call Law is but the expression of the Divine Nature. As there is one Lite emanating all, so there is one Law sustaining all ; the worlds rest on this rock of the Divine Nature as on a secure, immutable foundation. p.7"

"This assurance that perfect Justice rules the world finds support from the increasing knowledge of the evolving Soul; for as it advances and begins to see on higher planes and to transmit its knowledge to the waking consciousness, we learn with ever-growing certainty, and therefore with ever-increasing joy, that the Good Law is working with undeviating accuracy, that its Agents apply it everywhere with unerring insight, with unfailing strength, and that all is therefore very well with the world and with its struggling Souls."

"Such is an outline of the great Law of Karma and of its workings, by a knowledge of which a man may accelerate his evolution, by the utilization of which a man may free himself from bondage, and become, long ere his race has trodden its course, one of the Helpers and Saviours of the World. A deep and steady conviction of the truth of this Law gives to life an immovable serenity and a perfect fearlessness: nothing can touch us that we have not wrought, nothing can injure us that we have not merited. And as everything that we have sown must ripen into harvest in due season, and must be reaped, it is idle to lament over the reaping when it is painful; it may as well be done now as at any future time, since it cannot be evaded, and, once done, it cannot return to trouble us again."

"Ere man could know what was right, he had to learn the existence of the law, and this he could only learn by following all that attracted him in the outer world, by grasping every desirable object, and then by learning from experience, sweet or bitter, whether his delight was in harmony or in conflict with the law. Let us take an obvious example, the taking of pleasant food, and see how infant man might learn there from the presence of a natural law. At the first taking, his hunger was appeased, his taste was gratified, and only pleasure resulted from the experience, for his action was in harmony with law. On another occasion, desiring to increase pleasure, he ate overmuch and suffered in consequence, for he transgressed against the law. A confusing experience to the dawning intelligence, how the pleasurable became painful by excess."

"Over and over again he would be led by desire into excess, and each time he would experience the painful consequences, until at last he learned moderation, i.e., he learned to conform his bodily acts in this respect to physical law; for he found that there were conditions which affected him and which he could not control, and that only by observing them could physical happiness be insured. Similar experiences flowed in upon him through all the bodily organs, with undeviating regularity; his outrushing desires brought him pleasure or pain just as they worked with the laws of Nature or against them, and, as experience increased, it began to guide his steps, to influence his choice. It was not as though he had to begin his experience anew with every life, for on each new birth he brought with him mental faculties a little increased, and ever-accumulating store."

"A nation that will not enforce its laws has no claim to the respect and allegiance of its people."

"[L]aw neither reflects nor distorts a social world of subjects that exists independent of it. Instead, law helps compose the social world."

"The law is not a "light" for you or any man to see by; the law is not an instrument of any kind. The law is a causeway upon which so long as he keeps to it a citizen may walk safely."

"Wo wir unfähig sind, die Gesetze der Notwendigkeit zu erkennen, da glauben wir, frei zu sein."

"[N]o law, written or unwritten, can be understood without a full knowledge of the facts out of which it arises, and to which it is to be applied."

"If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for the law. It invites every man to become a law unto himself. It invites anarchy."

"The law is simply and solely made for the exploitation of those who do not understand it or of those who, for naked need, cannot obey it."

"As in elections, the law pretended universal rights, while securing the interests of powerful houses."

"Laws, like houses, lean on one another."

"Our wrangling lawyers ... are so litigious and busy here on earth, that I think they will plead their clients' causes hereafter, some of them in hell."

"Your pettifoggers damn their souls, To share with knaves in cheating fools."

"Is not the winding up witnesses, And nicking, more than half the bus'ness? For witnesses, like watches, go Just as they're set, too fast or slow; And where in Conscience they're strait-lac'd, 'Tis ten to one that side is cast."

"An unconstitutional act is not law; it confers no rights; it imposes no duties; affords no protection; it creates no office; it is in legal contemplation, as inoperative as though it had never been passed."

"A world contrary to God must be kept within bounds by the world’s sword. But true Christians love God and their neighbors as themselves; they commit no evil by the grace of God. It is not necessary to compel them to goodness since they know better what is good than the law imposing authority."

"For there is but one essential justice which cements society, and one law which establishes this justice. This law is right reason, which is the true rule of all commandments and prohibitions. Whoever neglects this law, whether written or unwritten, is necessarily unjust and wicked."

"True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrong-doing by its prohibitions. And it does not lay its commands or prohibitions upon good men in vain, though neither have any effect on the wicked. It is a sin to try to alter this law, nor is it allowable to attempt to repeal any part of it, and it is impossible to abolish it entirely. We cannot be freed from its obligations by senate or people, and we need not look outside ourselves for an expounder or interpreter of it. And there will not be different laws at Rome and at Athens, or different laws now and in the future, but one eternal and unchangeable law will be valid for all nations and all times, and there will be one master and ruler, that is, God, over us all, for he is the author of this law, its promulgator, and its enforcing judge. Whoever is disobedient is fleeing from himself and denying his human nature, and by reason of this very fact he will suffer the worst penalties, even if he escapes what is commonly considered punishment."

"I think it can be shown that the law makes ten criminals where it restrains one."

"Everyone should be respected by the law, and everyone should respect the law."

"Men do not make laws. They do but discover them. Laws must be justified by something more than the will of the majority. They must rest on the eternal foundation of righteousness. That state is most fortunate in its form of government which has the aptest instruments for the discovery of law."

"It is not the enactment, but the observance of laws, that creates the character of a nation."

"Necessity hath no law. Feigned necessities, imagined necessities... are the greatest cozenage that men can put upon the Providence of God, and make pretenses to break known rules by."

"Here forms, here colours, here the character of every part of the universe are concentrated to a point; and that point is so marvellous a thing … Oh! marvellous, O stupendous Necessity — by thy laws thou dost compel every effect to be the direct result of its cause, by the shortest path. These are miracles."

"Las leyes son para que las cumplan los pobres. Las leyes son hechas por los ricos para poner un poco de orden a la explotación. Los pobres son los únicos cumplidores de leyes de la historia. Cuando los pobres hagan las leyes ya no habrá ricos."

"The law of Jehovah is perfect, restoring strength. The reminder of Jehovah is trustworthy, making the inexperienced one wise."

"Make every private Sentinel, every Musquetier, both Judge, Jury, and Executioner."

"Even if laws are neutrally applied to all, they are still unjust when they are applied to seek immoral ends. It is unacceptable and dangerous when laws undermine marriage, destroy life, or promote false understandings of life and the human person. It doesn’t matter if 51 percent of the population supports it — majority support does not make a law good, tolerable, or legitimate."

"Law can only prohibit such actions as are hurtful to society. Nothing may be prevented which is not forbidden by law, and no one may be forced to do anything not provided for by law."

""If the law supposes that," said Mr. Bumble, "the law is a ass, a idiot." If that's the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is that his eye may be opened by experience—by experience"."

"The one great principle of the English law is, to make business for itself."

"If it's near dinner time, the foreman takes out his watch when the jury have retired and says: "Dear me, gentlemen, ten minutes to five, I declare! I dine at five, gentlemen." "So do I," says everybody else except two men who ought to have dined at three, and seem more than half disposed to stand out in consequence. The foreman smiles, and puts up his watch: "Well, gentlemen, what do we say? Plaintiff, defendant, gentlemen? I rather think so far as I am concerned, gentlemen — I say I rather think — but don't let that influence you — I rather think the plaintiff's the man." Upon this two or three other men are sure to say they think so too — as of course they do; and then they get on very unanimously and comfortably."

"I know'd what 'ud come o' this here mode o' doin' business. Oh, Sammy, Sammy, vy worn't there a alleybi!"

"There are many pleasant fictions of the law in constant operation, but there is not one so pleasant or practically humorous as that which supposes every man to be of equal value in its impartial eye, and the benefits of all laws to be equally attainable by all men, without the smallest reference to the furniture of their pockets."

"I know it is said that marital alliance between these races is unnatural, abhorrent and impossible; but exclamations of this kind only shake the air. They prove nothing against a stubborn fact like that which confronts us daily and which is open to the observation of all. If this blending of the two races were impossible we should not have at least one-fourth of our colored population composed of persons of mixed blood, ranging all the way from a dark-brown color to the point where there is no visible admixture. Besides, it is obvious to common sense that there is no need of the passage of laws, or the adoption of other devices, to prevent what is in itself impossible."

"We live in and by the law. It makes us what we are: citizens and employees and doctors and spouses and people who own things. It is sword, shield, and menace: we insist on our wage, or refuse to pay our rent, or are forced to forfeit penalties, or are closed up in jail, all in the name of what our abstract and ethereal sovereign, the law, has decreed. And we argue about what it has decreed, even when the books that are supposed to record its commands and directions are silent; we act then as if law had muttered its doom, too low to be heard distinctly. We are subjects of law's empire, liegemen to its methods and ideals, bound in spirit while we debate what we must therefore do."

"They constantly try to escape"

"Among the things held to be just by law, whatever is proved to be of advantage in men's dealings has the stamp of justice, whether or not it be the same for all; but if a man makes a law and it does not prove to be mutually advantageous, then this is no longer just. And if what is mutually advantageous varies and only for a time corresponds to our concept of justice, nevertheless for that time it is just for those who do not trouble themselves about empty words, but look simply at the facts."

"We look upon this shaken Earth, and we declare our firm and fixed purpose — the building of a peace with justice in a world where moral law prevails. The building of such a peace is a bold and solemn purpose. To proclaim it is easy. To serve it will be hard. And to attain it, we must be aware of its full meaning — and ready to pay its full price. We know clearly what we seek, and why. We seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom. And now, as in no other age, we seek it because we have been warned, by the power of modern weapons, that peace may be the only climate possible for human life itself. Yet this peace we seek cannot be born of fear alone: it must be rooted in the lives of nations. There must be justice, sensed and shared by all peoples, for, without justice the world can know only a tense and unstable truce. There must be law, steadily invoked and respected by all nations, for without law, the world promises only such meager justice as the pity of the strong upon the weak. But the law of which we speak, comprehending the values of freedom, affirms the equality of all nations, great and small. Splendid as can be the blessings of such a peace, high will be its cost: in toil patiently sustained, in help honorably given, in sacrifice calmly borne."

"Let me make the ballads of a nation and I care not who makes its laws."

"La majestueuse égalité des lois, qui interdit au riche comme au pauvre de coucher sous les ponts, de mendier dans les rues et de voler du pain."

"If one man can be allowed to determine for himself what is law, every man can. That means first chaos, then tyranny. Legal process is an essential part of the democratic process."

"I am a lover of truth, a worshipper of freedom, a celebrant at the altar of language and purity and tolerance. That is my religion, and every day I am sorely, grossly, heinously and deeply offended, wounded, mortified and injured by a thousand different blasphemies against it. When the fundamental canons of truth, honesty, compassion and decency are hourly assaulted by fatuous bishops, pompous, illiberal and ignorant priests, politicians and prelates, sanctimonious censors, self-appointed moralists and busy-bodies, what recourse of ancient laws have I? None whatever. Nor would I ask for any. For unlike these blistering imbeciles my belief in my religion is strong and I know that lies will always fail and indecency and intolerance will always perish."

"I believe that each era finds a [sic] improvement in law each year brings something new for the benefit of mankind. Maybe this will be one of those small steps forward, in the past thirty-five years I have seen great advancement in courts in penal servitude."

"The Law is the true embodiment, Of everything that's excellent, It has no kind of fault or flaw, And I, my Lords, embody the Law."

"The function of the lawyer is to preserve a sceptical relativism in a society hell-bent for absolutes. The worse the society, the more law there will be. In Hell there will be nothing but law and due process will be meticulously observed."

"Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law."

"The rule of law can be wiped out in one misguided, however well-intentioned generation. And if that should happen, it could take a century of striving and ordeal to restore it, and then only at the cost of the lives of many good men and women."

"It is the law of life that if you are kind to someone you feel happy. If you are cruel you are unhappy. And if you hurt someone, you will be hurt back."

"I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution."

"For those who think it important for the Nation to impose more tariffs, I understand that today’s decision will be disappointing. All I can offer them is that most major decisions affecting the rights and responsibilities of the American people (including the duty to pay taxes and tariffs) are funneled through the legislative process for a reason. Yes, legislating can be hard and take time. And, yes, it can be tempting to bypass Congress when some pressing problem arises. But the deliberative nature of the legislative process was the whole point of its design. Through that process, the Nation can tap the combined wisdom of the people’s elected representatives, not just that of one faction or man. There, deliberation tempers impulse, and compromise hammers disagreements into workable solutions. And because laws must earn such broad support to survive the legislative process, they tend to endure, allowing ordinary people to plan their lives in ways they cannot when the rules shift from day to day. In all, the legislative process helps ensure each of us has a stake in the laws that govern us and in the Nation’s future. For some today, the weight of those virtues is apparent. For others, it may not seem so obvious. But if history is any guide, the tables will turn and the day will come when those disappointed by today’s result will appreciate the legislative process for the bulwark of liberty it is."

"If you cannot recognise the will of the Führer as a source of law, then you cannot remain a judge."

"The law regards man as man, and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved."

"It seems to me that any law that is not enforced and can’t be enforced weakens all other laws."

"The laws were very comical; to bet was voted lax, But your betting was the only thing that nobody could tax."

"The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience... The law embodies the story of a nation's development through many centuries, and it cannot be dealt with as if it contained only the axioms and corollaries of a book of mathematics."

"The only law that a Christian should listen to and read is the law of God's Commandments. And it is not right to comply with, implement or observe any other law."

"I cannot be brought to believe that this country will suffer if the Court refuses further to aggrandize the presidential office, already so potent and so relatively immune from judicial review, at the expense of Congress.But I have no illusion that any decision by this Court can keep power in the hands of Congress if it is not wise and timely in meeting its problems. A crisis that challenges the President equally, or perhaps primarily, challenges Congress. If not good law, there was worldly wisdom in the maxim attributed to Napoleon that "The tools belong to the man who can use them." We may say that power to legislate for emergencies belongs in the hands of Congress, but only Congress itself can prevent power from slipping through its fingers.The essence of our free Government is "leave to live by no man's leave, underneath the law" -- to be governed by those impersonal forces which we call law. Our Government is fashioned to fulfill this concept so far as humanly possible. The Executive, except for recommendation and veto, has no legislative power. The executive action we have here originates in the individual will of the President, and represents an exercise of authority without law. No one, perhaps not even the President, knows the limits of the power he may seek to exert in this instance, and the parties affected cannot learn the limit of their rights. We do not know today what powers over labor or property would be claimed to flow from Government possession if we should legalize it, what rights to compensation would be claimed or recognized, or on what contingency it would end. With all its defects, delays and inconveniences, men have discovered no technique for long preserving free government except that the Executive be under the law, and that the law be made by parliamentary deliberations. Such institutions may be destined to pass away. But it is the duty of the Court to be last, not first, to give them up."

"I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors. It is this preposterous idea which has lately deluged Europe in blood. Their monarchs, instead of wisely yielding to the gradual change of circumstances, of favoring progressive accommodation to progressive improvement, have clung to old abuses, entrenched themselves behind steady habits, and obliged their subjects to seek through blood and violence rash and ruinous innovations, which, had they been referred to the peaceful deliberations and collected wisdom of the nation, would have been put into acceptable and salutary forms. Let us follow no such examples, nor weakly believe that one generation is not as capable as another of taking care of itself, and of ordering its own affairs."

"Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add "within the limits of the law" because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual."

"Do not lay down any rules beyond what I appointed you, and do not give a law like the lawgiver lest you be constrained by it."

"The ruling powers tell us poor lower-class folks that we have an obligation, a social responsibility to society, to abide by the law, but they don’t have any social responsibility to us to help us meet our needs. It’s pure bourgeoisie class-based morality, a morality that serves the ruling class, not the masses of the oppressed."

"The law cannot save those who deny it but neither can the law serve any who do not use it. The history of injustice and inequality is a history of disuse of the law. Law has not failed--and is not failing. We as a nation have failed ourselves by not trusting the law and by not using the law to gain sooner the ends of justice which law alone serves."

"We all know that the roots of injustice run deep. But violence cannot redress a solitary wrong, or remedy a single unfairness. Of course, all America is outraged at the assassination of an outstanding Negro leader who was at that meeting that afternoon in the White House in 1966. And America is also outraged at the looting and the burning that defiles our democracy. We just must put our shoulders together and put a stop to both. The time is here. Action must be now. So, I would appeal to my fellow Americans by saying, the only real road to progress for free people is through the process of law and that is the road that America will travel."

"Here our interest is directed to the temporal dimension of legality, the way law stands in relation to the past, the present, and the future. Law in the modern era is, we believe, one of the most important of our society’s technologies for preserving memory. Just as the use of precedent to legitimate legal decisions fixes law in a particular relation to the past, memory may be attached, or attach itself, to law and be preserved in and through law. Where this is the case, it serves as one way of orienting ourselves to the future. As Drucilla Cornell puts it: “Legal interpretation demands that we remember the future.” In that phrase, Cornell reminds us that there are, in fact, two audiences for every legal act, the audience of the present and the audience of the future. Law materializes memory in documents, transcripts, written opinions; it reenacts the past, both intentionally and unconsciously, and it is one place where the present speaks to the future through acts of commemoration."

"Because the litigated case creates a record, courts can become archives in which that record serves as the materialization of memory. Due process guarantees an opportunity to be heard by, and an opportunity to speak to, the future. It is the guarantee that legal institutions can be turned into museums of unnecessary, unjust, undeserved pain and death. The legal hearing provides lawyers and litigants an opportunity to write and record history by creating narratives of present injustices, and to insist on memory in the face of denial. By recording such history and constructing such narratives lawyers and litigants call on an imagined future to choose Justice over the “jurispathic” tendencies of the moment."

"Law is one site to both “remember the future” and to insure that the future remembers. Perhaps by paying attention to how law serves memory we can gain new understandings of law’s crucial role in knitting together our past, present and future. Perhaps by attending to the contestation that inevitably accompanies efforts to materialize memory in law we can gain a better understanding of the ways that social conflict plays itself out on the terrain of remembrance."

"Had those who drew and ratified the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth Amendment or the Fourteenth Amendment known the components of liberty in its manifold possibilities, they might have been more specific. They did not presume to have this insight. They knew times can blind us to certain truths and later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress. As the Constitution endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom."

"Disarmament without checks is but a shadow--and a community without law is but a shell."

"All students, members of the faculty, and public officials in both Mississippi and the Nation will be able, it is hoped, to return to their normal activities with full confidence in the integrity of American law. This is as it should be, for our Nation is founded on the principle that observance of the law is the eternal safeguard of liberty and defiance of the law is the surest road to tyranny. The law which we obey includes the final rulings of the courts, as well as the enactments of our legislative bodies. Even among law-abiding men few laws are universally loved, but they are uniformly respected and not resisted. Americans are free, in short, to disagree with the law but not to disobey it. For in a government of laws and not of men, no man, however prominent or powerful, and no mob however unruly or boisterous, is entitled to defy a court of law. If this country should ever reach the point where any man or group of men by force or threat of force could long defy the commands of our court and our Constitution, then no law would stand free from doubt, no judge would be sure of his writ, and no citizen would be safe from his neighbors."

"In 1945 a Mississippi sergeant, Jake Lindsey, was honored by an unusual joint session of the Congress. I close therefore, with this appeal to the students of the University, the people who are most concerned. You have a great tradition to uphold, a tradition of honor and courage won on the field of battle and on the gridiron as well as the University campus. You have a new opportunity to show that you are men of patriotism and integrity. For the most effective means of upholding the law is not the State policeman or the marshals or the National Guard. It is you. It lies in your courage to accept those laws with which you disagree as well as those with which you agree."

"Third, and finally, the educated citizen has an obligation to uphold the law. This is the obligation of every citizen in a free and peaceful society--but the educated citizen has a special responsibility by the virtue of his greater understanding. For whether he has ever studied history or current events, ethics or civics, the rules of a profession or the tools of a trade, he knows that only a respect for the law makes it possible for free men to dwell together in peace and progress."

"He knows that law is the adhesive force in the cement of society, creating order out of chaos and coherence in place of anarchy. He knows that for one man to defy a law or court order he does not like is to invite others to defy those which they do not like, leading to a breakdown of all justice and all order. He knows, too, that every fellowman is entitled to be regarded with decency and treated with dignity. Any educated citizen who seeks to subvert the law, to suppress freedom, or to subject other human beings to acts that are less than human, degrades his heritage, ignores his learning, and betrays his obligation."

"Certain other societies may respect the rule of force--we respect the rule of law."

"Education does have a great role to play in this period of transition. But it is not either education or legislation; it is both education and legislation. It may be true that morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important also. It may be true that the law cannot change the heart, but it can restrain the heartless, and this is what we often so and we have to do in society through legislation. We must depend on religion and education to change bad internal attitudes, but we need legislation to control the external effects of those bad internal attitudes. And so there is a need for meaningful civil right legislation."

"One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all.""

"An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law."

"But hereof be assured, that all is not lawful nor just that is statute by civil laws; neither yet is everything sin before God, which ungodly persons allege to be treason."

"If you reason instead of repeating what is taught you; if you analyze the law and strip off those cloudy fictions with which it has been draped in order to conceal its real origin, which is the right of the stronger, and its substance, which has ever been the consecration of all the tyrannies handed down to mankind through its long and bloody history; when you have comprehended this, your contempt for the law will be profound indeed. You will understand that to remain the servant of the written law is to place yourself every day in opposition to the law of conscience, and to make a bargain on the wrong side; and, since this struggle cannot go on forever, you will either silence your conscience and become a scoundrel, or you will break with tradition, and you will work with us for the utter destruction of all this injustice"

"All of our punishment institutions, including jails, laws, church confessionals, and so forth, are systems of illusion. The order of the universe, the infinite justice of yin and yang, naturally takes care of all motion and compensation. We don't need to invent arbitrary ways to make balance with punishments."

"The law of levity is allowed to supersede the law of gravity."

"Certain broad facts are always put before men in some form or other. They are explained even to savage tribes by their medicine-men, and to the rest of mankind by various religious teachers and in all kinds of scriptures. It is very true that scriptures and religions differ, but the points in which they all agree have to be accepted by a man before he can understand life sufficiently to live happily. One of these facts is the eternal Law of Cause and Effect. If a man lives under the delusion that he can do anything that he likes, and that the effect of his actions will never recoil upon himself, he will most certainly find that some of these actions eventually involve him in unhappiness and suffering. **C.W. Leadbeater, (Speaking about the Four Noble Truths in The Masters and the Path (1925) p. 306"

"[T]o violate the law is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the charter of his own and his children's liberty. Let reverence for the laws be breathed... When I so pressingly urge a strict observance of all the laws, let me not be understood as saying there are no bad laws, or that grievances may not arise for the redress of which no legal provisions have been made. I mean to say no such thing. But I do mean to say that although bad laws, if they exist, should be repealed as soon as possible.. There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law."

"The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings, capable of laws, where there is no law there is no freedom."

"And folks are beginning to think it looks odd, To choke a poor scamp for the glory of God."

"Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered."

"We refuse to have our conscience bound by any work or law. ... Our stubbornness is right, because we want to preserve the liberty which we have in Christ. Only by preserving our liberty shall we be able to retain the truth of the Gospel inviolate."

"The reason of a commandment, whether positive or negative, is clear, and its usefulness evident, if it directly tends to remove injustice, or to teach good conduct that furthers the well-being of society, or to impart a truth which ought to be believed either on its own merit or as being indispensable for facilitating the removal of injustice or the teaching of good morals. There is no occasion to ask for the object of such commandments; for no one can, e.g., be in doubt as to the reason why we have been commanded to believe that God is one; why we are forbidden to murder, steal, and to take vengeance, or to retaliate, or why we are commanded to love one another. But there are precepts concerning which people are in doubt, and of divided opinions, some believing they are mere commands, and serve no purpose whatever, whilst others believe that they serve a certain purpose, which, however is unknown to man. Such are those precepts which in their literal meaning do not seem to further any of the three above-named results: to impart some truth, to teach some moral, or to remove injustice. They do not seem to have any influence upon the well-being of the soul by imparting any truth, or upon the well-being of the body by suggesting such ways and rules as are useful in the government of a state, or in the management of a household. ... I will show that all these and similar laws must have some bearing upon one of the following three things, viz., the regulation of our opinions, or the improvement of our social relations, which implies two things, the removal of injustice, and the teaching of good morals."

"The chief object of the Law, as has been shown by us, is the teaching of truths; to which the truth of the creatio ex nihilo belongs. It is known that the object of the law of Sabbath is to confirm and to establish this principle, as we have shown in this treatise (Part II. chap. xxxi.) In addition to the teaching of truths the Law aims at the removal of injustice from mankind. We have thus proved that the first laws do not refer to burnt-offering and sacrifice, which are of secondary importance."

"The wiser nations are, the more public spirit they possess, the more perfect their political constitution, the fewer constitutional laws they have, for these laws are only props, and a building only needs props when it has become out of plumb or when it has been violently shaken by an external force. The most perfect constitution of antiquity was without contradiction that of Sparta, and Sparta has not left us a single line of its public law. It justly boasted of having written its laws only in the hearts of its children."

"In its proper meaning equality before the law means the right to participate in the making of the laws by which one is governed, a constitution which guarantees democratic rights to all sections of the population, the right to approach the court for protection or relief in the case of the violation of rights guaranteed in the constitution, and the right to take part in the administration of justice as judges, magistrates, attorneys-general, law advisers and similar positions."

"Leges bello siluere coactae."

"The law is a sort of hocus-pocus science, that smiles in yer face while it picks yer pocket; and the glorious uncertainty of it is of mair use to the professors than the justice of it."

"A lawsuit is to ordinary life what war is to peacetime. In a lawsuit, everybody on the other side is bad. A trial transcript is a discourse in malevolence."

"In life, it is hard enough to see another person's view of things; in a lawsuit, it is impossible. The fatal attraction of a lawsuit—as Dickens showed us in Bleak House, with the case of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce—is the infinite scope it offers for escape from the real world of ambiguity, obscurity, doubt, disappointment, compromise, and accommodation. The world of the lawsuit is the world of the Platonic ideal, where all is clear, etched, one thing or the other. It is a world—as Dickens showed with his allegory of obsession—that we enter at our peril, since it is also the world of madness."

"Law, morality, religion, are to him so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests."

"It were better that Ten Suspected Witches should escape, than that one Innocent Person should be Condemned."

"Power over the rules is real power. That's why lobbyists congregate when Congress writes laws, and why the Supreme Court, which interprets and delineates the Constitution – the rules for writing the rules – has even more power than Congress. If you want to understand the deepest malfunctions of systems, pay attention to the rules and to who has power over them."

"A law of nature is not a formula drawn up by a legislator, but a mere summary of the observed facts — a "bundle of facts." Things do not act in a particular way because there is a law, but we state the "law" because they act in that way."

"The whole drift of our law is toward the absolute prohibition of all ideas that diverge in the slightest from the accepted platitudes, and behind that drift of law there is a far more potent force of growing custom, and under that custom there is a national philosophy which erects conformity into the noblest of virtues and the free functioning of personality into a capital crime against society."

"Laws without supporting moral conventions invite crime, but much more importantly, they spur the growth of an expedient, amoral attitude. In our kind of society - with its absence of pre-capitalist traditions - the only way to do away with training devices is to change the laws and their enforcement so that, unlike the current income tax, they do not depend upon individual integrity."

"Useless laws weaken the necessary laws."

"Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary relations derived from the nature of things."

"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

"The black person ... is asked to respect laws that do not respect him. He is asked to digest a code of ethics that acts upon him but not for him."

"Men were not created in order to obey laws. Laws are created to obey men. They are established by men and should serve men. The laws and rules which officials inflict upon poor people prevent them from functioning harmoniously in society. There is no disagreements about this function of law in any circle-the disagreement arises from the question of which men laws are to serve. Such lawmakers ignore the fact that it is the duty of the poor and unrepresented to construct rules and laws that serve their interest better. Rewriting unjust laws is a basic human right and fundamental obligation."

"Jesus said to his Jews: “The law was for slaves—love god as I love him, as his son! What do we sons of God have to do with morality!”"

"A law-book never recites the utility, the grounds, the casuistical antecedents of a law: for if it did so it would lose the imperative tone, the “thou shall,” on which obedience is based."

"Jesus wanted to liberate everyone from the law — from all laws. But this could not be achieved by abolishing or changing the law. He had to dethrone the law. He had to ensure that the law be man’s servant and not his master (Mark 2:27-28). Man must therefore take responsibility for his servant, the law, and use it to serve the needs of mankind."

"There was a recognition by all who participated in these reviews that the challenges to our privacy do not come from government alone. Corporations of all shapes and sizes track what you buy, store and analyze our data, and use it for commercial purposes; that’s how those targeted ads pop up on your computer and your smartphone periodically. But all of us understand that the standards for government surveillance must be higher. Given the unique power of the state, it is not enough for leaders to say: Trust us, we won’t abuse the data we collect. For history has too many examples when that trust has been breached. Our system of government is built on the premise that our liberty cannot depend on the good intentions of those in power; it depends on the law to constrain those in power."

"In a Society in which there is no law, and in theory no compulsion, the only arbiter of behaviour is public opinion. But public opinion, because of the tremendous urge to conformity in gregarious animals, is less tolerant than any system of law."

"How can law be just? — impossible. It is against the people who have nothing, it is for the people who have everything. It is always in favor of the haves - it is made by the haves, it is a conspiracy of the haves against the have-nots. In all societies it has been so, the law is always unjust. Your so-called justice is just a pretension. The world where ownership exists cannot be a just world."

"I died to the law so that I might live for God."

"The law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith."

"For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."

"On the other hand, the fruitage of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, mildness, self-control. Against such things there is no law."

"Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law."

"We are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law."

"Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."

"To those outside the law I became as one outside the law—not being without law toward God but under the law of Christ—that I might win those outside the law."

"It is as if a man were acquiring the knowledge of the humors and desires of a great strong beast which he had in his keeping, how it is to be approached and touched, and when and by what things it is made most savage or gentle, yes, and the several sounds it is wont to utter on the occasion of each, and again what sounds uttered by another make it tame or fierce, and after mastering this knowledge by living with the creature and by lapse of time should call it wisdom, and should construct thereof a system and art and turn to the teaching of it, knowing nothing in reality about which of these opinions and desires is honorable or base, good or evil, just or unjust, but should apply all these terms to the judgments of the great beast, calling the things that pleased it good, and the things that vexed it bad, having no other account to render of them, but should call what is necessary just and honorable, never having observed how great is the real difference between the necessary and the good, and being incapable of explaining it to another."

"Curse on all laws but those which love has made."

"Mark what unvary'd laws preserve each state, Laws wise as Nature, and as fixed as Fate."

"Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he."

"I stand ready to negotiate, but I want no part of laws: I acknowledge none; I protest against every order with which some authority may feel pleased on the basis of some alleged necessity to over-rule my free will. Laws: We know what they are, and what they are worth! They are spider webs for the rich and mighty, steel chains for the poor and weak, fishing nets in the hands of government."

"Law is not a mausoleum. It is not an antique to be taken down, dusted, admired and put back on the shelf. It is like an old but vigorous tree, having roots in history, yet continuously taking new grafts and putting out new sprouts and occasionally dropping dead wood. It is essentially a social process, the end product of which is justice and hence it must change with changing social values. Otherwise there will be estrangement between law and justice and law will cease to have legitimacy."

"Aurum lex sequitur."

"We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions."

"…laws should always embody justice, otherwise justice becomes what laws arbitrarily decide it to be. And, as the Tai Ji Men case shows all too well after 29 years, and in this special year 2025, laws can sometimes be unjust."

"As Bob Dylan forgot to say, "To live outside the law, you must be lucky.""

"Laws are only observed with the consent of the individuals concerned and a moral change still depends on the individual and not on the passage of any law."

"The man who more than any other, save Lincoln, had changed us into a nation whose citizens were all freemen, realized entirely that these freemen would remain free only while they kept mastery over their own evil passions. He saw that lawlessness in all its forms was the handmaiden of tyranny. No nation ever yet retained its freedom for any length of time after losing its respect for the law, after losing the law-abiding spirit, the spirit that really makes orderly liberty."

"The first essential of civilization is law. Anarchy is simply the handmaiden and forerunner of tyranny and despotism. Law and order enforced with justice and by strength lie at the foundations of civilization. Law must be based upon justice, else it cannot stand, and it must be enforced with resolute firmness, because weakness in enforcing it means in the end that there is no justice and no law, nothing but the rule of disorderly and unscrupulous strength. Without the habit of orderly obedience to the law, without the stern enforcement of the laws at the expense of those who defiantly resist them, there can be no possible progress, moral or material, in civilization. There can be no weakening of the law-abiding spirit here at home, if we are permanently to succeed; and just as little can we afford to show weakness abroad."

"For my part, I never knew a social evil to be removed by force of law...The prevention of that social evil must commence in the nursery. If you will bring up woman as you ought to bring up men—not as you do bring up men—acknowledging her right to live the same as men, giving her the same advantages and the same rights that men have, there will be no need to enact laws against a "social evil…I say to the Legislature that, if you enact laws against social evils, whatever those laws are, let them be alike for man and for woman."

"Every law the people has not ratified in person is null and void - is, in fact, not a law."

"The inflexibility of the laws, which prevents them from adapting themselves to circumstances, may, in certain cases, render them disastrous, and make them bring about, at a time of crisis, the ruin of the State."

"We must base our laws on faith, not reason."

"Things don't just happen in this world of arising and passing away. We don't live in some kind of crazy, accidental universe. Things happen according to certain laws, laws of nature. Laws such as the law of karma, which teaches us that as a certain seed gets planted, so will that fruit be."

"To disrespect the masses is moral; to honor them, lawful."

"The writers of our belief system caution us to make sure that the laws are just — that is, that they are not subverted by those in power for their own interest and permitted to become the means by which the powerful justify their rule and become masters of the many. In such conditions the laws become idols, and we end up worshipping false gods."

"Necessity creates the law, — it supersedes rules; and whatever is reasonable and just in such cases is likewise legal."

"In the first place, it is not improper to observe, that the law of cases of necessity is not likely to be well furnished with precise rules; necessity creates the law, it supersedes rules; and whatever is reasonable and just in such cases, is likewise legal; it is not to be considered as matter of surprise, therefore, if much instituted rule is not to be found on such subjects."

"Quædam iura non scripta, sed omnibus scriptis certiora sunt."

"You who wear out a good wholesome forenoon in hearing a cause between an orange-wife and a fosset-seller; and then rejourn the controversy of three pence to a second day of audience."

"He hath resisted law, And therefore law shall scorn him further trial Than the severity of the public power."

"In the corrupted currents of this world, Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice; And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself Buys out the law: but 'tis not so above; There is no shuffling, there the action lies In his true nature; and we ourselves compell'd, Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults, To give in evidence."

"But is this law? Ay, marry is 't; crowner's quest law."

"But, I prithee, sweet wag, shall there be gallows standing in England when thou art king? and resolution thus fobbed as it is with the rusty curb of old father antic the law?"

"Faith, I have been a truant in the law, And never yet could frame my will to it; And therefore frame the law unto my will."

"But in these nice sharp quillets of the law, Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw."

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."

"Press not a falling man too far! 'tis virtue: His faults lie open to the laws; let them, Not you, correct him."

"When law can do no right, Let it be lawful that law bar no wrong."

"'Tis like the breath of an unfee'd lawyer; you gave me nothing for 't."

"Bold of your worthiness, we single you As our best-moving fair solicitor."

"We have strict statutes and most biting laws."

"We must not make a scarecrow of the law, Setting it up to fear the birds of prey, And let it keep one shape, till custom make it Their perch and not their terror."

"To offend, and judge, are distinct offices And of opposed natures."

"In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt But, being season'd with a gracious voice, Obscures the show of evil?"

"It must not be; there is no power in Venice Can alter a decree established: 'Twill be recorded for a precedent; And many an error by the same example Will rush into the state."

"The bloody book of law You shall yourself read in the bitter letter After your own sense."

"I am a subject, And I challenge law: attorneys are denied me; And therefore personally I lay my claim To my inheritance of free descent."

"Before I be convict by course of law, To threaten me with death is most unlawful."

"Do as adversaries do in law, Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends."

"We are for law; he dies."

"They have been grand-jurymen since before Noah was a sailor."

"Still you keep o' the windy side of the law."

"When I hear any man talk of an unalterable law, the only effect it produces upon me is to convince me that he is an unalterable fool."

"Law is the rule, principle, obligation or requirement of natural justice."

"Laws are never as effective as habits."

"There is no justice in following unjust laws. It’s time to come into the light and, in the grand tradition of civil disobedience, declare our opposition to this private theft of public culture."

"You have clearly proved that ignorance, idleness, and vice, are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator: that laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied by those whose interest and abilities lies in perverting, confounding, and eluding them."

"Who ever knew an honest brute at law his neighbor prosecute?"

"That which is not just, is not Law; and that which is not Law, ought not to be obeyed."

"Necessity knows no law except to conquer."

"Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges."

"Rebus cunctis inest quidam velut orbis."

"Initia magistratum nostrorum meliora, ferme finis inclinat."

"It is important, of course, that controversies be settled right, but there are many civil questions which arise between individuals in which it is not so important the controversy be settled one way or another as that it be settled. Of course a settlement of a controversy on a fundamentally wrong principle of law is greatly to be deplored, but there must of necessity be many rules governing the relations between members of the same society that are more important in that their establishment creates a known rule of action than that they proceed on one principle or another. Delay works always for the man with the longest purse."

"What is hateful to thee, do not unto thy fellow; this is the whole law. All the rest is a commentary to this law; go and learn it."

"But speaking of rules, you've been arrested dozens of times in your life. Specific incidents aside, what's common to these run-ins? Where do you stand vis-à-vis the law? "Goddammit. Yeah, I have. First, there's a huge difference between being arrested and being guilty. Second, see, the law changes and I don't. How I stand vis-à-vis the law at any given moment depends on the law. The law can change from state to state, from nation to nation, from city to city. I guess I have to go by a higher law. How's that? Yeah, I consider myself a road man for the lords of karma.""

"The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free."

"Illegality is not to be presumed; it is to be alleged and proved when it does not appear on the face of the instrument itself."

"No man e'er felt the halter draw, With good opinion of the law."

"Law is the agent of those in political power; it is the product of those powerful enough to define right and wrong and to have that definition legitimized by “law.” This is not to say that “might makes right,” but it is to say that Might makes Law."

"Whereas Congress recognizes the historical tradition of ethical values and principles which are the basis of civilized society and upon which our great Nation was founded; Whereas these ethical values and principles have been the bedrock of society from the dawn of civilization, when they were known as the Seven Noahide Laws ..."

"Those who fear men like laws."

"In civilized life, law floats in a sea of ethics."

"In law there are “magic words.” If one of them applies to what you are challenging, you have a good chance of getting it overturned. Linda and I used all the magic words that might possibly apply: The statutes were “vague” and uncertain on their face; they were “unconstitutionally broad” on their face in that they infringed upon plaintiff’s “right to safe and adequate medical advice” about the decision of whether to carry a pregnancy to term, upon the “fundamental” right of all women to choose whether to bear children, and upon plaintiff’s “right to privacy” in the physician-patient relationship; on their face they infringed upon plaintiff’s “right to life” in violation of the due-process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; on their face they violated the “First Amendment” prohibition against laws respecting an establishment of religion; and on their face they denied plaintiffs the “equal protection of the laws.”"

"Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is divine. Far from being rivals or enemies religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistance. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other."

"American industry is not free, as once it was free; American enterprise is not free; the man with only a little capital is finding it harder to get into the field, more and more impossible to compete with the big fellow. Why? Because the laws of this country do not prevent the strong from crushing the weak. That is the reason, and because the strong have crushed the weak the strong dominate the industry and the economic life of this country."

""Whatever a despot by enactment constrains the citizens to do without persuasion, is the negation of law?”“Everything, I think, that men constrain others to do without persuasion, whether by enactment or not, is not law, but force.”"

"Law is the backbone which keeps man erect."

"Because of plea-bargaining, I guess we can say, "Gee, the trains run on time." But do we like where they are going?"

"“There’s no justice, John! There is no reason at all for me to be kept here!”"

"Necessitas non habet legem"

"Ove son leggi, Tremar non dee chi leggi non infranse."

"Written laws are like spiders' webs, and will like them only entangle and hold the poor and weak, while the rich and powerful will easily break through them."

"Law is a bottomless pit."

"One of the Seven was wont to say: "That laws were like cobwebs; where the small flies were caught, and the great brake through.""

"All this is but a web of the wit; it can work nothing."

"There was an ancient Roman lawyer, of great fame in the history of Roman jurisprudence, whom they called Cui Bono, from his having first introduced into judicial proceedings the argument, "What end or object could the party have had in the act with which he is accused.""

"I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against an whole people."

"A good parson once said that where mystery begins religion ends. Cannot I say, as truly at least, of human laws, that where mystery begins, justice ends?"

"The law of England is the greatest grievance of the nation, very expensive and dilatory."

"The law of heaven and earth is life for life."

"Arms and laws do not flourish together."

"Who to himself is law, no law doth need, Offends no law, and is a king indeed."

"Jus gentium."

"For as the law is set over the magistrate, even so are the magistrates set over the people. And therefore, it may be truly said, "that the magistrate is a speaking law, and the law is a silent magistrate.""

"Silent enim leges inter arma."

"After an existence of nearly twenty years of almost innocuous desuetude these laws are brought forth."

"Magna Charta is such a fellow that he will have no sovereign."

"Reason is the life of the law; nay, the common law itself is nothing else but reason. * * * The law which is perfection of reason."

"The gladsome light of jurisprudence."

"According to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not."

"Trial by jury itself, instead of being a security to persons who are accused, shall be a delusion, a mockery, and a snare."

"Whatever was required to be done, the Circumlocution Office was beforehand with all the public departments in the art of perceiving — HOW NOT TO DO IT."

"When the judges shall be obliged to go armed, it will be time for the courts to be closed."

"Our human laws are but the copies, more or less imperfect, of the eternal laws, so far as we can read them."

"Just laws are no restraint upon the freedom of the good, for the good man desires nothing which a just law will interfere with."

"Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of mankind."

"Es erben sich Gesetz und Rechte Wie eine ew'ge Krankheit fort."

"A cloud of witnesses."

"Quid leges sine moribus Vanæ proficiunt?"

"To the law and to the testimony."

"The law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the public."

"Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas."

"Ad quæstionem juris respondeant judices ad quæstionem facti respondeant juratores."

"We must never assume that which is incapable of proof."

"Hominem improbum non accusari tutius est quam absolvi."

"La charte sera désormais une vérité."

"Perchè, cosi come i buoni costumi, per mantenersi, hanno bisogno delli leggi; cosi le leggi per ossevarsi, hanno bisogno de' buoni costumi."

"Nisi per legale judicium parum suorum."

"Certis * * * legibus omnia parent."

"The law speaks too softly to be heard amidst the din of arms."

"Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's."

"As the case stands."

"Litigious terms, fat contentions, and flowing fees."

"Le bruit des armes l'empeschoit d'entendre la voix des lois."

"There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws would not deserve hanging ten times in his life."

"Neque enim lex est æquior ulla, Quam necis artifices arte perire sua."

"Sunt superis sua jura."

"Where law ends, there tyranny begins."

"Nescis tu quam meticulosa res sit ire ad judicem."

"Non est princeps super leges, sed leges supra principem."

"All, look up with reverential awe, At crimes that 'scape, or triumph o'er the law."

"Piecemeal they win this acre first then, that, Glean on, and gather up the whole estate."

"Once (says an Author; where, I need not say) Two Trav'lers found an Oyster in their way; Both fierce, both hungry; the dispute grew strong, While Scale in hand Dame Justice pass'd along. Before her each with clamour pleads the Laws. Explain'd the matter, and would win the cause, Dame Justice weighing long the doubtful Right, Takes, open, swallows it, before their sight. The cause of strife removed so rarely well, "There take" (says Justice), "take ye each a shell. We thrive at Westminster on Fools like you: 'Twas a fat oyster—live in peace—Adieu.""

"Let us consider the reasons of the case. For nothing is law that is not reason."

"He that is surety for a stranger shall smart for it."

"God detests the prayers of a person who ignores the law."

"That very law which moulds a tear, And bids it trickle from its source, That law preserves the earth a sphere, And guides the planets in their course."

"La loi permet souvent ce que défend l'honneur."

"Si judicas, cognosce; si regnas, jube."

"Qui statuit aliquid, parte inaudita altera, Æquum licet statuerit, haud æquus fuerit."

"Inertis est nescire, quid liceat sibi. Id facere, laus est, quod decet; non, quod licet."

"There is a higher law than the Constitution."

"Laws are generally found to be nets of such a texture, as the little creep through, the great break through, and the middle-sized alone are entangled in."

"When to raise the wind some lawyer tries, Mysterious skins of parchment meet our eyes; On speeds the smiling suit— . . . . . . Till stript—nonsuited—he is doomed to toss In legal shipwreck, and redeemless loss, Lucky, if like Ulysses, he can keep His head above the waters of the deep."

"Men keep their engagements when it is an advantage to both parties not to break them."

"Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through."

"Bonis nocet quisquis pepercerit malis."

"Judex damnatur cum nocens absolvitur."

"A man must not go to law because the musician keeps false time with his foot."

"Quod vos jus cogit, id voluntate impetret."

"Jus summum sæpe summa est malitia."

"The law is good, if a man use it lawfully."

"The Law: It has honored us, may we honor it."

"The glorious uncertainty of law."

"And he that gives us in these days New Lords may give us new laws."

"And through the heat of conflict keeps the law In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw."

"He it was that first gave to the law the air of a science. He found it a skeleton, and clothed it with life, colour, and complexion; he embraced the cold statue, and by his touch it grew into youth, health, and beauty."

"Generally when scholars talk about the relationship between history, memory, and law, the latter is thought of solely as a passive object of historical change. Legal history is regarded as the study of the forces that have shaped law. It is the history of the evolution of law with law perpetually lagging behind society and being pushed and pulled from the outside. This view, as rich and productive as it is, ignores what might be called an “internal” perspective, one that would examine law for the way it uses and writes history as well as for the ways in which it also become a site of memory and commemoration."

"While law responds to historical change, it also makes history. Law writes the past, not just its own past, but the past for those over whom law seeks to exercise its dominion. Law constructs a that it wants to present as authoritative, when, as Laura Kalman argues, no historian “considers the past authoritative.” And law uses history to tell us who we are."

"Law looks to the past as it speaks to present needs. In the adjudication of every dispute, law traffics in the slippery terrain of memory, as different versions of past events are presented for authoritative judgment. Moreover, in the production of supposedly definitive statements of what the law is in the form of judicial opinions, law reconstructs its own past, tracing out lines of precedent to their “compelling” conclusion. The relationship of law to history is thus complex and multidirectional."

"While there is contest about the meaning of the past, of the precise relevance of law’s history, to its present, there is little dispute about the place of an historical sensibility in legal decision making."

"To talk about law and collective memory is almost immediately to conjure images of the show trial where individual rights and truth were sacrificed in the service of political goals. Mark Osiel notes that acts asserting legal rights or officially stigmatizing their violation have often become a focal point for the collective memory of whole nations. These acts often become secular rites of commemoration. As such, they consolidate shared memories with increasing deliberateness and sophistication. These events are both “real” and “staged.” In this regard, they seem to problematize the very distinction between true and false representations of reality."

"In the classic, liberal conception, justice requires impartial adjudication of claims and accusations. The sole question with which law should concern itself is whether, according to the evidence presented and the rules of proof, someone “did” what they were accused of doing or some event did or did not happen. How the result serves particular collective memories is an illegitimate consideration, the introduction of which may distort those values. Playing our larger issues in culture and politics through the trial seems, if we take the liberal view seriously, a misuse of the judicial process. But the relationship of law and collective memory need not simply be discussed in terms of these normative concerns, namely whether it is right intentionally to use legal processes in the effort to create or vindicate collective memory. We might also approach the relationship between law and collective memory in a more descriptive vein and ask how and where law remembers as well as how and where it helps us remember."

"In the present moment, as Nora reminds us, [[memory] is “above all archival. It relies on the materiality of the trace, the immediacy of the recording, the visibility of the image. . . . Even as traditional memory disappears, we feel obliged assiduously to collect remains, testimonies, documents, images, speeches, any visible signs of what has been.” Museums, monuments, and so on are today, Nora argues, the locations of memory, the sites to which collective memory is attached. If that is indeed the case, one might ask whether law itself might be one of what Nora calls “les lieux de memoire.” Here our interest is directed to the temporal dimension of legality, the way law stands in relation to the past, the present, and the future. Law in the modern era is, we believe, one of the most important of ur society’s technologies for preserving memory. Just as the use of precedent to legitimate legal decisions fixes law in a aprticular relation to the past, memory may be attached, or attach itself, to law and be preserved in and through law. Where this is the case, it serves as one way of orienting ourselves to the future. As Drucilla Cornell puts it: “Legal interpretation demands that we remember the future.” In that phrase, Cornell reminds us that there are, in fact, two audiences for every legal act, the audience of the present and the audience of the future. Law materializes memory in documents, transcripts, written opinions; it reenacts the past, both intentionally and unconsciously, and it is one place where the present speaks to the future through acts of commemoration."

"“Legal documents . . . are written to be preserved and consulted . . . . The form and syntax of a legal document, whether from the twelfth century or the twentieth, reflect the form and syntax of other written documents” (Fentress and Wickham, Social Memory, 9). Footnote 61, p.12"

"Law memorializes not just in its archival activities, but in acts that give particular meanings to our past. In every legal act there is an invitation to remember; in the testimony of the witnesses at the trial, in the instructions a judge gives to a jury, in particular interpretive theories, and in the monumental buildings that house our courts as well as our prisons, there is an insistent call to remember."

"The essays in “History, Memory and the Law” address this subject, each in its own distinctive voice. They present grounded examinations of particular problems, places, and practices rather than grand theories. In so doing they address the ways in which memory works in and through law, the sites of remembrance that law provides, the battles against forgetting that are fought in and around those sites. Here we attend to what Lucie White has labeled both the “epic” style of remembering the past, the “grand, monumental, Manichean style . . . that splits the world, morally, along temporal lines,” as well as to what she calls the “tragic” style of remembering. This style, White claims, “teases out the multiple, tangled, always partial threads that comprise the space where ‘civility’ has been enacted and resisted and reshaped.” This kind of remembering spurns “grand gestures.” It remembers in “grounded, gradual ways.” It makes the accomplishments of the past more hard fought, more tentative, more elusive, and more deeply intertwined with the moral horrors to which it insists we attend. The essays in this book also inquire about the way history is mobilized in legal decision making, the rhetorical techniques for marshaling and for overcoming precedent, and the different histories that are written in and through the legal process. Among the questions that they address are, How are the histories and memories created by law different by virtue of the site of their creation? Through what representational practices are the seeming continuities between past and present that are necessary to legitimize legal decisions constructed and preserved? Whose histories and memories “count” in law? What does history do to and for, law, and what does law do to history? Under what conditions do legal institutions, such as courts or prisons, becomes sites of memory?"

"The essays in “History, Memory, and the Law” deploy a wide range of theories in diverse contexts to show law’s role in commemoration and the ways it constructs its own history. Yet each illuminates the limits of law as a site of memory and as a reader and interpreter of history. Each also highlights it flexibility, responsiveness, and adaptability. No memory, no matter how important or powerful it would seem to be, reliably can be preserved in and through legal decisions and institutions. No memory, no matter how powerful or important it would seem to be, reliably can make its presence felt to open up, to correct, or to control law. And similarly, the history that law constructs, as well as the techniques used to construct, cannot ensure a certain outcome. Law’s history and its hermeneutics are neither linear nor immune to improvisations, inventions, and ingeniously artful readings. To study history and memory in law, then, is to be reminded of law’s almost inexhaustible capacity to be, and do, many complex and contradictory things, all the while denying the contradictions and plausibly proclaiming its “formal existence.”"

"No man can come into a British Court of justice to seek the assistance of the law who founds his claim upon a contravention of the British laws."

"Reading, maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man; — and, therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning to seem to know that he doth not."

"We may appeal to the experience of every sensible lawyer, whether anything can be more hazardous or discouraging than the usual entrance on the study of the law."

"Law grows, and though the principles of law remain unchanged, yet (and it is one of the advantages of the common law) their application is to be changed with the changing circumstances of the times. Some persons may call this retrogression, I call it progression of human opinion."

"I cannot say the law was ever a hard mistress to me: and she did not allow me long to languish in idleness, nor ever suffer me to be without hope. But, of course, I had many idle days, and I was rather fond of note-taking as a very instructive practice, whenever the case was an interesting one, and I found great benefit from it when the facility of taking an accurate and full note rapidly became of the greatest importance in the course of my after life at the Bar and on the Bench."

"It is my province to lay down the law. Every lawyer knows that the law is the result of a great deal of learning."

"The truth is . . . the old feudal law existing in England … is only being broken down slowly by legislation and decisions of the Court, and . . . still exists to a very great extent."

"There is no positive law: Many things are bad by that, which otherwise were not."

"The law does not consist in particular instances, though it is explained by particular instances and rules, but the law consists of principles, which govern specific and individual cases, as they happen to arise."

"That whom he could not by the sword destroy, he might supplant by the law."

"Contemporaria expositio legis est optima, a contemporary exposition of a law, if there be any question about it, as our books tell us, is always the best, because the temper of the law-makers is then best known."

"I am sorry to think, that Englishmen should seem to excuse themselves by ignorance of the law, which all subjects are bound to know, and are born to have the benefit of."

"He had no right to take the law into his own hands."

"Every one must be supposed to be cognizant of a public law."

"Every man (who is of sufficient understanding to be responsible for his actions) is supposed to be cognizant of the law, as it is the rule by which every subject of the kingdom is to be governed, and therefore it is his business to know it."

"Every man must be taken to be cognizant of the law, otherwise there is no saying to what extent the excuse of ignorance may not be Law carried. It would be urged in almost every case."

"Ignorantia juris non excusat. The true meaning of that maxim is that parties cannot excuse themselves from liability from all civil or criminal consequences of their acts by alleging ignorance of the law, but there is no presumption that parties must be taken to know all the legal consequences of their acts, and especially where difficult questions of law, or of the practice of the Court are involved."

"A mere evasion, colour, disguise and device to evade the law."

"It has been said that ignorance of law is no excuse, but when the Court has a discretion the petitioner's ignorance of the law may be properly excused."

"Very happily, the more the law is looked into, the more it appears founded in equity, reason, and good sense."

"It being a maxim that three things are always favoured in law, life, liberty and dower."

"Lex est sanctio jiista jubens honesta et prohibens contraria. Lex est summa ratio. Ratio est anima legis. Nulla vetita ant turpia praesumuntur, sed contraria omnia legitima ataue honesta. The common lawe itselfe is nothing else but reason; which is to be understood of an artificiall perfection of reason, gotten by long study, observation, and of experience, and not of every man's natural reason; for nemo nascitur artifem. This legall reason est summa ratio. And therefore if all the reason that is dispersed into so many severall heads, were united into one, yet could he not make such a law as the law of England is, because by many successions of ages it hath been fined and refined by an infinite number of grave and learned men, and by long experience growne to such a perfection, for the gouvernment of this realme, as the old rule may be justly verified of it, neminem oportet esse sapientiorem legibus: no man, out of his own private reason, ought to be wiser than the law, which is the perfection of reason."

"It is true as a general proposition that knowledge of the law must be imputed to every person, but it would be too much to impute knowledge of this rule of equity; election as a question of intention of course implies knowledge."

"The laws alone are they that always speak with all persons, high or low, in one and the same impartial voice. The law knows no favourites."

"The law would be a strange science if it rested solely upon Cases; and if after so large an increase of Commerce, Arts and Circumstances accruing, we must go to the time of Rich. I. to find a Case and see what is law."

"It is far more important the law should be administered with absolute integrity, than that in this case or in that the law should be a good law or a bad one."

"Every object and purpose of justice is effectually answered, and every supposed inconvenience is effectually rebutted by the law as it stands."

"Sometimes rhetorical phrases are applied even by eminent Judges to propositions of law. In Lord Dungannon v. Smith Lord Brougham in eloquent language declared it as "one of the corner stones of the law," and I understand the Lord Chancellor in the same case to have considered the decision in Jee v. Audley to be "one of the landmarks.""

"I cannot help thinking that where a person appeals to the Law of England, he must take his remedy according to the Law of England to which he has appealed."

"The sparks of all the sciences in the world are raked up in the ashes of the law."

"The law is not apt to catch at actions."

"It was nobly said in another place (I heard it with pleasure, and thought it becoming the dignity of the person who pronounced it, and the place in which it was pronounced) "that the law is best applied, when it is subservient to the honesty of the case.""

"It is of very little consequence to the public to lay down definite rules of law, if you have indefinite rules of evidence."

"It has been sometimes said, communis error facit jus; but I say communis opinio is evidence of what the law is; not where it is an opinion merely floating and theoretical floating in the minds of persons but where it has been made the ground-work and substratum of practice."

"Judges could by their resolution alter the practice, but never the law."

"Law and conscience are one and the same."

"The law is for the protection of the weak more than the strong."

"The law protects nothing in that very respect, in which it is, at the same time, in the eye of the law, a crime."

"The law of England will not sanction what is inconsistent with humanity."

"The law rarely hesitates in declaring its own meaning; but the Judges are frequently puzzled to find out the meaning of others."

"The law does not act vindictively."

"The law has respect to human infirmity."

"We cannot judge of the fact, but the law upon the fact."

"As a lawyer I am before and above all things for the supremacy of law."

"A Court has no right to strain the law because it causes hardship."

"Your lordships must look hardships in the face rather than break down the rules of law."

"I would wish to do as much as possible for you; but I cannot strain the law."

"It is a principle of law, that a person intends to do that which is the natural effect of what he does."

"Hard cases, it is said, make bad law."

"All arguments on the hardship of a case, either on one side or the other, must be rejected, when we are pronouncing what the law is; for such arguments are only quicksands in the law, and, if indulged, will soon swallow up every principle of it."

"What I desire to point out is that I wish the law was not so, but that being the law, I must follow it."

"There is no worse torture than the torture of laws."

"Hard cases, it has been frequently observed, are apt to introduce bad law."

"General laws cannot give way to particular cases."

"We must not, by any whimsical conceits supposed to be adapted to the altering fashions of the times, overturn the established law of the land: it descended to us as a sacred charge, and it is our duty to preserve it."

"We must proceed according to evidence, and forms and methods of law; they may think what they will of me, but I will always declare my mind according to my conscience."

"The law of England is a law of liberty."

"Lex Anglite est lex misericordite. The law of England is a law of mercy."

"If the law be thought to be improper or inconvenient, application to correct it must be made elsewhere, and not to those who are bound by the repeated and solemn judgments of their predecessors."

"No person is less disposed than I am to accommodate the law to the particular convenience of the case: but I am always glad when I find the strict law and the justice of the case going hand in hand together."

"I agree that is the law, though I think it is a hard law; but we have nothing to do with the question of hardship."

"Anglite jura in omni catu libertatis dant favorem: The laws of England in every case of liberty are favourable."

"What is ridiculous and absurd never is, to my mind, to be adopted either in law or in equity."

"I think the law is generally reasonable."

"Now when a rule of law which is against principle is alleged to be established, there are two points to be considered; first of all, was any such rule of law ever laid down by any Judge? That is the first point to be decided; and secondly, if it was so laid down, has it passed into a binding rule of law ?—that is, has it been so recognised and dealt with by subsequent Judges as to prevent a Judge of a tribunal of co-ordinate jurisdiction from saying that the decision is contrary to the course of law, and is not binding upon him."

"The picture of law triumphant and justice prostrate, is not, I am aware, without admirers. To me it is a sorry spectacle. The spirit of justice does not reside in formalities, or words, nor is the triumph of its administration to be found in successfully picking a way between the pitfalls of technicality. After all, the law is, or ought to be, but the handmaid of justice, and inflexibility, which is the most becoming robe of the latter, often serves to render the former grotesque. But any real inroad upon the rights and opportunities for defence of a person charged with a breach of the law, whereby the certainty of justice might be imperilled, I conceive to be a matter of the highest moment."

"Whatever disadvantages attach to a system of unwritten law, and of these we are fully sensible, it has at least this advantage, that its elasticity enables those who administer it to adapt it to the varying conditions of society, and to the requirements and habits of the age in which we live, so as to avoid the inconsistencies and injustice which arise when the law is no longer in harmony with the wants and usages and interests of the generation to which it is immediately applied."

"You say well: the law of God is the law of England; and you have heard no law else, but what is consonant to the law of reason, which is the best law of God; and here is none else urged against you."

"God made man, and gave him a law to live by; and the laws of England are grounded on the laws of God: and in the laws of England every man is concerned."

"Personally, I detest any attempt to bring the law into maxims. Maxims are invariably wrong, that is, they are so general and large that they always include something which is not intended to be included."

"Remind him as always to keep his Legions intact, for they make the law legal."

"There is no other power in England, but a legal power to punish according to law."

"Retrospective laws are, primd facie of questionable policy, and contrary to the general principle that legislation by which the conduct of mankind is to be regulated ought, when introduced for the first time, to deal with future acts, and ought not to change the character of past transactions carried on upon the faith of the then existing law. Leges et constitutiones futuris certum est dare formam negotiis non ad facta proBterita revocari; nisi nominatim et de praiterito tempore et adhuc pendentibus negotiis cautum sit."

"Whatever place becomes the habitation of civilized men, there the laws of decency must be inforced."

"There is no law whatsoever but may be dispensed with by the Supreme Law-giver; as the laws of God may be dispensed with by God himself; as it appears by God's command to Abraham, to offer up his son Isaac: so likewise the law of man may be dispensed with by the legislator, for a law may either be too wide or too narrow, and there may be many cases which may be out of the conveniences which did induce the law to be made; for it is impossible for the wisest lawmaker to foresee all the cases that may be, or are to be remedied, and therefore there must be a power somewhere, able to dispense with these laws."

"Nova constitutio futuris formam impomere debet non praeteritis: A new state of the law ought to affect the future, not the past."

"Lex prospicit non respicit: The law looks forward, not backward."

"Omnis nova eonstitutio futuris temporibus formam imponere debet, non prateritis: Every new enactment should affect future, not past times."

"Leges posteriores priores, contrarias abrogant"

"If the law be so, there must be some just and honest reason for it, or else some universal settled rule of law upon which it is grounded."

"If it is law, it will be found in our books. If it is not to be found there, it is not law."

"You were speaking of the laws being in other tongues; those that we try you by are in English; and we proceed in English against you; and therefore you have no cause to complain."

"The laws of England will protect the rights of British subjects, and give a remedy for a grievance committed by one British subject upon another, in whatever country that may be done."

"A residence in a new country often introduces a change of legal condition, which imposes rights and obligations totally inconsistent with the former rights and obligations of the same persons."

"The law of nature is that which God at the time of creation of the nature of man infused into his heart, for his preservation and direction; and this is lex ceterna, the moral law, called also the law of nature. And by this law, written with the finger of God in the heart of man, were the people of God a long time governed, before the law was written by Moses, who was the first reporter or writer of law in the world."

"De non apparentibus, et noti existentibia, eadem est ratio: Things which do not appear are to be treated as the same as those which do not exist."

"Shew me any law for that if you can, Mr. Williams, I know you are a lawyer."

"Every moral man is as much bound to obey the civil law of the land as the law of nature."

"If a man endeavours to obtain a repeal of those laws, which are conceived to be obnoxious, or the introduction of any laws which he believes to be salutary, if he does that legally, there is no objection to it."

"It would be of ill-consequence, to authenticate a body of laws, that have lain dormant for two hundred years."

"Legality and oppression are not unknown to run hand in hand."

"The law has prescribed a particular method, and we cannot alter the law, nor prevent the inconveniences."

"Necessity is the law of the time and action, and things are lawful by necessity, which otherwise are not; "Quicguid necessitas cogit, defendit"; and the law of the time must regulate the law of the place in such public things."

"It is a public scandal when the law is forced to uphold a dishonest act."

"Sans fact conus, est impossible de seier la ley sur cest fact: Without a known fact, it is impossible to know the law on that fact."

"Necessitas est lex temporis et loci"

"The law of necessity dispenses with things which otherwise are not lawful to be done."

"He that keepeth the law of the Lord getteth the understanding thereof: and the perfection of the fear of the Lord is wisdom."

"If you like laws and sausages, you should never watch either one being made."

"So great moreover is the regard of the law for private property, that it will not authorize the least violation of it; no, not even for the general good of the whole community."

"Law never is, but is always about to be."

"There is no jewel in the world comparable to learning; no learning so excellent both for Prince and subject, as knowledge of laws; and no knowledge of any laws (I speak of human) so necessary for all estates and for all causes, concerning goods, lands or life, as the common laws of England."

"Good men must not obey the laws too well."

"Republics abound in young civilians who believe that the laws make the city, that grave modifications of the policy and modes of living and employments of the population, that commerce, education and religion may be voted in or out; and that any measure, though it were absurd, may be imposed on a people if only you can get sufficient voices to make it a law. But the wise know that foolish legislation is a rope of sand which perishes in the twisting; that the State must follow and not lead the character and progress of the citizen; that the form of government which prevails is the expression of what cultivation exists in the population which permits it. The law is only a memorandum."

"It cannot be helped, it is as it should be, that the law is behind the times."

"It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV."

"The laws of God, the laws of man, He may keep that will and can; Not I: let God and man decree Laws for themselves and not for me; And if my ways are not as theirs Let them mind their own affairs."

"A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means."

"There is, therefore, only one categorical imperative. It is: Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."

"Because just as good morals, if they are to be maintained, have need of the laws, so the laws, if they are to be observed, have need of good morals."

"It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow."

"There must be four witnesses to testify against the adulterer. They must testify that they saw them having sex."

"By malignant or vicious detraction, we sin against our neighbor's good name: by lying, sometimes even by casting a slur upon him, we injure him in his estate. It makes no difference whether you suppose that formal and judicial testimony is here intended, or the ordinary testimony which is given in private conversation. For we must always recur to the consideration, that for each kind of transgression one species is set forth by way of example, that to it the others may be referred, and that the species chiefly selected, is that in which the turpitude of the transgression is most apparent."

"Nay, the commandment extends so far as to include that scurrilous affected urbanity, instinct with invective, by which the failings of others, under an appearance of sportiveness, are bitterly assailed, as some are wont to do, who court the praise of wit, though it should call forth a blush, or inflict a bitter pang. By petulance of this description, our brethren are sometimes grievously wounded. But if we turn our eye to the Lawgiver, whose just authority extends over the ears and the mind, as well as the tongue, we cannot fail to perceive that eagerness to listen to slander, and an unbecoming proneness to censorious judgements are here forbidden."

"These are the things that the Amen says, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation by God."

"Over and above our own body, spouse, and temporal possessions, we have yet another treasure, namely, honor and good report [the illustrious testimony of an upright and unsullied name and reputation], with which we cannot dispense. For it is intolerable to live among men in open shame and general contempt. Therefore God wishes the reputation, good name, and upright character of our neighbor to be taken away or diminished as little as his money and possessions, that every one may stand in his integrity before wife, children, servants, and neighbors. And in the first place, we take the plainest meaning of this commandment according to the words (Thou shalt not bear false witness), as pertaining to the public courts of justice, where a poor innocent man is accused and oppressed by false witnesses in order to be punished in his body, property, or honor."

"God therefore would have it prohibited that any one speak evil of another even though he be guilty, and the latter know it right well; much less if he do not know it, and have it only from hearsay. But you say: Shall I not say it if it be the truth? Answer: Why do you not make accusation to regular judges? Ah, I cannot prove it publicly, and hence I might be silenced and turned away in a harsh manner [incur the penalty of a false accusation]. "Ah, indeed, do you smell the roast?" If you do not trust yourself to stand before the proper authorities and to make answer, then hold your tongue. But if you know it, know it for yourself and not for another. For if you tell it to others, although it be true, you will appear as a liar, because you cannot prove it, and you are, besides acting like a knave. For we ought never to deprive any one of his honor or good name unless it be first taken away from him publicly."

"570. Anybody who knows evidence must testify in court (Leviticus 5:1) 571. Carefully interrogate the witness (Deuteronomy 13:14) 572. A witness must not serve as a judge in capital crimes (Deuteronomy 19:17) 573. Not to accept testimony from a lone witness (Deuteronomy 19:15) 574. Transgressors must not testify (Exodus 23:1) 575. Relatives of the litigants must not testify (Deuteronomy 24:16) 576. Not to testify falsely (Exodus 20:16) 577. Punish the false witnesses as they tried to punish the defendant (Deuteronomy 19:19)"

"One who bears false witness against one's neighbor commits as serious a sin as if one had borne false witness against God, saying that God did not create the world."

"Zaid bin Khalid Al-Juhani narrated that the Messenger of Allah (s.a.w) said: The best of witnesses is the one who gives his testimony before being asked for it"

"O ye who believe! When death approaches any of you, (take) witnesses among yourselves when making bequests,- two just men of your own (brotherhood) or others from outside if ye are journeying through the earth, and the chance of death befalls you (thus). If ye doubt (their truth), detain them both after prayer, and let them both swear by Allah: "We wish not in this for any worldly gain, even though the (beneficiary) be our near relation: we shall hide not the evidence before Allah: if we do, then behold! the sin be upon us!"

"One eye-witness weighs more than ten hearsays — Seeing is believing all the world over."

"When a man comes forward as a witness, saying: "Let me tell you what I know about him", but does not know the relevant information, it is an abomination to Suen."

"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour."

"You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness. You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit, siding with the many, so as to pervert justice, nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit."

"One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established."

"If a false witness rise up against any man to testify against him that which is wrong; Then both the men, between whom the controversy is, shall stand before the LORD, before the priests and the judges, which shall be in those days; And the judges shall make diligent inquisition: and, behold, if the witness be a false witness, and hath testified falsely against his brother; Then shall ye do unto him, as he had thought to have done unto his brother: so shalt thou put the evil away from among you. And those which remain shall hear, and fear, and shall henceforth commit no more any such evil among you. And thine eye shall not pity; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot."

"Witnesses may lie, either be mistaken themselves, or wickedly intend to deceive others . . . but . . . circumstances cannot lie."

"I will not say that a witness shall not be asked to what may tend to disparage him: that would prevent an investigation into the character of the witness, which may often be of importance to ascertain. I think those questions only should not be allowed to be asked which have a direct and immediate effect to disgrace or disparage the witness."

"Whether witnesses are material or not, does not depend upon the result, but upon this, whether a prudent attorney, having a due regard for the interests of his client, would have brought them."

"Generally speaking, a witness has no business to concern himself with the merits of the case in which he is called on to give evidence or whether, when given, it will be material to the cause."

"There is no reason for assuming, that the time of medical men and attornies is more valuable than that of others whose livelihood depends on their own exertions."

"I tell my kids ... "Tell me when I'm going gaga — but all three of you had better come in, because if it's just one of you, you're out of the will."

"Let's choose executors and talk of wills: And yet not so, for what can we bequeath Save our deposed bodies to the ground?"

"There is no instance where men are so easily imposed upon, as at the time of their dying under the pretence of charity."

"Of all the cases which come before the Court for its decision, none can be more embarrassing and more unsatisfactory than those which arise upon the construction of wills. The Court has no real guide to enable it to arrive at a conclusion. The only things which can be called guides are certain rules which the Court has laid down, and which may be extracted from the decisions. Beyond that, the decisions are not of the slightest use. Except by adherence to those rules, there is nothing but what may, not irreverently, be called guessing as to what the words of the document can be held to mean."

"In the state of languor in which dying persons generally are, their assent could be easily got to statements which they never intended to make, if they were but ingeniously interwoven with statements which were actually true by an artful person. ** R. v. Fitzgerald, Ir. Cir. R. 168, 169."

"This seems to me to be one of those cases in which the Court is bound to arrive at a conclusion without having any satisfactory means of arriving at it. The only guide I have is this. I am entitled to sit in the testator's chair as he wrote his own will."

"A will is often executed suddenly in a last sickness, and sometimes in the article of death . . . consequently the time of the execution is the critical moment which requires guard and protection."

"As lawyers we must construe the will like any other document."

"The law has ever been watchful and jealous of wills made under religious influences, and especially so when those influences connect themselves with any individual who is the object of the testator's bounty."

"I regret exceedingly that, not only ordinary laymen, but, as it seems to me, professional men, do not understand the great difficulty there is in drawing wills, and do not bestow a little more care and pains in endeavouring to draw them in such a way as that the numerous questions which often arise on them should be avoided. I regret to say that these questions often throw a great deal of expense on parties interested under the wills, and are the cause of great heartburnings and most bitter animosities."

"I quite admit that on the question of the construction of wills relating to real property the cases have always had greater attention given to them than in the case of personalty, because land in England passes by title, and it has always been the habit of the lawyers and Judges to look with greater strictness to the reported cases where it is a question of land than where it is a question of personalty."

"Speaking for myself, I do not look upon wills as Chinese puzzles; they no doubt do present great difficulties, but I do not feel myself the serious difficulty which other learned Judges have."

"The Court is at liberty to transpose and mould clauses and words in a will so as to make the whole take effect."

"If we find from a will, as we do here, that a testator has used a word in a particular sense, we must give it that meaning wherever it occurs in the will. It is the same thing as if a foreign word were used—a case of which I have known. In such a case we have to get at the meaning of the word in English from an ordinary dictionary, and then whenever it occurs give it that English meaning. Of course, the dictionary must be clear; and if we cannot make out what the testator meant, then we have not got the dictionary."

"No previous will can be treated properly as a precedent for another which is expressed in different language, and no decision on the precise words of a former will can as a general rule be of the least service in guiding the Court as to the construction of other words. Unless you can get a principle from a case which is applicable generally to other cases, the precedent is of little use."

"Let a will be ever so fair, a slip in form is fatal: which is a certain mischief. But if a will be fraudulent, though it is allowed to be formal, it may be set aside upon evidence and circumstances."

"My distinction is, that in incorrect wills the Court may take liberties, but that if the words are correct they have no power to make any alteration."

"Every will stands on its own bottom and is various as anything whatsoever, and therefore it is hard to cite a case that can quadrate. I have mean thoughts of my own opinion. I may say in this case, diffieilius est invenire quam vincere, as Caesar said when he and his army ran about the Alps to find out a way."

"Men should not sin in their graves."

"I do not intend to encumber myself with cases. Decisions upon other words something like those in question, in other wills, where the whole context of those other wills must be gone into, can afford very little assistance."

"I do not see why, if we can tell what a man intends, and can give effect to his intention as expressed, we should be driven out of it by other cases or decisions in other cases. I always protest against anything of the sort."

"We must find out the meaning of the testator as well as we can."

"Technical rules are not to be relied upon in explaining the intention of testators: and yet cases of intention are much embarrassed by authorities."

"Courts of justice ought to carry into effect the intentions of testators as far as they can consistently with the rules of law."

"It is from the words, and from the context, not from the punctuation, that the sense must be collected."

"The intention of the testator is the polar star by which we must be guided."

"The Court is to pronounce according to the apparent intent of the testator, but that intent must be found in the words of the will, and is not to be collected by conjecture dehors the will."

"A nuisance may be merely a right thing in the wrong place — like a pig in the parlor instead of the barnyard."

"The general principle is, that in order that an action may be maintained in this country in respect of a tort committed outside the jurisdiction, the act complained of must be a wrongful act, both by the law of this country and by the law of the country where it was committed; but it is not necessary that it should be the subject of civil proceedings in the foreign country."

"To entitle a plaintiff to maintain an action, it is necessary to shew a breach of some legal duty due from the defendant to the plaintiff."

"That great principle of the common law which declares that it is your duty so to use and exercise your own rights as not to cause injury to other people."

"The well-known maxim that you must not, when you have the choice, elect to use your property so as to cause injury to your neighbour.1—"

"Surely every injury imports a damage, though it does not cost the party one farthing, and it is impossible to prove the contrary; for a damage is not merely pecuniary, but an injury imports a damage, when a man is hereby hindered of his right."

"La ley est un egal dispenser de Justice, et ne relinque aucun sans remedy sur son droit, sans son propre laches: The law is an equal dispenser of Justice, and leaves none without a remedy, for his right, without his own laches."

"Personal injury is a more serious matter than damage to property."

"An injured party may proceed in Westminster Hall notwithstanding any order of the House."

"If a man sustains damage by the wrongful act of another, he is entitled to a remedy, but to give that title two things must concur, damage to himself and a wrong committed by the other. That he has sustained damage is not of itself sufficient."

"Actual perceptible damage is not indispensable as the foundation of an action; it is sufficient to show the violation of a right, in which case the law will presume damage."

"I am not able to understand how it can be correctly said in a legal sense, that an action will not lie even in the case of a wrong or a violation of a right, unless it is followed by some perceptible damage which can be established as a matter of fact; in other words, that injuria sine damno is not actionable. On the contrary, from my earliest reading I have considered it laid up among the very elements of the common law, that wherever there is a wrong there is a remedy to redress it; and that every injury imports damage in the nature of it; and if no other damage is established, the party injured is entitled to a verdict for nominal damages."

"I am by no means sure that if a man kept a tiger, and lightning broke his chain, and he got loose and did mischief, that the man who kept him would not be liable."

"To say that whenever the world grows wiser it convicts those that came before of negligence."

"The public can have no rights springing from injustice to others."

"It is our duty to take care that persons in pursuing their own particular interests do not transgress those laws which were made for the benefit of the whole community."

"Every man that is injured ought to have his recompence."

"If a man who makes to another person, upon a solemn occasion, an assertion, upon which that person acts, he lies under an obligation to make good his assertion."

"Ex dolo main non oritur actio."

"None shall take advantage of his own wrong."

"He whose dirt it is must keep it that it may not trespass."

"I know of no duty of the Court which it is more important to observe, and no powers of the Court which it is more important to enforce, than its power of keeping public bodies within their rights. The moment public bodies exceed their rights] they do so to the injury and oppression of private individuals, and those persons are entitled to be protected from injury arising from such operations of public bodies."

"It is a vain thing to imagine a right without a remedy; for want of right and want of remedy are reciprocal."

"Where a man has but one remedy to come at his right, if he loses that he loses his right."

"It is not very consonant with the simplicity of the old law to give two remedies for the same evil."

"Better that an individual should suffer an injury than that the public should suffer an inconvenience."

"The advantage to the community outweigh the injury to the individual."

"What a man does in his closet ought not to affect the rights of third persons."

"No tort is assignable, in law or equity. It is not within any species of action at common law."

"The Court would not endure that a mere form or fiction of law, introduced for the sake of justice, should work a wrong, contrary to the real truth and substance of the thing."

"It is certain, higher powers are not to be resisted; but some persons in power may be resisted. The powers are ordained of God; but kings commanding unjust things are not ordained of God to do such things; but to apply this to tyrants, I do not understand. Magistrates in some acts may be guilty of tyranny, and yet retain the power of magistracy; but tyrants cannot be capable of magistracy, nor any one of the scripture-characters of righteous rulers. They cannot retain that which they have forfeited, and which they have overturned; and usurpers cannot retain that which they never had. They may act and enact some things materially just, but they are not formally such as can make them magistrates, no more than some unjust actions can make a magistrate a tyrant. A murderer, saving the life of one and killing another, does not make him no murderer: once a murderer ay a murderer, once a robber ay a robber, till he restore what he hath robbed: so once a tyrant ay a tyrant, till he makes amends for his tyranny, and that will be hard to do. [...] The concrete does specificate the abstract in actuating it, as a magistrate in his exercising government, makes his power to be magistry; a robber, in his robbing, makes his power to be robbery; an usurper in his usurping makes his power to be usurpation; so a tyrant in his tyrannizing, can have no power but tyranny. As the abstract of a magistrate is nothing but magistracy, so the abstract of a tyrant is nothing but tyranny. It is frivolous then to distinguish between a tyrannical power in the concrete, and tyranny in the abstract; the power and the abuse of the power: for he hath no power as a tyrant, but what is abused. [...] It is altogether impertinent to use such a distinction, with application to tyrants or usurpers, as many do in their pleading for the owning of our oppressors; for they have no power, but what is the abuse of power."

"It is impossible to overrate the importance of keeping the administration of justice by magistrates clear from all suspicion of unfairness."

"It is necessary for Courts of Justice to hold a strict hand over summary proceedings before magistrates, and I never will agree to relax any of the rules by which they have been bound. Their jurisdiction is of a limited nature, and they must shew that the party was brought within it."

"It is perfectly plain that either the Crown or any subject may intervene and inform a superior Court that an inferior Court is exceeding its jurisdiction; and it is the duty of the superior Court, when it is so informed, to confine the inferior Court within the limits of its jurisdiction."

"Excess of jurisdiction is ground for prohibition."

"I do not see to what purpose we exercise a superintendency over all inferior jurisdictions, unless it be to inspect their proceedings, and see whether they are regular or not. I have often heard it said that nothing shall be presumed one way or the other in an inferior jurisdiction."

"We presume a magistrate does right until the contrary appears."

"It is of infinite importance to the public that the acts of magistrates should not only be substantially good, but also that they should be decorous."

"It is the more fit for the Supreme Court to give some certain rule in it that may regulate and guide the judgment of inferior Courts."

"PRECEDENT, n. In Law, a previous decision, rule or practice which, in the absence of a definite statute, has whatever force and authority a Judge may choose to give it, thereby greatly simplifying his task of doing as he pleases. As there are precedents for everything, he has only to ignore those that make against his interest and accentuate those in the line of his desire. Invention of the precedent elevates the trial-at-law from the low estate of a fortuitous ordeal to the noble attitude of a dirigible arbitrament."

"The right hon. Gentleman tells us to go back to precedents; with him a great measure is always founded on a small precedent. He traces the steam-engine always back to the tea-kettle. His precedents are generally tea-kettle precedents."

"I am ready to concede that the rule of adherence to precedent, though it ought not to be abandoned, ought to be in some degree relaxed. I think that when a rule, after it has been duly tested by experience, has been found to be inconsistent with the sense of justice or with the social welfare, there should be less hesitation in frank avowal and full abandonment. … That court best serves the law which recognizes that the rules of law which grew up in a remote generation may, in the fullness of experience, be found to serve another generation badly, and which discards the old rule when it finds that another rule of law represents what should be according to the established and settled judgment of society."

"What has once been settled by a precedent will not be unsettled overnight, for certainty and uniformity are gains not lightly sacrificed. Above all is this true when honest men have shaped their conduct on the faith of the pronouncement."

"The repetition of a catchword can hold analysis in fetters for fifty years or more."

"If Napoleon had nuclear subs, we'd all be speaking French. So, the history thing can be oversold."

"An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."

"What is today supported by precedents will hereafter become a precedent."

"Ages, precedents, have long been accumulating undirected materials, America brings builders, and brings its own styles. The immortal poets of Asia and Europe have done their work and pass'd to other spheres, A work remains, the work of surpassing all they have done."

"The most obvious example of the way law constructs and uses history is found in the doctrine of stare decisis and the practice of justifying present decisions in light of precedent. In the common-law tradition the past is supposed to govern the present. Like cases are to be treated alike. Precedent tells a judge to adhere to the decision in a previous “similar” case. As Shauer notes, an argument “from precedent . . . urges that a decision makers give weight to a particular result regardless of whether that decision maker believes it to be correct and regardless of whether that decision maker believes it valuable in any way to rely on that previous result.” In this understanding, adherence to precedent is a rule, according judges no judgmental discretion. There is, of course, another way of understanding how precedent works that accords judges greater interpretive possibility. Past decisions creates a presumption, but a presumption that can be, and sometimes is, rebutted. Yet both of these conceptions treat the past as discoverable and potentially constraining or authoritative. The judge researching precedent constructs a doctrinal history in the service of elucidating a present problem. These two different ways of thinking about precedent imply two different attitudes toward the past, as commander of the present and barrier to change, or as guide, suggesting paths, but mandating no particular way of being in the present. And beyond these different attitudes toward the past there are the difficulties of determining what counts as an applicable precedent as well as what a precedent stands for in the way of its legal meaning. Neither is self-generating. Analogies proliferate almost without limit. Judges read the relevance of past cases differently, and there are no metarules that govern such determinations of relevance. This is not to say that the search for relevance is a free-for-all. Conventions, habits, institutions, reasons all guide the judgment of what is relevant. Yet judges with different conceptions of their role adopt different standards of relevance as well as entirely different orientations toward the way the past should be used in law."

"Even when judges agree on the relevance of a past case to a present one, they may, and frequently do, disagree about how the applicable precedent should be read. Thus judges construct law’s own history in the process of deciding present cases. They do so through a complex genealogical operation that accords them enormous discretion, and yet allows them to claim that they are fully and completely bound by the past. In law “the past is primarily a source of authority”-if we interpret it correctly, it will tell us how to conduct ourselves now. History is not only a source of authority but of legitimacy.” Reading and decoding the past, arguing about its meaning, and shaping decisions as if they were the inexorable product of an uncontested history is the very stuff of law. Judges make history anew with each opinion, all the while proclaiming that they are simply discovering a past whose significance is, or should be, self-evident."

"Indeed the authority of legitimacy of a judicial decision is to some extent a product of its ability to cloth itself in the history of law, to plausibly claim that there is nothing innovative or new being done or said even while new departures are being undertaken. Alternatively, when judges make a radical departure from the past, the gravitational force of law’s history “compels” them to find a loophole, a gap in the seamless web of history, or to say that there are no applicable precedents, or that the applicable precedents are somehow less relevant than they might otherwise seem. In this sense law is always facing backward, engaged with the past, constructing majestic narratives of continuity with occasional flaws in the tapestry."

"Let us note but two examples of the use of precedent in the construction of a historical narrative that, in turn, works to supply authority and legitimacy. The first is found in “Planned Parenthood v. Casey”, the 1992 Supreme Court decision upholding, while limiting, abortion rights under the Amendment. In the now famous opinion by Justice O’Connor, Kennedy and Souter, those justices took pains to explain their own reservations about “Roe v. Wade”, whose “essential holding” their opinion in Casey was intended to reaffirm. “Some of us,” the justices noted, “find abortion offensive to our most basic principles of morality, but that cannot control our decision.” It could not do so if they were to uphold their duty to protect the “liberty of all” and to respect their obligation to “follow precedent.” This obligation flows from “the very concept of the rule of law,” which, in their view, “requires such continuity over time that a respect for precedent is, by definition, indispensable.” Yet in spite of this rather striking defense of the role of precedent in our legal system, O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter went on, almost as if to take back what they had just said, to note that adherence to precedent was not “an inexorable command.” The decision whether to adhere to precedent was, in their view, always one that had to be guided by “prudential and pragmatic considerations,” including whether the rule developed by a prior case has proven to be unworkable, whether people have come justifiably to rely on it, and whether subsequently developed principles of law have rendered the prior rule a nullity. By taking this pragmatic and prudential approach to precedent the three justices constructed an historical narrative that made room for the possibility of change, of evolution. They wrote a history of constraint, yet also of possibility, rather than of an iron hand of the past inexorably determining present policy. They allowed themselves to be seen as “judging” a past that they themselves first had to interpret. Yet they acknowledged that the past created a presumption in favor of continuity and that in no case should a decision to overrule precedent, and in so doing to rewrite history, rest simply on a “belief that a prior case was wrongly decided."

"“[T]he “Casey” majority presented perhaps the Court’s most extended discussion of the concept of precedent in this century” (81)"

"As Morton Horwitz put it, “Casey was “unique in American constitutional history for its highly self-conscious discussion of the question of constitutional legitimacy” and for constructing a historical narrative to “provide a standard for determining when overruling precedent is appropriate.”"

"At each turning point, the justices argued, the Court had to resolve an “intensely divisive controversy” in such a way as to call “the contending sides of a national controversy to end their national division.” Again constructing a monumental history, the justices announced “The court is not asked to do this very often.” In these rare moments the Court has to stand firm; it has to defend a previously made “water shed decision” lest the Court’s own legitimacy be jeopardized. Here the Court writes a history that goes beyond a history of legal doctrine; it is a history that takes into account the social and political world in which it is portrayed as playing a decisive role. Adhering to precedent in such circumstances gives testimony to the power of principles to guide the nation. By imagining the possibility of departing from precedent, by treating precedent as a standard, not a rule, the justices are able rhetorically both to elevate the stakes in its present decision and marshal a narrative of the past to serve as a springboard for an explanation of why it is both wise and prudent to adhere to a decision about whose substantive judgment they had earlier expressed doubt. In the history that “Casey” tells, the Court faced a severe challenge; adhering to precedent presented the best, though not only, answer."

"Yet there is another image of precedent, of law’s history, in which the force of precedent compels judgment, in which precedent is treated as a rule for foreclosing the possibility of any other legitimate considerations. This image is perhaps best exemplified in Justice Marshall’s dissent in Payne v. Tennessee. In Payne the Supreme Court overruled its earlier decision in Botth v. Maryland in order to hold that the use of so-called victim impact statements in the sentencing phase of capital trials was not a violation of the eighth Amendment. The majority opinion written by Justice Rehnquist explained its overruling of Booth by invoking attitude toward precedent that would later emerge in Casey to justify adhering to precedent. As Rehnquist put it, “Adherence to precedent is ‘usually the wise policy.’” It is not, Rehnquist warned, a “mechanical formula” of adherence to the latest decision no matter how misguided. Marshall responded by conjuring a different relationship of law’s present to its past. He called for “fidelity” to precedent and claimed such fidelity was essential if courts were not to subject the people to the rule of “an arbitrary discretion.” In his view the Court has “a duty to stand by its own precedents.” Discharging that duty, against the ties of changing personnel on the Court or a changing political climate in the country, was Marshall claimed, necessary to a judiciary that sought to be a “source of impersonal and reasoned judgments.” The history that Marshall constructed is a history in which the past should rule the present, in which authority could and should be excavated from a continuous process of reading and rereading of the judiciary’s own products. It is a history of “fidelity,” of “duty” in the face of temptation. Failing to follow precedent would mean that “power, not reason,” would be the currency of judicial decision making."

"These two different attitudes toward precedent reveal an important part of the terrain of inquiry into law’s use and construction of history. They remind us of the complex and contingent interpretive possibilities of a legal order dedicated to a faithful respect for its past. Reasoning by analogy, distinguishing cases, identifying rules and their exceptions provide, in one sense, the very substance of legal reasoning. But in another they provide the resources with which law can live within the prison of history and yet escape it as needed. They provide but one indication of the fact that law’s history is almost always the subject of contest and interpretive dispute, that its' is a purposive and politicized attitude toward history. They also suggest that the interpretive touchstone for such contestation in the question of legitimacy."

"Judicial decisions on prisoners’ rights construct their own history, “founded on precedent, repeated, and gaining in force with each repetition.” Precedent, she argues, operates like ritual in that it gains authority the more it is tried and used. The law, in the histories it constructs and the memories cited there, “is a tomb of dead ideas.”"

"Concern for the memory of slavery and its place in law also animates the next essay, by Brook Thomas. His concern, however, is less with memory than with the way law both lives in, and finds resources to escape, the precedential world it creates. Thomas wants to illuminate what might be called the indeterminacy of historical argument in legal decision making as well as the way judges can both appeal to history and yet evade the history to which they appeal. He argues that, at least in the context of decisions on racial discrimination, judges deploy metaphors to produce novel interpretations of legal doctrine while continuing to honor the doctrinal history that they are changing. “Metaphor . . . allows for innovative interpretations that paradoxically claim to stay true to the meaning of the text at hand.”"

"Thomas notes that the Supreme Court in Brown did not directly confront either Taney’s metaphor or the precedent of “Plessy”. Instead it spoke of racial segregation as having “generated” a sense of inferiority among black schoolchildren. The metaphor of generation allowed the Court to avoid ruling on the motive behind Jim Crow laws, just as it avoided ruling on the original intention of the Fourteenth Amendment. Thomas claims that the genius of “Brown” was that it used metaphor to adhere to precedent while, at the same time, altering the course of history. Opposing a static view of history, the “Brown” Court treated temporality as a component of reality. If reality changes, a truly historical approach requires that law update itself as well."

"While metaphor provides a space for innovation, the last essay-by G. Edward White-shows how reasoning by analogy is used to stitch together the threads of precedent that comprise law’s own history. Analogical reasoning, White argue, “is in fact the standard technique of reasoning in the Anglo-American legal system. It consists of establishing previously decided cases as ‘authoritative’ because they embody certain rules that the system has internalized.” It allows judges to construct a history of doctrine with little overt reference to the world outside law and, as a result, provides a crucial component of the argument that legal decision making is autonomous. And, White notes, while analogical reasoning may seem to the nonlawyer to impose few constraints on judges, in practice the legal system places a “high value on following precedent and thus treats most previous decisions whose rules appear arguably apposite as being so. When lawyers and judges seek to be creative, the vehicle for their creativity is the marshaling of rich and persuasive analogies yet since those analogies “invariably summon up existing cases, rules, and principles, the discourse of American law is inherently time-bound and conservative.”"

"White examines the hold of analogical reasoning on the legal imagination by assessing the way courts responded to innovations in the social world. The two examples that are the subject of this essay are the treatment of radio and motion pictures in the early part of the twentieth century. He looks at how law responded to these innovations and, in particular, how courts responded to challenges to efforts to impose a regulatory regime on them. The drive to regulate emerged from a particular awareness of the media’s mass quality and the immediacy of the effects the created; in addition, it was fueled by the Progressive Era’s tendency to approve regulation by experts as a way of addressing social concerns. Yet these regulations, at least from the perspective of today, raise serious First Amendment issues. White examines cases challenging regulation to sow that analogical reasoning was used to construct a legal history in such a way as to justify regulation in spite of the First Amendment. In the case of film, courts constructed such a history by categorizing it as a form of property. Like property, film might be used to do “evil.” Courts then conjured the history of the “police powers” by which states could invoke their powers to protect the morals of the public. In addition, they brought the regulation of film within the history of administrative law and, as a result, focused only on the nature of the legislative delegation involved. Having established framework of analogies, courts then were able to bring to bear the relevant precedents. In their treatment of those cases they tended to anticipate the position of Marshall in “Payne”, insisting on the value of consistency and continuity of law’s doctrinal structure."

"White finds “striking parallels” as he explores the way law’s history was brought to bear on the question of the regulation of radio. Faced with an evolving and developing First Amendment jurisprudence, courts nonetheless had little trouble, White argues, upholding the Radio Act of 1927, through which the Congress asserted government ownership of the airwaves. They focused on radio’s potential to reach vast audiences as well as the scarcity of radio frequencies. They drew an analogy to film and claimed that, like the former, radio was intrusive and pervasive in its reach. Yet today, somewhat paradoxically, the latter is subject to a far more restrictive regulatory regime than the former, though today new analogies and new precedent prevail. Film and radio are now regarded not simply as property; the new analogical structure provides greater First Amendment protection by treating them as like the print media."

"In the end, White claims that analogical reasoning in itself, though powerful in explaining the way innovations are accommodated in the construction of a doctrinal history, is insufficient to explain this process. He suggests that we can understanding the way innovations are accommodated in the construction of a doctrinal history, is insufficient to explain this process. He suggests that we can understand how law’s history gets created by focusing on both the concerns that are vital in the larger culture in which decisions are being made, and the available analogies through which legal discourse can respond to those concerns. Precedent constrains yet leaves room for adaptation. The internal history that law constructs to legitimate itself is not, and cannot be, completely insulated from the external history that gives rise to problems, cases, and calls for legal resolution"

"It is of dangerous consequence for Judges, in their judgments, to rely too much on precedents that perhaps went forth through the necessity of the present times."

"I cannot bear to be told when an argument has been addressed to me by which I am not convinced, that there is a case decided which I am bound to follow."

"My duty is, as a Judge, to be governed by fixed rules and former precedents."

"He who will have advantage of precedents, ought to search for them at his peril, and for his speed, for, the Court will not search for them; for if none, or no usual precedents are shewn, the Court ought to adjudge according to law and reason."

"If any precedent should be found, you should have time to make use of it."

"It is dangerous to make a precedent, an innovation."

"It is hard, I confess, and so are many other things in the law; but I am wonderfully tender of making precedents."

"A course of precedents and judicial proceedings in Courts of justice make the law: it would be endless to cite cases upon it. A course of practice for a few years has been held to controul an Act of Parliament."

"We must, as in all cases of tradition, trace backwards, and presume, from the usage which is remembered, that the precedent usage was the same."

"From authorities I come to precedents; though they be not judgments, yet they show the practice of the law: and what better book have we in the law than the book of precedents, or what is there of more authority than that, for we have not the twelve tables for our common laws? The common law is but the common usage of the land."

"Recognised precedents have the force of decisions, by which Courts and Judges individually must hold themselves bound."

"The precedents are all against you, every one of them, and what shall guide our judgments, since there is nothing alleged in this case but precedents?"

"Matters depending in our Courts are composed of an infinite number of special circumstances, and it therefore is as rare to find a precise correspondence between the facts of one case and those of another, as an exact resemblance in the face of one man to that of another. Therefore it is the wisdom of the sages of our law, by the analogy with other cases, to investigate their doubts, and thus to satisfy their judgments."

"I hope we shall resolve according to the reason of former times, and according to our consciences."

"What is determined upon solemn argument establishes the law, and makes a precedent for future cases : which is not the case of questions agreed by consent of parties, or never litigated."

"I have often thought since that there is sound sense in what was once said by the late Lord C. J. Eyre, that the sooner a bad precedent was gotten rid of, the better."

"I lay great stress upon the two precedents of near a century and a half ago, and no instance in contradiction of them."

"I think what has been considered as settled law for thirty years past ought not now to be departed from."

"Precedent indeed may serve to fix principles, which for certainty's sake are not suffered to be shaken, whatever might be the weight of the principle, independent of precedent. But precedent, though it be evidence of law, is not law in itself; much less the whole of the law."

"Precedent goes in support of justice."

"I should be sorry that any opinion of mine should shake the authority of an established precedent; since it is better for the subject that even faulty precedents should not be shaken than that the law should be uncertain."

"Seldom will it happen that any one rule will exactly suit with many cases."

"As a psychopathic creature, the corporation can neither recognize nor act upon moral reasons to refrain from harming others."

"A century and a half after its birth, the modern business corporation, an artificial person made in the image of a human psychopath, now is seeking to remake real people in its image."

"[...] legal curbs on corporate freedoms are needed to protect citizen's freedom."

"Corporation, n. An ingenious device for securing individual profit without individual responsibility."

"I believe that if you go and ask a chief executive of a Goldman Sachs or a BP, and they answer you honestly ... they want monopolies, they want government subsidies, they want preferences – they're not interested in free markets."

"No abuse of power has so tarnished the corporate image or shown the need for government legislation as the numerous public revelations of wholesale political and foreign bribery that came to light during the 1970s. These revelations are one of the most sordid chapters in American corporate history. Investigations revealed widespread illegal corporate political contributions and extensive bribery of foreign government officials. When the bribes were large, they significantly distorted the corporation's actual financial picture, thus misleading company stockholders as well as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the . When U.S. corporations bribe officials of developing countries, they may help to undermine that country's political stability and in some cases contribute to the spread of anti-American feeling. A particularly serious situation develops when pharmaceutical corporations bribe health officials in other countries to obtain permission to sell dangerous drug products."

"Hitler also missed the point completely about American economic capabilities, for the cars and the refrigerators he sneered at were being produced by corporations that led the world in techniques of mass production and modern management. The Axis leaders deluded themselves into believing that, with the Great Depression, the American economic model had disintegrated. Yet despite the sluggish growth of aggregate demand in the mid to late 1930s, firms like General Motors were taking tremendous strides forward in efficiency, exploiting those economies of scale that were unique to the huge American market. Exports to Britain and the Soviet Union had given GM and its peers a foretaste of what was to come. With the American entry into the war, they were inundated with government orders for military hardware. In the First World War, the result had been a mess: production bottlenecks, chronic waste and inflationary pressure. In 1942 the opposite happened. 'The real news,' as Charles E. Wilson of General Motors put it, 'is that our American methods of production, our know-how about the business, could be applied to mass production of all these war things . . . and that is the one factor that I think our Axis enemies overlooked.' Here, too, a compromise was involved. With astonishing speed the big corporations converted themselves from the champions of a consumer society to the servants of a command economy. As John Hancock and Bernard Baruch observed: 'With the coming of war a sort of totalitarianism is asserted. The government tells each business what it is to contribute to the war program.'"

"It was at the microeconomic level, however, that the output war was really won. For the biggest wartime advances in mass production and management were made in vast factories like Ford's mile-long bomber assembly line at Willow Run, Boeing's B-29 plant at Seattle or General Motors' aero-engine factory at Allison. At peak, Boeing Seattle was churning out sixteen B-17S a day and employing 40,000 men and women on round-the-clock shifts. Never had ships been built so rapidly as the Liberty ships, 2,700 of which slid down the slipways during the war years. It was at wartime General Motors that Peter Drucker saw the birth of the modern 'concept of the corporation', with its decentralized system of management. And it was during the war that the American military-industrial complex was born; over half of all prime government contracts went to just thirty-three corporations. Boeing's net wartime profits for the years 1941 to 1945 amounted to $27.6 million; in the preceding five years the company had lost nearly $3 million. General Motors Corporation employed half a million people and supplied one-tenth of all American war production. Ford alone produced more military equipment during the war than Italy. Small wonder some more-cerebral soldiers felt they were risking their necks not in a 'real war . . . but . . . in a regulated business venture', as James Jones put it in The Thin Red Line. It was strange indeed that the recovery of the American economy from the Depression should owe so much to the business of flattening other peoples' cities."

"For all their alleged power, big corporations are often powerless when it comes to the simple task of surviving. As Williamson notes, “Only 67 of the firms in the Fortune 500 in 1955 remained there by 2011.” “The average age of a company listed on the S&P 500 has fallen from almost 60 years old in the 1950s to less than 20 years currently,” a team of Credit Suisse analysts wrote last month. And the death rate is accelerating."

"When Bobby Kennedy went after organized crime in the early 1960s, one of the things he learned was that the Mafia had a series of rituals new members went through to declare their loyalty and promise they’d never turn away from their new benefactors. Once in, they’d be showered with money and protection, but they could never leave and even faced serious problems if they betrayed the syndicate. Which brings us to the story of Kyrsten Sinema. For a republican democracy to actually work, average citizens with a passion for making their country better must be able to run for public office without needing wealthy or powerful patrons; this is a concept that dates back to Aristotle’s rants on the topic. And Sinema... Apparently... she decided that if you can only barely beat them, you’d damn well better join them. Sinema quickly joined other Democrats who’d followed the Citizens United path to the flashing neon lights of big money, joining the so-called “Problem Solvers” caucus that owes its existence in part to the Wall Street-funded front group “No Labels.” ... Political networks run by rightwing billionaires and the US Chamber of Commerce showered her with support... She’d proved herself as a “made woman,” just like the old mafiosi documented by RFK in the 1960s, willing to do whatever it takes, compromise whatever principles she espoused..."

"And this is a genuine crisis for America because if President Biden is frustrated in his attempt to pass his Build Back Better legislation (that is overwhelmingly supported by Americans across the political spectrum) — all because business groups, giant corporations and rightwing billionaires are asserting ownership over their two “made” senators — there’s a very good chance that today’s cynicism and political violence is just a preview of the rest of the decade. But this isn’t as much a story about Sinema as it is about today’s larger political dysfunction for which she’s become, along with Joe Manchin, a poster child. Increasingly, because of the Supreme Court’s betrayal of American values, it’s become impossible for people like the younger Sinema to rise from social worker to the United States Senate without big money behind them.... While the naked corruption of Sinema and Joe Manchin is a source of outrage for Democrats across America, what’s far more important is that it reveals how deep the rot of money in American politics has gone, thanks entirely to a corrupted Supreme Court. In Justice Stevens’ dissent in Citizens United, he pointed out that corporations in their modern form didn’t even exist when the Constitution was written..."

"The United States ... celebrates rote vocational training and the singular, amoral skill of making money. It churns out stunted human products, lacking the capacity and vocabulary to challenge the assumptions and structures of the corporate state. It funnels them into a caste system of drones and systems managers. It transforms a democratic state into a feudal system of corporate masters and serfs."

"Totalitarianism no longer comes in the form of communism or fascism. It comes now from corporations. And these corporations fear those who think and write, those who speak out and form relationships freely. Individual freedom impedes their power and their profits. Our democracy, as Snowden I think has revealed, has become a fiction. The state, through elaborate forms of political theater, seeks to maintain this fiction to keep us passive. And if we wake up, the state will not shy away from draconian measures. The goal is complete subjugation, the iron rule of our corporations and our power elite."

"I have not tried to investigate it. It’s no use. There is no information about corporations. There is only disinformation. Even after they collapse, imploding into a cratered ruin stinking of burnt stockholder and surrounded by an impenetrable barrier formed by members of Congress and other government officials holding hands and wearing yellow tape marked Private Property, No Trespassing, Keep Out, No Hunting, Fishing, or Accounting—even then there is no truth in them."

"Given the extensive involvement of state violence in the process by which the corporate elite not only achieved its wealth in the past but continues to maintain and augment it in the present, it is clear that the massive inequalities of wealth that characterise present-day “capitalist” society are radically inconsistent with any approach to justice in holdings that is even remotely Nozickian."

"Corporations are people, my friend … course they are!"

"There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains. To put an end to it will be neither a short nor an easy task, but it can be done. We must have complete and effective publicity of corporate affairs, so that the people may know beyond peradventure whether the corporations obey the law and whether their management entitles them to the confidence of the public. It is necessary that laws should be passed to prohibit the use of corporate funds directly or indirectly for political purposes; it is still more necessary that such laws should be thoroughly enforced. Corporate expenditures for political purposes, and especially such expenditures by public-service corporations, have supplied one of the principal sources of corruption in our political affairs. It has become entirely clear that we must have government supervision of the capitalization, not only of public-service corporations, including, particularly, railways, but of all corporations doing an interstate business. I do not wish to see the nation forced into the ownership of the railways if it can possibly be avoided, and the only alternative is thoroughgoing and effective legislation, which shall be based on a full knowledge of all the facts, including a physical valuation of property. This physical valuation is not needed, or, at least, is very rarely needed, for fixing rates; but it is needed as the basis of honest capitalization."

"The economic fate of a corporation, like that of other business enterprises, is ultimately controlled by individual consumers. But most consumers may be no more interested in taking on management responsibility than stockholders are. Nor is it enough that those consumers who don’t want to be bothered don’t have to be. The very existence of enhanced powers for non-management individuals to have a say in the running of a corporation would force other consumers and stockholders to either take time to represent their own views and interests in this process or risk having people with other agendas over-ride their interests and interfere with the management of the enterprise, without these outsiders having to pay any price for being wrong."

"All general business corporation statues appear to date from well after 1800.. The Framers thus took it as a given that corporations could be comprehensively regulated in the service of the public welfare. Unlike our colleagues, they had little trouble distinguishing corporations from human beings, and when they constitutionalized the right to free speech in the First Amendment, it was the free speech of individual Americans they had in mind. The fact that corporations are different from human beings might seem to need no elaboration, except that the majority opinion almost completely elides it…. Unlike natural persons, corporations have ‘limited liability’ for their owners and managers, ‘perpetual life,’ separation of ownership and control, ‘and favorable treatment of the accumulation of assets….’ Unlike voters in U.S. elections, corporations may be foreign controlled. ...It might be added that corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires. Corporations help structure and facilitate the activities of human beings, to be sure, and their ‘personhood’ often serves as a useful legal fiction. But they are not themselves members of ‘We the People’ by whom and for whom our Constitution was established."

"(TH: In Justice Stevens’ dissent in Citizens United, he pointed out that corporations in their modern form didn’t even exist when the Constitution was written in 1787 and got its first ten amendments in 1791, including the First which protects free speech)"

"In addition to this immediate drowning out of noncorporate voices, there may be deleterious effects that follow soon thereafter. Corporate ‘domination’ of electioneering can generate the impression that corporations dominate our democracy. When citizens turn on their televisions and radios before an election and hear only corporate electioneering, they may lose faith in their capacity, as citizens, to influence public policy. A Government captured by corporate interests, they may come to believe, will be neither responsive to their needs nor willing to give their views a fair hearing. The predictable result is cynicism and disenchantment: an increased perception that large spenders ‘call the tune’ and a reduced ‘willingness of voters to take part in democratic governance.’ To the extent that corporations are allowed to exert undue influence in electoral races, the speech of the eventual winners of those races may also be chilled. Politicians who fear that a certain corporation can make or break their reelection chances may be cowed into silence about that corporation. On a variety of levels, unregulated corporate electioneering might diminish the ability of citizens to ‘hold officials accountable to the people,’ and disserve the goal of a public debate that is ‘uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.’"

"Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property."

"13 million children are hungry in America. Yet most politicians do not even talk about it... The political establishment has simply normalized the despair of millions of American children who are chronically traumatized by poverty, hunger, and all manner of violence. This is what happens when government becomes more an instrument of corporate profits then of conscience... This country shouldn’t be run like a business, it should be run like a family."

"We ought not to encourage vexatious prosecutions, which tend to throw corporations into confusion."

"The Court are bound to consider all the circumstances of the case, before they disturb the peace and quiet of any corporation."

"That corporations are the creatures of the Crown must be universally admitted."

"The situation the Lord Mayor holds is the first officer of the first city in the world in point of commerce and riches, and everything that can constitute the magnificence of a city. He is a judicial officer, and a municipal officer too, and from these combined characters there are duties incumbent upon him, which by all the ties that can bind a man to the discharge of duty, he is bound to discharge. It stands at the head of his duties, next after protecting the religion which binds us to God, to govern that civil policy which binds government together, and prevents us from being a state of anarchy and confusion."

"We ought, as far as we can by law, to support the government of all societies and corporations, especially this of the city of London; and if the mayor and aldermen should not have power to punish offenders in a summary way, then farewell the government of the city."

"Corporations cannot commit treason, nor be outlawed, nor excommunicate, for they have no souls."

"Cities are immortal."

"A corporation can have no legal existence out of the boundaries of the sovereignty by which it is created."

"It is a fiction, a shade, a nonentity, but a reality for legal purposes. A corporation aggregate is only in abstracto—it is invisible, immortal, and rests only in intendment and consideration of the law."

"While the Enterprises mission is ostensibly "to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before," its function is really more akin to that naval vessels in the early age of mercentalism. In describing the similarities, series creator Gene Roddenberry noted: "In those days ships of the major powers were assigned to patrol specific areas of the world's oceans. They represented their governments in those areas and protected the national interests of their respective countries. Out of contact with the admiralty office back home for long periods of time, the captains of these ships had very broad discretionary powers. These included regulating trade, fighting bush wars, putting down slave traders, lending aid to scientific expeditions conducting exploration on a broad scale, [and] engaging in diplomatic exchanges and affairs...."

"A man shall not sue in the Admiralty, only because it is a ship."

"The jurisdiction of the Court does not depend upon the existence of the ship, but upon the origin of the question to be decided, and the locality."

"I for one will not re-open the floodgates of Admiralty jurisdiction upon the people of this country."

"The difficulty of dealing with Admiralty Reports by way of authority is, that there is no necessity in that Court that the Judge should, in the exposition of the grounds of his judgment, discriminate strictly between the proposition of law which is to be satisfied by all the facts of the case, and the rule of interpretation of the direct facts of maritime vicissitudes given in evidence, by which he desires to bind himself and his successors as to the inference of fact he and they ought, as a general rule, to draw from those facts."

"Narrated 'Aisha: I said, "O Allah's Apostle! A virgin feels happy." He said, "Her consent is (expressed by) her silence.""

"Similarly wobbly views on sex and adolescents—or rather sex with adolescents—are on profligate historical display elsewhere. It goes in the opposite direction, too. The age of consent in 1920s Chile was 20, but now it's 16. A century ago in Italy, it was 16, too. But today it's 14 there. Overall, studying the numbers in even the most contemporary international age-of-consent table will give you the impression that you're looking at a flurry of seemingly random digits between 12 and 21 (a sizable range): It's 13 in Argentina, 18 in Turkey, 16 in Canada, 12 in Mexico, 20 in Tunisia, 16 in Western Australia, 15 in Sweden, and so on. "More than 800 years after the first recorded age of consent laws," writes the historian Stephen Robertson, "the one constant is the lack of consistency." Just as when we're assessing religions with conflicting theologies, we can draw only two possible conclusions from Robertson's observation: Either some societies have the one true age of consent and every other has therefore got it wrong, or any given society's age of consent is based on what its citizens have simply chosen to believe about human sexuality and psychological development. And similar to what any objective analysis of competing religious beliefs would force us to conclude, there's no evidence that the former is the case for cultural variations in age of consent laws (that there is "one true age") and every reason for us to conclude the latter is in fact what we're dealing with."

"Rubenfeld is right that most instances in which one of the parties having sex (or both) have failed to give consent to the act, the act is morally wrong. Immoral sex need not be rape (or sexual assault), however. For example, if both sex partners are minors, they are not legally in a position to give consent. If they have sex, they have not given legal content. But it doesn't follow that one person raped or assaulted the other. 'Rape’ is better understood as follows: A’s sexual encounter with B counts as A's rape of B, just in case (i) A is in a position to give informed consent to have penetrative sex, (ii) A knows or ought to have known that B is not in a position to consent to have penetrative sex or is not verbally or physically agreeing to have penetrative sex, and (iii) A is proceeding to have penetrative sex with B, despite (ii)."

"In order to answer the question about the conditions under which sex is morally wrong, we need to know what it means to consent to sex. “Consent” is shorthand for “voluntary informed consent.” Agreeing to have sex does not count as consenting to an entire sexual encounter for three reasons. 1. Consent given prior to a sexual encounter can be withdrawn at any time. 2. Agreeing to have sex can be involuntary. Submission to a sexual encounter is involuntary when it is forced upon a dissenting person by the use of physical force, threat or incapacitating behavior. It is admittedly difficult to specify what exactly counts as threatening or incapacitating behavior. A dissenting person who is too shocked by the other person’s sexual approach to move away or resist is incapacitated, even if she does not feel threatened. 3. The person may not be in a position to consent. Children, for example, are unable to consent to sex. This is not because minors are unable to consent to anything. Certainly, if a parent asks an average six-year old whether she would like the parent to brush her hair, and the six-year old responds that she does, her agreement counts as consent. Six-year olds are normally old enough to understand what it means for someone to brush their hair, and hair brushing does not ordinarily have unforeseen and potentially harmful consequences. So, not only is the child voluntarily entering into the interaction, she also understands the nature and consequences of the action. A six-year old cannot ordinarily consent to sex, however, as she is not in a position to understand what the act entails. Similar remarks apply to at least some mentally challenged individuals."

"Isabel Grant, a law professor at the University of British Columbia, agreed that the way the Supreme Court rules could open a Pandora’s Box for women with any kind of mental disability that compromises their ability to consent to sex. “And in the context of elderly individuals, if you have someone with advanced dementia, the issue might be what has she said beforehand to her sexual partner, that when she became incapable it was OK to have sex with her.” In a sense, she argued, that turns women into sexual objects once they become incapable: “You can sort of do whatever you want to me then because I’m not going to be able to change my mind.” “Are we going to treat that as consent in law?” asked Grant, adding that such a decision could effectively reverse many of the legal gains women have made in the last decade regarding sexual assault."

"“Consent is ‘Do you want to have sex this time with this person?’ And we can’t imply that from the fact that you’ve had sex with him before. … So I think it’s a really dangerous precedent.”"

"As stated, informed consent is both a legal obligation and an ethical principle. The requirement that medical providers obtain permission from their patients prior to providing treatment is embedded in the idea that individuals should be empowered to make autonomous decisions regarding their own care. Accordingly, informed consent is a process through which accurate and relevant information is presented to a patient so that he or she is able to knowledgeably accept or forego medical care, based on an appreciation and understanding of the facts presented. In general, the literature documenting the process of obtaining informed consent indicates that it involves three broad principles: disclosure, capacity and voluntariness. Disclosure requires the physician to provide accurate and adequate information on the benefits, risks, costs and alternatives of treatment; in this context, adequacy is often understood as the amount of information that the average patient would require to be an informed participant in the decision. Capacity refers to the patient's ability to understand and rationally process the information presented to him or her and to make health care choices based on this understanding. And voluntariness describes the patient's ability to make a decision free from coercion or any type of unfair incentives. According to attorney J. Steven Svoboda and colleagues, writing for the Journal of Contemporary Health Law and Policy, this requires the physician to "distance himself as much as possible from his personal preferences and values and to present interests at stake for the patient.""

"These two arguments for inalienability, one looking to coercion and the other to invidious symbolism, begin to merge if the definition of coercion is broadened to include the desperate circumstances that are likely to be present when a competent, undeceived person, who is not being threatened with violence, is willing to sell himself into slavery. A man would have to be in pretty tight straights before he would agree to a contact like the one Bailey signed, but he signed it, and so did many others. They were not always physically threatened. There is no evidence that Bailey was. Their acquiescence cannot simply be dismissed as the product of fraud or incompetence; employment on such terms may indeed have been the best option they had. Even though Bailey’s poverty or powerlessness does not fit into classical economic notions of “coercion”-he did, after all, willingly enter into a deal that made both parties better off-we are reluctant to call a decision made in such circumstances a free choice. Consent is an ambiguous concept."

"“In one sense of the word” observes Robert Lee Hales, “no labor is “involuntary"-not even that of a slave. It is performed through the voluntary muscular movements of the laborer, who chooses to perform it in order to avoid something worse. Obviously, the word is not used in the Thirteenth Amendment in this restricted sense.” Nat Turner, who has hanged in Virginia in 1831 after leading a bloody slave rebellion, would probably have agreed with Hegel that “if a man is a slave, his own will is responsible for his slavery, just as it is its will which is responsible if a people is subjugated. Hence the wrong of slavery lies at the door not simply of enslavers or conquerors but of the slaves and the conquered themselves.” But Hegel did not infer that slavery therefore was legitimate. If the ubiquity of consent in this sense is not to vitiate the thirteenth amendment altogether, the amendment must be understood as standing for the proposition that there are certain choices that a person should not find herself having to make: specifically, choices between submitting to servitude or denying a need (for example, the need for food, or to be free form pain) that almost all human beings find irresistible. That is why the courts should not give their imprimatur to choices made under such circumstances."

"Like Bailey, women who consent to the risk of pregnancy do so within a complex field of pressures and constraints. Most obviously, both women and men feel a powerful need for sex. Lifelong abstinence is an option, of course, but it is not clear that it is any more reasonable an option than Bailey’s option of remaining permanently unemployed Religious ascetics do without sex, but they also often do without food; doubtless Bailey would have been better able to resist the blandishments of the Riverside Company if he had been willing to follow the ascetics’ example. Again, if the thirteenth amendment means anything, it means that a person should not have to choose between submitting to servitude or denying a need that almost all human beings find irresistible."

"A person would be incapable of giving consent if she is unconscious or is so intoxicated by alcohol or drugs as to be incapable of understanding or perceiving the situation that presents itself. This does not mean, however, that an intoxicated person cannot give consent to sexual activity. Clearly, a drunk can consent."

"At first glance, it would seem it should be easy for German authorities to prosecute Meiwes. In fact, however, as the New York Times reported on December 27, though the authorities want to prosecute Meiwes to the fullest extent of the law, they are having trouble finding any serious crimes with which to charge him. The obstacle to a murder charge is the fact that the evidence incontrovertibly shows that Meiwes's victim wanted to be eaten. Indeed, he had agreed to the arrangement over the Internet, answering an ad placed by Meiwes that specifically sought a person who wanted to be slaughtered and cannibalized. In the United States, the victim's consent is no defense to murder, and it would be easy to prosecute an American counterpart to Meiwes. But in Germany, the victim's consent renders the crime a "killing on request" -- that is, an instance of illegal euthanasia. Unfortunately, this offense is punishable by a very modest sentence of from six months to five years of incarceration."

"Parliament requires ongoing, conscious consent to ensure that women and men are not the victims of sexual exploitation, and to ensure that individuals engaging in sexual activity are capable of asking their partners to stop at any point."

"Consent for the purposes of sexual assault is defined in s. 273.1(1) ( of the Criminal Code) as “the voluntary agreement of the complainant to engage in the sexual activity in question”. This suggests that the consent of the complainant must be specifically directed to each and every sexual act, negating the argument that broad advance consent is what Parliament had in mind. As discussed below, this Court has also interpreted this provision as requiring the complainant to consent to the activity “at the time it occur[s]"."

"The jurisprudence of this Court also establishes that there is no substitute for the complainant’s actual consent to the sexual activity at the time it occurred. It is not open to the defendant to argue that the complainant’s consent was implied by the circumstances, or by the relationship between the accused and the complainant. There is no defence of implied consent to sexual assault: Ewanchuk, at para. 31."

"Section 273.1(2)(b) provides that no consent is obtained if “the complainant is incapable of consenting to the activity”. Parliament was concerned that sexual acts might be perpetrated on persons who do not have the mental capacity to give meaningful consent. This might be because of mental impairment. It also might arise from unconsciousness: see R. v. Esau, [1997] 2 S.C.R. 777; R v. Humphrey (2001), 143 O.A.C. 151, at para. 56, per Charron J.A. (as she then was). It follows that Parliament intended consent to mean the conscious consent of an operating mind.”"

"Parliament has defined sexual assault as sexual touching without consent. It has dealt with consent in a way that makes it clear that ongoing, conscious and present consent to “the sexual activity in question” is required. This concept of consent produces just results in the vast majority of cases. It has proved of great value in combating the stereotypes that historically have surrounded consent to sexual relations and undermined the law’s ability to address the crime of sexual assault. In some situations, the concept of consent Parliament has adopted may seem unrealistic. However, it is inappropriate for this Court to carve out exceptions when they undermine Parliament’s choice. In the absence of a constitutional challenge, the appropriate body to alter the law on consent in relation to sexual assault is Parliament, should it deem this necessary."

""What they’re looking at is can you say when I become unconscious, as in this case, could I have pre-consented to sex?” said Jane Meadus, a lawyer at the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly in Toronto. “But the broader implications are that I could consent today and say if I became incapable — I got dementia or I got in a coma or something — it’s OK for my spouse to come and have sex with me. And is that pre-consent really a pre-consent and what are the implications for the people who are, for example, in long-term care?”"

"“She may be somewhat fearful. She may no longer have the capacity to withdraw consent. She may just go along, but that doesn’t mean that she is happy about it.”"

"Capacity of adults with intellectual disabilities to consent to sexual relationships Sexual consent capacity criteria (1) knowledge of body parts, sexual relations, and sexual acts; (2) knowledge of the consequences of sexual relations, sexually transmitted diseases, and pregnancy; (3) understanding of appropriate sexual behavior and the context for it; (4) understanding that sexual contact must be voluntary; (5) ability to recognize potentially abusive situations; and (6) ability to show assertiveness in social and personal situations and to reject unwanted advances."

"Health care providers are legally required to obtain patients’ informed consent before performing a medical procedure. Specific definitions of informed consent may vary from state to state, but the goal of the informed consent process is well established: to ensure that patients understand the nature and risks of the procedure they are considering and that their decision to undergo it is voluntary (AAAHC, 2016; AMA, 2016; HHS, 2017a; Joint Commission, 2016). The discussion should also include options for analgesia, sedation, or anesthesia, including their associated risks and benefits (AANA, 2016; ASA Committee on Ethics, 2016)."

"At the moment it's no defence at all to say that person is consenting, because of Brown. People certainly can't consent to being killed, they can't consent to injury which amounts to actual bodily harm if it's in the course of S&M."

"…where a man does not engage in communicative sexuality, he acts either out of reckless disregard, or out of willful ignorance. For he cannot know, except through the practice of communicative sexuality, whether his partner has any sexual reason for continuing the encounter. And where she does not, he runs the risk of imposing on her what she is not willing to have. All that is needed, then, in order to provide women with legal protection from date rape is to make both reckless indifference and willful ignorance a sufficient condition of mens rea, and to make communicative sexuality the accepted norm of sex to which a reasonable woman would agree."

"Unjust social arrangements are themselves a kind of extortion, even violence, and consent to them does not bind."

"At best, consent is vital not because it insures safety but because it enables danger."

"It is respect, it is decency, it is empathy and it is the cornerstone of a good, healthy sexual encounter."

"According to section 74 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, someone consents when she or he "agrees by choice…and has the freedom and capacity to make that choice." That’s a clear definition. And there are some equally clear examples of when someone doesn’t have "freedom" or "capacity" to agree by choice or to "consent". For example: if someone is under the age of 16, they don’t legally have the capacity to consent to sex. If someone is asleep or unconscious, they don’t have the capacity to consent. If they’ve been kidnapped or held against their will, they don’t have the freedom to consent."

"Likewise, having consented to sex with someone once or even several times in the past doesn’t mean you’ve consented to sex with that person indefinitely. Consent is not like a physical permit that, once issued, we can save for use at a future date. The person who willingly and enthusiastically had sex with us last night might not want to have sex with us this morning and that’s their right and prerogative. The law is also very clear that a person can give their consent to one kind of sexual activity but not another in a single situation. For example, someone might consent to vaginal but not anal penetration, or they might consent to sex with a condom but not without one. Again, this is common sense."

"Criteria for inferring sexual consent capacity. 1. Voluntariness: A person must have the ability to voluntarily decide, without coercion, with whom he or she wants to have sexual relations. 2. Safety: Both participants in the sexual behavior must be reasonably protected from physical harm (e.g., sexually transmitted disease) or psychological harm (e.g., undesired separation from each other). 3. No exploitation: A person should not be taken advantage of or used by another (e.g., someone with power or higher status) in a way that is inconsistent with voluntariness. 4. No abuse: Psychological or physical abuse must not be present in the relationship. 5. Ability to say no: A person must be able to communicate ‘‘no’’ verbally or non-verbally, and to remove himself or herself from the situation at hand, indicating a wish to discontinue the interaction. 6. Socially appropriate time and place: Either the person must be able to choose a socially acceptable time and place, or the person must be responsive to directives toward that end. Mental Retardation. 4, 264–268 (1995)."

"“Everything you and I need, love, want, hate and value is what a person with dementia loves, hates, needs, wants and values,” she said. “So that need does not go away because someone has dementia. What complicates that need is the ability to make informed decisions about sexual behaviour as it does with all behaviour and to understand the consequences of those decisions.”"

"The appeal to permission as the source of authority involves no particular moral vision or understanding. It gives no value to permission. It simply recognizes that secular moral authority is the authority of permission. This appeal is a minimal condition in relying on what it is to resolve issues among moral strangers with moral authority; consent. It establishes a secularly acknowledgeable authority for its conclusions: agreement. By appealing to ethics as a means for peaceably negotiating moral disputes, one discloses as a necessary and sufficient condition…for a general secular ethics the requirement to respect the freedom of the participants in a moral controversy…as a basis for common moral authority."

"An ethics of permission, however, can extend only to those who are capable of giving or refusing permission. Thus secular bioethics has a bias in favor of “persons,” where “person” is understood in terms of this prior notion of permission: persons are all and only those beings capable of entering into, or refusing to enter into agreement with others. One obvious consequence of this is that there can be no secular restraints on the morality of abortion: embryos and fetuses cannot enter into agreements, and so are left unprotected from those who would do them harm. The unborn are radically outside of the secular moral community."

"The second meaning of “legitimation,” developed in critical scholarship of the late twentieth century, concerns the nature and role of consent and the specific impact of an individual’s consent to the perceived justice of either particular transactions or entire institutions to which consent is given. In liberal market economies and the legal orders that govern them, the act of consent generally insulates the object of consent even from criticism, much less legal challenge. Consent to the terms of a contract, for example, almost always insulates the fairness of the terms of that contract from both public scrutiny and legal attack, regardless of how harmful or injurious that contract turns out to be to any of the parties that consented to it. If the contract was consensual, it cannot possibly be unfair to execute it against a later regretful party, no matter how harmful its terms might appear to be. Widely shared norms against paternalistic legislation, an ideological and seemingly bottomless belief in the ability of individuals to understand and act on their own welfare, skepticism regarding the motivation of regulatory bodies or meddling individuals who would seek to upset consensual individual transactions, and at least for some, a definitional commitment to consent as that which maximizes value, all burden attempts to intervene in or even question contract terms. They may do so through “unconscionability” or “duress” limits in the common law of contract, or through more explicitly regulatory means, such as consumer protection legislation or workers’ rights laws. I have argued elsewhere that the same dynamic increasingly limits critique of intimate sexual relations: consensual sex is viewed not only as not rape, but also as not subjected appropriately to moral or political criticism. To subject consensual sex to criticism is puritanical, moralistic, or worse. Lastly, in the public sphere, “consent” operates similarly: the consent of the governed legitimates whatever governance follows. We can generalize from these three examples of the impact of consent in the private, intimate, and public spheres: consent cleans or purifies that to which the consent is given, and thereby insulates it from political critique as well as legal challenge. Questioning the value of that to which consent has been given is politically suspect—because it is unjustifiably paternalist, logically incoherent, or both."

"Perhaps the hallmark of late twentieth-century critical legal studies (CLS) writing was the claim that this widely made inference from consent to value is simply unwarranted. People’s abilities to ascertain and act on their own self-interest are limited, the critical scholars argued. The capacity of countries, institutions, multinational corporations, social forces, or simply stronger parties to create in individual subjects a willingness to consent to transactions or changes that do not in fact increase their well being is well documented. “Consent” of the weaker can be manufactured to serve the interests of dominant parties, and when it is manufactured, it is not a good measure of the value to the weak of that to which consent was given. Neither skepticism regarding the good motives or knowledge base of the “paternalist,” nor faith in the self-regarding preferences of the individual, justify the unexamined inference that a consensual change so extracted is a good one for all affected parties. The degree to which a consensual change is perceived as such is the degree to which it has been unduly legitimated by the consent that preceded it. The legitimation cost of consensual transactions, then, is the sometimes unwarranted belief in the increased value of the change to which consent was proffered."

"Some schools recommend or require that for consent to be valid, it must be given while sober, and others rule that consent cannot be given when a student is “under the influence,” vague standards that could cover any amount of alcohol consumption. Some embrace “affirmative consent,” which, at its limit, requires that each touch, each time, be preceded by the explicit, verbal granting of permission. At times, the directives given to students about sex veer squarely into the absurd: A training video on sexual consent for incoming students at Brown University, for instance, included this stipulation, among many others: “Consent is knowing that my partner wants me just as much as I want them.”"

"Sometimes, of course, there is no ambiguity, as when a woman says no, or sends visible, consistent physical signals that she is not consenting to a sexual act. But many schools no longer require women to say or signal no in order for an encounter to be considered nonconsensual. Affirmative-consent rules, particularly when written or interpreted expansively, do that directly; in California, Connecticut, and New York, affirmative-consent codes for college students have been signed into law. So do policies that treat women who have been drinking—but who are not by any objective standard incapacitated—as unable to give consent. The problem with both types of policies is that they are intrusive and impractical. Couples are especially unlikely to adhere to contract-negotiation-style bedroom interactions (and it is no small intrusion on privacy to require them to do so). The proscription on drinking before sex is certain to be widely ignored; sexually inexperienced students (and even experienced ones) often drink in order to lower their inhibitions. And yet ignoring these rules puts men in great jeopardy should their partner later reconsider what seemed to have been a consensual encounter. In the world outside campus, people who are merely intoxicated, not incapacitated, can legally consent to sex, even if they make poor or regrettable decisions. In many states, sex with an incapacitated partner is a crime when the accused knows, or reasonably should know, about the incapacity and intends to act without consent. Recently, some schools have adopted clearer standards for incapacitation, including the requirement that the accused should reasonably know about the incapacity in order for consent to be invalidated. But on many campuses, no such knowledge or intent is required for an adjudication to determine that a violation has occurred."

"The sheer infeasibility of a ‘just say yes, over and over again’ rule has been the subject of some appropriately incredulous critiques. How will campus triers of fact determine whether an ‘explicit yes’ was repeatedly rendered, satisfying the ongoing affirmative consent requirement? Students are encouraged, not entirely satirically, to tape their sexual encounters or to obtain a series of signed consent forms as their activities progress… Advocates of ongoing, explicit yes rules respond to these criticisms partly by explaining that the rules are intended to ‘send a message’ and ‘change the culture’. As the New York Times reports, ‘Many supporters of affirmative consent say its greatest power may lie in changing attitudes’. This is a telling defence that implicitly acknowledges the impracticality of the new rules and the likelihood that few if any people will actually comply with them. It’s also a chilling defence that practically endorses arbitrary, discriminatory enforcement regimes."

"You cannot consent to a thing unless you have knowledge of it."

"Parties cannot by consent give to the Court a power which it would not have without it."

"I have very often had occasion to say, that acquiescence is founded on knowledge, and that a man cannot be said to acquiesce in a transaction if he is not proved to have had knowledge of it. I think that this principle requires to be attended to in all cases turning upon acquiescence."

"It is not reasonable afterwards to allow the party to complain of that irregularity, of which, if he had availed himself in the first instance, all the expense would have been rendered unnecessary."

"If a client be present in Court, and stand by and see his solicitor enter into terms of an agreement, and makes no objection whatever to it, he is not at liberty afterwards to repudiate it."

"A man who does not speak when he ought, shall not be heard when he desires to speak."

"I think it is now clearly established that counsel appearing for a party in an action is held out as having authority, and has full authority, as to all matters which relate to the conduct of the action and its settlement, and further that, notwithstanding a limit may have been placed upon the authority of counsel, the party for whom he appears is bound by such settlement unless the fact that the counsel's apparent authority had been limited was communicated to the other side."

"Modern consent, then, is a very specific, narrowly defined legal concept developed at the end of the eighteenth century in part to differentiate full citizens from partial citizens or non-citizens. It is not a vague or open idea: citizens-mature, sane, politically active individuals-are capable of cosnnet. Partial citizens, passive citizens, or non citizens-those below the ae of maturity, those declared insane, orthe politically inactive-are not. In ther eam of sexual crime, the most obvious manifestation of this notibly is in legislation on statutory rape where, whether or not a child consents to sex according to conventional standards, the activity is strll criminal because the child has not become a full citizen and thus capable of consent according to political and legal standards. Children, however, are noy the only partial citizens or non-citizens regulated by national or international political structures, and it is here that the cosnent/bodily integrity formula becomes problematic. Another increasingly recognizable non-citizen or partial citizen is the (internal or external) refugee-mature, sane regualted, but not in any way a full political actor. Indeed, what recent national and international interpetations of consent and bodily integrity have produced from the perspective of refugees-even, or especially, to the extent that they have been endowed with ersatz riights-is a situation in which any and all sexual or reproductive behavior on their part has become crinimal. Sex has become rape and reproduction has become criminal abortion and/or criminal procreation."

"I would like to consider some further aspects of the role of consent in the early twentieth century legislation. First of all, when we conceive of consent theory as a theory absent of any choice-operating as a means of delimiting borders rather than of defining behavior-the problems and contradictions that occur when it runs up against “reality”begin to make more sense. When Pateman, for instance, notes that, “consent as an ideology cannot be distinguished from habitual acquiscence, assent, silent dissent, submission, or even enforced submission. Unless refusal of consent or withdrawal of consent are real possibilities, we can no longer speak of “consent” in any genuine sense,”104 she is clearly understanding consent as something linked to juridical freedom or, more basically, to choice. Likewise, when Agamben, in his discussion of medical experimentation on prisoners in Nazi concentration camps or in United States prisons that that, The final criterion, which elicited general agreement, was the necessity of an explicit and voluntary consent on the part of the subject who was to be submitted to the experiment .. [T]he obvious hypocrisy of such documents cannot fail to leave one perplexed. To speak of free will and consent in the case of a person sentenced to death or of a detained person who must pay serious penalties is, at the very least, questionable, he is operating within the same framework. If, however, we understand consent as no more and no less than means of defining sovereign space-of collapsing political and biological borders and boundaries-the seemingly perverse or at least disingenuous insistence on consent in such situations becomes more reasonable. The question is not whether the individual “really” consented to what is, for all intents and purposes, sexual, social, reproductive, political, biological, or medical enslavement. It is instead the extent to which the consensual relationship has successfully defined both political and biological space. Indeed, we can see in these early approaches to reproduction, experimentation, and execution important precursors to the humane reliance on lethal injection-rather than, say, beheading, hanging, or electrocution-as a means of eliminating criminals in the modern United States. Above all a spectacle of consent, the lethal injection-absent any wound or executioner-plays out first and foremost as a doctor/patient relationship, the physician eliminating the biologically passive, juridically consenting citizen in the end for his own good."

"By the early twentieth century, this articulation of women's bodies as biopolitical space had become far more pronounced-expressed throughout the 1920s and 1930s in particular in a language of consent. The talk of contracts, and especially the reinterpretation of the medieval private contract as a nineteenth century social contract, had led above all to an interwar fascination on the part of jurists with the biologically defined citizen and how consent theory specifically might regulate this citizen's sexuality. Italian fascist legislators, for example, began to imagine rape as both a crime against public morality and a crime against something called “sexual liberty,” the latter operating as a subset of the former. What exactly was meant by “sexual liberty” and why fascist legislators found it meaningful will be the questions that drive this section. I will indeed suggest over the next few pages that “sexual liberty” was a right that could be possessed only by biopolitically defined citizens, and that the consent on which this right was founded was likewise a biopolitical one-that paradoxically, as Vera Bergelson puts it, “valid consent eliminate[d] [the possibility of a] violation of rights.” I will therefore also suggest that consent played the same role in interwar sexual legislation that it had in interwar reproductive legislation. First and foremost a means of transforming women's bodies into space, it had little or nothing to do with “choice” or “freedom” per se, and placed women, not men, at the center of the public sphere."

"As I argued in the last chapter, Scarry's notion that consent as a political concept is meaningful only given a passive of threatened body leads likewise to the notion that the liberal citizen's political autonomy, his or her ability to consent or to invoke political power, is inversely proportional to his or her bodily or biological autonomy. It is important to reiterate, in fact, that Scarry's reading of consent theory brings us directly to a spatial rather than a behavioral unerstanding of political activity. If the ideal, politically active, consenting citizen is a physically incapacitated or immobile one, consent necessarily has to do with boundaries rather than behavior. I examined the reproductive implications of this reading in the last chapter. What I would like to do now is to discuss its implications in terms of sexual legislation-to ask especially what happens when consent describes sexual and political space, and when the act of consent is in and of itself a waiver of rights."

"Bergelson likewise discusses the role played by consent in the transformation of private contracts into public contracts in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. She notes that whereas in the early modern period, consent was a catch all defense in penal legislation, “changes in the power of an individual to conenet to personal harm came in the seventeenth century. They were a natural consequence of the monopolization of the system of punishment by the state. While in the early ages of criminal justice the victim was the central figure in the prosecution and settlement of any non-public offense,in the normative and centralized juridical structure the victim became almost entirely excluded from the criminal process.” She continuied by noting that the right to consent was thus constrained, as the victims of crime became abstract concepts such as “public peace” or sovereingty."

"One major theme that runs throughout Bergelson's article is this tension between the ability to consent, which “is recognized in moral philosophy as a central manifestation of personhood and individual autonomy,” and the act of consent, which is “a waiver of rights.”"

"That consent has almost nothing to do with choice and everything to do with an unabashedly authoritarian understanding of political space in which rights are assumed to be waived can be seen in the actual outcome of the case in which Scarry conteztualizes her analysis. As Paul A. Lombardo has observed, “it is rarely clear in most discussions of the Cardozo opinion that Mary Schloendorff lost her case. That result is not only startling because of the way Cardozo ignored the absence of consent for dangerous and unwanted surgery, but also for its extraordinary deference to charitable immunity of hospitals, employing questionable arguments and contorted interpretations of the facts for each conclusion that would allow the case to be dismissed. The very Court that Cardozo sat on-New York's Court of Appeals-criticized the reasoning on charitable immunity in the Schloendorff case as 'logically weak' only ten years after it was decided, and it was completely overruled in 1957 when the shield of non-profit status was discarded in new York as “out of tune with life about us.' Yet we still celebrate the case as a salute to patient autonomy.” Lombardo continues by pointing out that the specific unwanted surgery performed on Mary Schloendorff was a hysterectomy to rid her of a “phantom tumor.” Lombardo 2005, 792. John T. Parry had addressed this paradox-the extent to which contemporary rights are assumed to be enforced only by the act of waiving the-as well, noting in his analysis of the 2002 case USA v. Drayton: Justice Kennedy closed with the following comments on citizenship, police conduct, and the rule of law: 'In a society based on law, the concept of agreement and consent should be given a weight and dignity of its own. Police officers act in full accord with the law when they ask citizens for consent."

"[T]o complain in public of inequality within the private contradicts the liberal definition of the private … [I]njuries arise through violation of the private sphere, not within and by and because of it. In private, consent tends to be presumed. Showing coercion is supposed to void this presumption. But the problem is getting anything private to be perceived as coercion … [W]hy a person would “allow” force in private (the “why doesn't she leave” question raised to battered women) is a question given its insult by the social meaning of the private sphere as a sphere of choice.”"

"Each of these theorists, in other words, links the failure of neutral or equal citizenship to the creation of the private sphere, to the placement of women into this sphere, and to the indeed dangerous way in which women's bodies personify it. Consent-a public, political act-becomes meaningless in such a frameowrk. Indeed, as MacKinnon argues with reference to rape law, consent is simply assumed in the private, that “arena of choice;” it is a metaphysical quality rather than a political act. Women carry the private around with them. And it is a result of their empathatically private nature that consent theory cannot serve them as citizens in the end. My purpose over the next few pages will be to challenge this analysis. More specifically, I will try to demonstrate that to the extent that sexual legislation-and more basically, sexual identity-became central to political identity over the first few decades of the twentieth century, women, sexualized, increasingly became actors within the rhetorical public, rather than within the rhetorical private. Indeed, rape and adultery law trendered women essential, prototypical, biopolitical subjects, their bodies representative of a new, relentless concept of the political. Moreover, I will argue that it was the thetoric of consent in particular that transformed women citizens in this way. Far from meaningless or irrelevant, consent instead served as a foundation for an interwar reinterpretation of both sexual and political identity. The paradox of both the biologically passive, politically active consenting individual"

"Usually assault is not consented to in law; either it cannot be consented to, or consensual assault remains assault. Yet sexual assault consented to is intercourse, no matter how much force was used."

"[T]he relationship between rape laws, democratic theories of consent, and patriarchy has been a matter of concern to feminist political theorists for some time. These feminists have exposed the 'double speak' of social contract consent theory … [T]hey have detailed the ways in which the emphasis on consent relies on a masculine concept of the self as an autonomous, independent being. They have examined the ways in which this concept of self runs counter women's experiences of the self as a relational being with responsibility to/for others … [I]t prompts us to argue for the rule of consent in the context of a theory of justice where vulnerability rather than autonomy defines the integrity of the political subject.” **"

"Heaven is home. Utopia is here. Nirvana is now."

"Utopianism is manifest in countless historical examples of those that have dared to challenge the status quo and assert that things can — and indeed, must — change. Take Martin Luther King’s dream of a world free of racial segregation for example, or the strivings of the suffragettes for gender equality... Now, our relationship with the natural world is humanity’s defining challenge — and utopian ideas have shifted to meet it. “Ecotopian” aspirations are already in full view in community networks attempting to create more conscious ways of living such as the Transition Network, social movements such as Extinction Rebellion, and bold policy proposals such as the USA’s “Green New Deal.” What’s more, many of the ideas put forth by these projects were long since imagined in prominent ecotopian literary works."

"In shattering the perceived rigidity of the present, utopianism paves the way for change. Perfect worlds may not be realizable or even desirable, but that doesn’t mean we should shy away from imagining and striving for a better future. Societies without extreme inequality and environmental degradation are surely within the bounds of possibility. Whether in the form of a creative novel, a social movement, or a political proposal, dreaming can help us get there."

"There were a lot of utopias in the nineteenth century, wonderful societies that we might possibly construct. Those went pretty much out of fashion after World War I. And almost immediately one of the utopias that people were trying to construct, namely the Soviet Union, threw out a writer called Zamyatin who wrote a seminal book called We, which contains the seeds of Orwell and Huxley. Writers started doing dystopias after we saw the effects of trying to build utopias that required, unfortunately, the elimination of a lot of people before you could get to the perfect point, which never arrived."

"The ground-root folly of this piteous philantropy is thinking to distribute indivisibles, and make equality in things incommensurable: forged under such delusions, all Utopias are castles in the air or counsels of despair."

"Utopia lies at the horizon. When I draw nearer by two steps, she retreats two steps. If I proceed ten steps forward, she swiftly slips ten steps ahead. No matter how far I go, I can never reach it. For what might utopia be useful? It is useful for this: to keep walking."

"Utopias and other models of government, based on the public good, may be inconceivable because of the disordered human passions which, under the wrong governments, seek to highlight the poorly conceived or selfish interest of the community. But even though we find it impossible, they are ridiculous to sinful people whose sense of self-destruction prevents them from believing."

"It is solemnly said that this is a transition period; but the whole history of humanity has been one continual transition period. The great and delightful thing about human existence is that it has been engaged from the beginning of time in one everlasting crisis. Humanity went to bed every night expecting to wake up and find itself divine. The whole of history is the vigil of a festival. This is, I think, the essential error which gives that strange air of unreality, even of a kind of spectral horror, to all the Utopias which are now written about the ultimate condition of men."

"[W]e have crossed a great divide, between what we used to do in all of previous human history and what we do now. Utopia, it is true, this is not. I imagine Bellamy would be at once impressed and disappointed. The economic historian helps explain why. ...With our increasing wealth, what used to be necessities become matters of little concern ...conveniences turn into necessities. Luxuries turn into conveniences. And we humans envision and then create new luxuries. ...He saw humanity on a hedonic treadmill: "...the triumph of economic growth is not a triumph of humanity over material wants; rather, it is a triumph of material wants over humanity." ...[T]his hedonic treadmill is one powerful reason why, even when all went very well, we only slouched rather than galloped toward utopia."

"Utopias of equality are biologically doomed, and the best that the amiable philosopher can hope for is an approximate equality of legal justice and educational opportunity."

"How can there ever be a utopia? There is no right way to live, which we’ve simply failed to stumble upon. There is no set of rules, there is no system, there is no formula. Why should there be? Short of the existence of a creator—and a perverse one, at that—why should there be some blueprint for perfection, just waiting to be discovered?"

"The youth of humanity all around our planet are intuitively revolting from all sovereignties and political ideologies. The youth of Earth are moving intuitively toward an utterly classless, raceless, omnicooperative, omniworld humanity. Children freed of the ignorantly founded educational traditions and exposed only to their spontaneously summoned, computer-stored and -distributed outflow of reliable-opinion-purged, experimentally verified data, shall indeed lead society to its happy egress from all misinformedly conceived, fearfully and legally imposed, and physically enforced customs of yesterday. They can lead all humanity into omnisuccessful survival as well as entrance into an utterly new era of human experience in an as-yet and ever-will-be fundamentally mysterious Universe."

"Whether it is to be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race right up to the final moment. . . . Humanity is in "final exam" as to whether or not it qualifies for continuance in Universe."

"Every daring attempt to make a great change in existing conditions, every lofty vision of new possibilities for the human race, has been labelled Utopian."

"I shall speak of … how melancholy and utopia preclude one another. How they fertilize one another … Of the revulsion that follows one insight and precedes the next … Of superabundance and surfeit. Of stasis and progress. And of myself, for whom melancholy and utopia are heads and tails of the same coin."

"The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognised it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison."

"We must make the building of a free society once more an intellectual adventure, a deed of courage. What we lack is a liberal Utopia, a programme which seems neither a mere defence of things as they are nor a diluted kind of socialism, but a truly liberal radicalism which does not spare the susceptibilities of the mighty (including the trade unions), which is not too severely practical and which does not confine itself to what appears today as politically possible…Those who have concerned themselves exclusively with what seemed practicable in the existing state of opinion have constantly found that even this has rapidly become politically impossible as the result of changes in a public opinion which they have done nothing to guide. Unless we can make the philosophic foundations of a free society once more a living intellectual issue, and its implementation a task which challenges the ingenuity and imagination of our liveliest minds, the prospects of freedom are indeed dark. But if we can regain that belief in power of ideas which was the mark of liberalism at its best, the battle is not lost."

"If we could sniff or swallow something that would, for five or six hours each day, abolish our solitude as individuals, atone us with our fellows in a glowing exaltation of affection and make life in all its aspects seem not only worth living, but divinely beautiful and significant, and if this heavenly, world-transfiguring drug were of such a kind that we could wake up next morning with a clear head and an undamaged constitution—then, it seems to me, all our problems (and not merely the one small problem of discovering a novel pleasure) would be wholly solved and earth would become paradise."

"I myself think it our bounden duty to believe in such international rationality as possible. But, as things stand, I see how desperately hard it is to bring the peace-party and the war-party together, and I believe that the difficulty is due to certain deficiencies in the program of pacifism which set the military imagination strongly, and to a certain extent justifiably, against it. In the whole discussion both sides are on imaginative and sentimental ground. It is but one utopia against another, and everything one says must be abstract and hypothetical."

"I will now confess my own utopia. I devoutly believe in the reign of peace and in the gradual advent of some sort of socialistic equilibrium. The fatalistic view of the war function is to me nonsense, for I know that war-making is due to definite motives and subject to prudential checks and reasonable criticisms, just like any other form of enterprise. And when whole nations are the armies, and the science of destruction vies in intellectual refinement with the science of production, I see that war becomes absurd and impossible from its own monstrosity. Extravagant ambitions will have to be replaced by reasonable claims, and nations must make common cause against them. … I look forward to a future when acts of war shall be formally outlawed as between civilized peoples."

"The first attempt to run trawler fishing off Iceland was made in 1899 by an Englishman who had settled in Hafnarfjörður. The name of the ship was Utopia, which was prophetic because the enterprise came to nothing and was abandoned that same autumn."

"Critics of utopianism have argued that utopian ends inevitably are used to legitimize violent means, whether against the scapegoated opponents of a utopian project or against innocent bystanders who must pay a price for the greater good of society."

"Critics contend that utopianism privileges uniformity over diversity, consensus over dissent, and end-of-history stasis over ongoing change. Is it possible in a utopian society to permit expressions of diversity that might lead to conflict? Can anything essentially new happen after utopia has been achieved. Or do genuinely new ideals inherently threaten utopias? Once built, must they become conservative in some sense?"

"Marxist dreams legitimized Soviet gulags, and religious visions have justify crusades and jihads. This explains why the term “utopia” so often is used pejoratively and visionaries often are dismissed as mad or sick. The pursuit of a perfect society can justify and even demand the use of any means possible, including the violent purging of all who resist that glorious end. In short, redemptive visions can inspire redemptive violence."

"The spirit of rebellion is a spirit of desperation-a desperate rejection of whatever exists, a desperate aspiration toward some kind of utopia. ...It is governed by a blind momentum... and its so-called leaders are... its captives, and ultimately its victims. ...The so-called "betrayal" is... the necessary conclusion... [I]ts impossible intentions are unrealizable... the end result is... a regime which pretends to embody these intentions and... enforces such false pretentions by terror. A revolution... is a... practical exercise in political philosophy. ...It requires an attentive prudence, a careful calculation of means and ends, a spirit of sobriety... [A] successful revolution cannot be governed by the spirit of the mob. ...[I]f ...revolution is not to degenerate into a rebellion, mob actions must be marginal... [O]nly a self-disciplined people can... undertake... a revolution. ...[A] successful revolution is best accomplished by a people who do not really want it at all, but find themselves reluctantly making it."

"If we are wrong, the Constitution of the United States is wrong. And if we are wrong, God Almighty is wrong. If we are wrong, Jesus of Nazareth was merely a utopian dreamer that never came down to Earth. If we are wrong, justice is a lie, love has no meaning. And we are determined here in Montgomery to work and fight until "justice runs down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.""

"Utopias in general are surrogates for heaven; they give a meager solace to the individual that his sufferings and endeavors may enable future generations to enter the chiliastic paradise."

"When I die, I want to die in a Utopia that I have helped to build."

"In its flexibility and in its wide-open opportunities, this is the total Utopia. Anything that you can conceive of, you can do in this non-world. Nothing can stop you except a total bankruptcy of creativity. The seedbed is waiting. All the circumstances stand ready. The fructifying minerals are literally jumping out of the ground. And nothing grows. And nothing grows. And nothing grows. Well, why doesn't it?"

"We are not utopians, we do not indulge in "dreams" of dispensing at once with all administration, with all subordination; these anarchist dreams ... serve only to postpone the socialist revolution until human nature has changed. No, we want the socialist revolution with human nature as it is now, with human nature that cannot dispense with subordination, control and "managers." ... The united workers themselves ... will hire their own technicians, managers and bookkeepers, and pay them all, as, indeed, every state official, ordinary workmen's wages."

"We announce the birth of a conceptual country, NUTOPIA. Citizenship of the country can be obtained by declaration of your awareness of NUTOPIA. NUTOPIA has no land, no boundaries, no passports, only people. NUTOPIA has no laws other than cosmic. All people of NUTOPIA are ambassadors of the country. As two ambassadors of NUTOPIA, we ask for diplomatic immunity and recognition in the United Nations of our country and our people."

"In Utopia all greed for money was entirely removed with the use of money. What a mass of troubles was then cut away! What a crop of crimes was then pulled up by the roots! Who does not know that fraud, theft, rapine, quarrels, disorders, brawls, seditions, murders, treasons, poisonings, which are avenged rather than restrained by daily executions, die out with the destruction of money? Who does not know that fear, anxiety, worries, toils, and sleepless nights will also perish at the same time as money? What is more, poverty, which alone money seemed to make poor, forthwith would itself dwindle and disappear if money were entirely done away with everywhere."

"To sequester out of the world into Atlantic and Utopian polities, which never can be drawn into use, will not mend our condition; but to ordain wisely as in this world of evil, in the midst whereof God hath placed us unavoidably. Nor is it Plato’s licensing of books will do this, which necessarily pulls along with it so many other kinds of licensing, as will make us all both ridiculous and weary, and yet frustrate; but those unwritten, or at least unconstraining laws of virtuous education, religious and civil nurture, which Plato there mentions, as the bonds and ligaments of the Commonwealth, the pillars and the sustainers of every written statute; these they be which will bear chief sway in such matters as these, when all licensing will be easily eluded. Impunity and remissness, for certain are the bane of a Commonwealth, but here the great art lies to discern in what the law is to bid restraint and punishment, and in what things persuasion only is to work."

"If the "liberal" mentality is prone to take flights into Utopia, the "reactionary" is guilty of sensing plots in every human enterprise involving hope, enthusiasm, and will to change. The correct attitude of this conflict must stem... from a rediscovery of philosophy which has enough courage to free itself of the historical-ideological-utopian perspective. ...this philosophy must re-emphasize man versus the collective body (with its envisaged collectivized mind), freedom versus the mechanization of inner and social life, common sense versus faith in science."

"Utopian thinking is not merely futile, it is also profoundly immoral since it contradicts the structure of man's thought and action in its applicability to the world. Since it misleads man, it is an ultimately irresponsible doctrine. The philosopher... denies that good may be so increased as to obscure evil, that man may be substantially changed, and that society may take upon itself the qualities denied to individual man and thus secure happiness for the latter. ..."If we cannot produce virtuous individuals," the utopian says, "let us produce a virtuous society; instead of individual virtues, we shall have social virtues." ...The orientation is to build a social body, a mankind that thinks and acts as one, that is both persuaded and organized in view of becoming "perfect." ...Hence the striking intellectual failure of the idealogue, fruit of his profound immorality. ...his is the sin of pride, the sin that requires the greatest stupidity. It is ironical that he who is committed to a rational-scientific view, should be the real simple-minded one, the poor in the soul. Will it be forgiven him?"

"I believe in some sort of strange fashion that the presence of the atom bomb might almost be forcing a level of human development that wouldn’t have occurred without the presence of the atom bomb. Maybe this degree of terror will force changes in human attitudes that could not have occurred without the presence of these awful, destructive things. Perhaps we are faced with a race between the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse in one line and the 7th Calvary in the other. We have not got an awful lot of mid ground between Utopia and Apocalypse, and if somehow our children ever see the day in which it is announced that we do not have these weapons any more, and that we can no longer destroy ourselves and that we’ve got to do something else to do with our time than they will have the right to throw up their arms, let down their streamers and let forth a resounding cheer."

"There will not be one kind of community existing and one kind of life led in utopia. Utopia will consist of utopias, of many different and divergent communities in which people lead different kinds of lives under different institutions. Some kinds of communities will be more attractive to most than others; communities will wax and wane. People will leave some for others or spend their whole lives in one. Utopia is a framework for utopias, a place where people are at liberty to join together voluntarily to pursue and attempt to realize their own vision of the good life in the ideal community but where no one can impose his own utopian vision upon others."

"Utopia is a meta-utopia: the environment in which Utopian experiments may be tried out; the environment in which people are free to do their own thing; the environment which must, to a great extent, be realized first if more particular Utopian visions are to be realized stably."

"One persistent strand in utopian thinking, as we have often mentioned, is the feeling that there is some set of principles obvious enough to be accepted by all men of good will, precise enough to give unambiguous guidance in particular situations, clear enough so that all will realize its dictates. and complete enough to cover all problems which actually arise. Since I do not assume that there are such principles, I do not presume that the political realm will whither away. The messiness of the details of a political apparatus and the details of how it is to be controlled and limited do not fit easily into one's hopes for a sleek, simple utopian scheme."

"Is not the minimal state, the framework for utopia, an inspiring vision? The minimal state treats us as inviolate individuals, who may not be used in certain ways by others as means or tools or instruments or resources; it treats us as persons having individual right with the dignity this constitutes. Treating us with respect by respecting our rights, it allows us, individually or with whom we please, to choose our life and to realize our ends and our conception of ourselves, insofar as we can, aided by the voluntary cooperation of other individuals possessing the same dignity. How dare any state or group of individuals do more? Or less?"

"Nearly all creators of Utopia have resembled the man who has toothache, and therefore thinks happiness consists in not having toothache. They wanted to produce a perfect society by an endless continuation of something that had only been valuable because it was temporary. The wider course would be to say that there are certain lines along which humanity must move, the grand strategy is mapped out, but detailed prophecy is not our business. Whoever tries to imagine perfection simply reveals his own emptiness."

"Certainly we ought to be discontented, we ought not simply to find out ways of making the best of a bad job, and yet if we kill all pleasure in the actual process of life, what sort of future are we preparing for ourselves? If a man cannot enjoy the return of spring, why should he be happy in a labour-saving Utopia? What will he do with the leisure that the machine will give him?"

"Unless the vertebrate central nervous system is genetically recoded, there will be traumas and malaise in utopia - any utopia - too."

"... a permanent distillation of the MDMA magic, if feasible, offers an extraordinary if unorthodox vision of one post-Darwinian paradise to come."

"Most dictionaries associate utopia with ideal commonwealths, which they characterize as an empirical realization of an ideal life in an ideal society. Utopias, especially social utopias, are associated with the idea of social justice."

"In general, utopia has a positive meaning as a unit that represents an ideal human society, a normative social ideal (regulative idea) of perfect quality. Utopias approach the moral, social ideal of particular societies o global vision of justice. Every society necessarily presents certain notions of social good, which only proves the existence of utopianism as a universal idea for all cultures that have certain written or unwritten rules."

"The world has become too dangerous for anything less than utopias."

"Utopia is work that issues from pain: it is what we do not have that we crave."

"In both the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, utopias were advanced, compromised by reality, and then implemented as mass murder: in autumn 1932 by Stalin, and autumn 1941 by Hitler. Stalin’s utopia was to collectivize the Soviet Union in nine to twelve weeks; Hitler’s was to conquer the Soviet Union in the same span of time. Each of these seems, in retrospect, to be horrendously impractical. Yet each of them was implemented, under the cover of a big lie, even after failure was obvious. Dead human beings provided retrospective arguments for the rectitude of policy. Hitler and Stalin thus shared a certain politics of tyranny: they brought about catastrophes, blamed the enemy of their choice, and then used the death of millions to make the case that their policies were necessary or desirable. Each of them had a transformative utopia, a group to be blamed when its realization proved impossible, and then a policy of mass murder that could be proclaimed as a kind of ersatz victory."

"No one can be perfectly free till all are free; no one can be perfectly moral till all are moral; no one can be perfectly happy till all are happy."

"Well, you know, Star Trek and the Starship Enterprise was supposed to be a metaphor for Starship Earth. It was supposed to be an idealized representation of what our society should be. In our society, we have a lot of minorities. Asians, African-Americans, women getting on the upward mobility escalator. They're making progress going up, whether it's in the professional world or the business world, or in other various careers. But the problem seems to be that think called the glass ceiling. They make it up to a certain point and then it stops. I kept lobbying to the powers that be at Paramount saying to them, "if Starfleet is to represent that ideal, you just can't keep giving us advances in rank." By that time I was a Commander. The movie before that I was a Lieutenant Commander, but I was still there at the helm punching those same buttons. I said to them, "it's very important that if we are supposed to be that kind of bright, eminently capable people...professionals....we have to get that advancement. We have to be able to show that this idealized society truly works. It's very important than, that we see one of the characters moving up and becoming a captain. Of course, my character being Sulu, I lobbied most vigorously for him. Finally after 25 long years of lobbying, we were able to reach that idealized representation of Starfleet. The glass ceiling doesn't exist with Starfleet. He was a captain then."

"Popper believed that any idea of Utopia is necessarily closed owing to the fact that it chokes its own refutations. The simple notion of a good society that cannot be left open for falsification is totalitarian. I learned from Popper, in addition to the difference between an open and a closed society, that between an open and a closed mind."

"The New Earth Is No Utopia... All utopian visions have this in common: the mental projection of a future time when all will be well, we will be saved, there will be peace and harmony and the end of our problems. There have been many such utopian visions. Some ended in disappointment, others in disaster. At the core of all utopian visions lies one of the main structural dysfunctions of the old consciousness: looking to the future for salvation. The only existence the future actually has is as a thought form in your mind, so when you look to the future for salvation, you are unconsciously looking to your own mind for salvation. You are trapped in form, and that is ego. “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth,” writes the biblical prophet. The foundation for a new earth is a new heaven – the awakened consciousness. The earth – external reality – is only its outer reflection. The arising of a new heaven and by implication a new earth are not future events that are going to make us free... only the present moment can make us free. That realization is the awakening. Awakening as a future event has no meaning because awakening is the realization of Presence. So the new heaven, the awakened consciousness, is not a future state to be achieved. A new heaven and a new earth are arising... at this moment..."

"We are at heart so profoundly anarchistic that the only form of state we can imagine living in is Utopian; and so cynical that the only Utopia we can believe in is authoritarian."

"... the asymmetry in ease of realization [of suffering vs. happiness] suggests that it is more cost-effective (for a wide variety of value systems) to work to avoid dystopian outcomes than to create utopian ones."

"I couldn't survive my own pessimism if I didn't have some kind of sunny little dream. … Human beings will be happier — not when they cure cancer or get to Mars or eliminate racial prejudice or flush Lake Erie — but when they find ways to inhabit primitive communities again. That’s my utopia. That's what I want for me."

"Utopias are invented to be realized, and as long as there is no demand for an improvement of living conditions, changing things is impossible."

"Do not open that which is not evidence."

"This case not having been opened has thrown a difficulty upon the Court—without presuming to say it ought not to have been the course, considering the state of the matter; I am thinking of the inconvenient situation in which the Court is placed. Parties, I think, should act upon the law as it stands. The usual course is for the counsel for the prosecution to state the facts without reasoning upon them, and such facts as may lead one's attention to that which may be the real question of law in the case. But if a contrary course is to be adopted, and an opening is to be done without, we shall be in great difficulty at the end of the cause."

"That is the great difficulty in not having an opening speech. If there is a speech without any observations, I think it beneficial."

"It is manifestly fallacious to make the opening of counsel the test on the question of what is "the act or transaction which the Crown prosecutes." It is plain that the Court is not at all bound by the statements made by the counsel in his address."

"What is introductory goes for nothing, but it is in order to explain the evidence."

"If Mr. Attorney in opening does say anything that he ought not to eay, I will correct him, as I would do anybody that does not open things right as they are proved; but pray don't you that are at the bar interrupt one another, it is unbecoming men of your profession to be chopping in and snapping at one another. Go on, Mr. Attorney."

"Positive laws deriving their force from the law of nature, by which we are directed to make occasional rules, which we call laws, according to the exigencies of times, places, and persons, grow obsolete, or cease to be, as soon as they cease to be necessary."

"The matter of jurisprudence is positive law: law, simply and strictly so called : or law set by political superiors to political inferiors."

"Every positive law, or every law simply and strictly so called, is set, directly or circuitously, by a sovereign person or body, to a member or members of the independent political society wherein that person or body is supreme."

"LITIGANT, n. A person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bones."

"LITIGATION, n. A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage."

"Val més mala avinença que bona sentencia. (Catalan)"

"Kratka sprava je bolši kakor dolga pravda. (Croatian)"

"Krátké porovnání lepŝí, než dlouhé sporování. (Czech)"

"A l'è mej un cativ accordi ch'una bona sentessa. (Piedmontese)"

"Khudoi mir luchshe dobroy ssory. (Russian)"

"Krátka správa lepšia ako dlhá pravda. (Slovak)"

"A piece of paper blown by the wind among lawyers must in the end be drawn out again by two oxen."

"Officium officialium, quorum te numero aggregasti, hodie est, jura confundere, suscitare lites, transactiones rescindere, innectere dilationes, suprimere veritatem, fovere mendacium, quaestum sequi, aeqitatem vendere, inhiare exactionibus, versutias concinnare."

"Old people remember what interests them: the dates fixed for their lawsuits, and the names of their debtors and creditors."

"Litigation is the pursuit of practical ends, not a game of chess."

"Nobody ever wins a lawsuit but the lawyers."

"Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser — in fees, expenses, and waste of time. As a peacemaker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough. Never stir up litigation. A worse man can scarcely be found than one who does this. Who can be more nearly a fiend than he who habitually overhauls the register of deeds in search of defects in titles, whereon to stir up strife, and put money in his pocket? A moral tone ought to be infused into the profession which should drive such men out of it."

""Lawsuit mania"… a continual craving to go to law against others, while considering themselves the injured party."

"O Spirit of litigation, know, When we keep silent in this season, The stem of multiple lilies grew Too large to be contained by reason"

"Sometimes nonsensical lawsuits are generated by lawyers. In this country (the United States everybody sues everybody."

"Today the courts are choked with lawsuits brought by people against the New King. When they sue each other as a result of an automobile accident they in fact sue the King, for both parties are likely insured. ... Steadily the courts have become clearing-houses for the insurance industry."

"No wonder lawyers, who control the legal system, have fought so hard, and with great success, against "no fault" insurance. No fault, no lawsuits. No lawsuits, no lunch."

"As one gets older, litigation replaces sex."

"When the motto for the year 2001 is "Innovation Followed by Litigation" you know who the biggest winners are - the lawyers."

"Englishmen may have been law-abiding, but they have not been unlitigious."

"Though every attempt to shorten litigation is entitled to the favour of the Court,1 yet before we stop a party in a regular course of proceeding, we ought to be certain that we shall not deprive him of that justice which the law authorizes him to seek."

"The law is too tenacious of private peace, to suffer litigations to be negotiable."

"Proceedings at law are sufficiently expensive."

"Expedit reipublicie ut sit finis litium: It is for the public good that there be an end of litigation."

"Debet estefinit litium: There ought to be an end of law suits."

"Characteristically, major social movements are spawned in obscurity at the periphery of public awareness, seem to burst suddenly and dramatically into public view, and eventually fade into the landscape not because they have diminished but because they have become a permanent part of our perceptions and experience."

"Wherever people prefer to call upon "offenses against moral sentience", upon "moral terms" rather than adhere to one's rationally derived scientific criminological approach [dividing irrational, ethnocentric "moral offenses" from actual crimes], one is fully justified in speaking of prejudice's total victory over reason."

"In Victorian criminology there was an enthusiasm for spotting criminal tendencies in a person’s features."

"One semester we took Criminology, for God's sake! Criminology! Who the fuck were we studying to be: Batman?"

""Lawsuit mania"… a continual craving to go to law against others, while considering themselves the injured party."

"Unfortunately, goodness and honor are rather the exception than the rule among exceptional men, not to speak of geniuses."

"Existing criminology is insufficient to isolate barbarism. It is insufficient because the idea of "crime" in existing criminology is artificial, for what is called crime is really an infringement of "existing laws", whereas "laws" are very often a manifestation of barbarism and violence. Such are the prohibiting laws of different kinds which abound in modern life. The number of these laws is constantly growing in all countries and, owing to this, what is called crime is very often not a crime at all, for it contains no element of violence or harm. On the other hand, unquestionable crimes escape the field of vision of criminology, either because they have not recognized the form of crime or because they surpass a certain scale. In existing criminology there are concepts: a criminal man, a criminal profession, a criminal society, a criminal sect, and a criminal tribe, but there is no concept of a criminal state, or a criminal government, or criminal legislation. Consequently what is often regarded as "political" activity is in fact a criminal activity."

"No matter how honest scientists think they are, they are still influenced by various unconscious assumptions that prevent them from attaining true objectivity. Expressed in a sentence, Fort's principle goes something like this: People with a psychological need to believe in marvels are no more prejudiced and gullible than people with a psychological need not to believe in marvels."

"The Soviets have really been quite single-minded. They increased their defense expenditures as we increased ours. And they increased their defense expenditures as we decreased ours."

"I do not hold that we should rearm in order to fight. I hold that we should rearm in order to parley."

"Today is Trinity Sunday. Centuries ago words were written to be a call and a spur to the faithful servants of Truth and Justice: "Arm yourselves, and be ye men of valor, and be in readiness for the conflict; for it is better for us to perish in battle than to look upon the outrage of our nation and our altar. As the Will of God is in Heaven, even so let it be.""

"The worst to be feared and the best to be expected can be simply stated. The worst is atomic war. The best would be this: a life of perpetual fear and tension; a burden of arms draining the wealth and the labor of all peoples; a wasting of strength that defies the American system or the Soviet system or any system to achieve true abundance and happiness for the peoples of this earth. Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

"A strong defense is the surest way to peace. Strength makes détente attainable. Weakness invites war, as my generation—my generation—knows from four very bitter experiences. Just as America's will for peace is second to none, so will America's strength be second to none. We cannot rely on the forbearance of others to protect this Nation. The power and diversity of the Armed Forces, active Guard and Reserve, the resolve of our fellow citizens, the flexibility in our command to navigate international waters that remain troubled are all essential to our security."

"Political scientists like to speak of "security dilemmas": situations in which one state acts to make itself safer, but in doing diminishes the safety of one or more other states, which in turn try to repair the damage through measures that diminish the security of the first state. The result is an ever-deepening whirlpool of distrust from which even the best-intentioned and most far-sighted leaders find it difficult to extricate themselves: their suspicions become self-reinforcing. Because the Anglo-American relationship with the Soviet Union had fallen into this pattern well before World War II ended, it is difficult to say precisely when the Cold War began. There were no surprise attacks, no declarations of war, no severing even of diplomatic ties. There was, however, a growing sense of insecurity at the highest levels in Washington, London, and Moscow, generated by the efforts the wartime allies were making to ensure their own postwar security. With their enemies defeated, there was less of an incentive for these former allies, as they were coming to think of themselves, to keep their anxieties under control. Each crisis that arose fed the next one, with the result that a divided Europe became a reality."

"Last week, the New York Times reported that the FBI, in 2017, launched an investigation of President Trump “to consider whether the president’s own actions constituted a possible threat to national security” and specifically “whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests.” ...As usual – this melodrama was accomplished by steadfastly ignoring the now-standard, always-buried paragraph pointing out the boring fact that no actual evidence of guilt has yet emerged....The FBI investigation... clearly based, at least in part, on the FBI’s disagreements with Trump’s foreign policy views and the agency’s assessment that such policies fail to safeguard “U.S. interests” as the FBI defines them."

"Alan Greenspan put it squarely: I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everybody knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.... A 2006 report on national security and US oil dependency released by the Council on Foreign Relations concluded that the US should maintain “a strong military posture that permits suitably rapid deployment to the [Persian Gulf] region” for at least 20 years."

"In 2003, Carter's doctrine of force when necessary was carried out with “shock and awe,” in what was the most intensive and profligate use of fossil fuel the world has ever witnessed. Recall, too, that as Baghdad fell, invading US troops ignored the looting of schools, hospitals and a nuclear power facility as well as the ransacking of national museums and burning of the National Library and Archives holding peerless, irreplaceable documentation of the “cradle of civilization.” The US military did, however, immediately seize and guard the Iraqi Oil Ministry Headquarters and positioned 2,000 soldier to safeguard oilfields."

"Our national security has been reduced in large part to energy security, which has led us to militarizing our access to oil through establishing a military presence across the oil-bearing regions of the world and instigating armed conflict in Iraq, sustaining it in Afghanistan and provoking it in Libya... Air war a model for future wars? If so, a death knell for the planet. This insatiable militarism is the single greatest institutional contributor to the growing natural disasters intensified by global climate change."

"To draw around the whole nation the strength of the General Government, as a barrier against foreign foes,… to equalize and moderate the public contributions, that while the requisite services are invited by due renumeration, nothing beyond this may exist to attract the attention of our citizens from the pursuits of useful industry, nor unjustly to burthen those who continue in those pursuits—these are functions of the General Government on which you have a right to call."

"A foreign policy aimed at the achievement of total security is the one thing I can think of that is entirely capable of bringing this country to a point where it will have no security at all. And a ruthless, reckless insistence on attempting to stamp out everything that could conceivably constitute a reflection of improper foreign influence in our national life, regardless of the actual damage it is doing to the cost of eliminating it, in terms of other American values, is the one thing I can think of that should reduce us all to a point where the very independence we are seeking to defend would be meaningless, for we would be doing things to ourselves as vicious and tyrannical as any that might be brought to us from outside. This sort of extremism seems to me to hold particular danger for a democracy, because it creates a curious area between what is held to be possible and what is really possible — an area within which government can always be plausibly shown to have been most dangerously delinquent in the performance of its tasks. And this area, where government is always deficient, provides the ideal field of opportunity for every sort of demagoguery and mischief-making. It constitutes a terrible breach in the dike of our national morale, through which forces of doubt and suspicion never cease to find entry. The heart of our problem, here, lies in our assessment of the relative importance of the various dangers among which we move; and until many of our people can be brought to understand that what we have to do is not to secure a total absence of danger but to balance peril against peril and to find the tolerable degree of each, we shall not wholly emerge from these confusions."

"All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years."

"Trump had been calling for better relations with Russia during his presidential campaign... Stooping to a new low, Friday’s (New York) Times headline screamed: “F.B.I. Opened Inquiry Into Whether Trump Was Secretly Working on Behalf of Russia.” For those interested in evidence — or the lack of it— regarding collusion between Russia and the presidential campaign of Donald Trump... NYT readers had to get down to paragraph 9 to read: “No evidence has emerged...”"

"We are confident that we can penetrate any enemy defenses with our missiles. We know that we are more than the equal of any nation in the world."

"Fifth Column."

"That is not to say that we can relax our readiness to defend ourselves. Our armament must be adequate to the needs, but our faith is not primarily in these machines of defense but in ourselves."

"J. Robert Oppenheimer: Our one hope is that Hitler is so, so blinded by hate that he's denied Heisenberg proper resources, because it'll take vast resources. Our nation's best scientists working together. Right now they're scattered. Leslie Groves: Which gives us compartmentalization. J. Robert Oppenheimer: All minds have to see the whole task to contribute efficiently. Poor security may cost us the race. Inefficiency will. The Germans know more than us anyway. Leslie Groves: The Russians don't. J. Robert Oppenheimer: Remind me, who are we at war with? Leslie Groves: Somebody with your past doesn't want to be seen downplaying the importance of security from our communist allies. J. Robert Oppenheimer: Point taken, but no."

"The military/security complex has resurrected its Cold War enemy so necessary for its outsized budget and power and intends to keep Russia as The Enemy. The Democrats have an interest in the villification of Russia as “Russiagate” explains Hillary’s loss of the 2016 Presidential election and gives Democrats hope of removing President Trump from office. The media lacks independence, knowledge, and integrity and is the tool used by the military/security complex to control explanations... As strategic and Russian studies are largely funded by the military/security complex, the universities are also complicit in the march toward nuclear war. Republicans are as dependent as Democrats on funding from the military/security complex and the Israel Lobby."

"All of this self-serving is driving America and its vassals to war with Russia, which might also mean with China. The war would be nuclear and be the end of the West, an act of self-genocide. The US national security establishment is so crazed that Trump’s efforts to get off the war track and onto a peace track are characterized as treason and a threat to US national security."

"The Russians are aware that the accusations and demonization that they experience are fabrications. They no longer see the problem as one of misunderstandings that diplomacy can overcome. What they see now is the West preparing its populations for war. It is this perception for which the West is solely responsible that makes the situation today far more dangerous than it ever was during the long Cold War."

"Americans will likely never know the complete role the CIA has played – and likely continues to play — in the campaign to overthrow the Maduro government in Venezuela.... Claims of “national security” are used to hide the truth.... The Trump administration’s Troika of Evil – VP Mike Pence, Sec. of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton – seem to be plotting the overthrow of the Maduro government. One can well assume that the CIA, along with other agencies of the U.S. military-industrial complex, have been recruited to destabilize Venezuela, if not worse. Given this, one can wonder if another provocative act like the sinking of the Maine will be orchestrated to legitimize a domestic coup – or U.S. military intervention — in Venezuela."

"Turkey doesn’t understand that, for the United States, buying a sophisticated Russian air defense system is a major national security issue that can’t be papered over. But Americans don’t understand that all their tough talk about leveling sanctions against Turkey if the Russian arms sale goes through only plays into Turkish leaders’ hands politically... Speaking at a forum on Ankara-Washington relations hosted by the Hudson Institute in Washington, Hudson fellow Blaise Misztal said that, to President Tayyip Erdogan and his political coalition partners, “sanctions and kicking you out of 'NATO is a winning policy” because it fuels long-standing and growing anti-Americanism in their nationalist-leaning array of parties. Since 2014, and particularly after a failed coup attempt in 2016 that many Turks believe was known in Washington before it was launched, Erdogan “is becoming closer to [[Vladimir Putin|[Vladimir] Putin]], Bashir al-Assad, Iran and China” to burnish his nationalist credentials, Misztal said. As an example of how this plays out, Erdogan told his parliament Wednesday the nation is “passing through a very critical period, from economy to security.” He warned about plotters still inside its borders and their outside supporters. At the same time as Erdogan spoke, a Turkish newspaper reported the defense ministry is sending troops to Russia to receive familiarization training for the S-400 air defense system."

"If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known, that we are at all times ready for War."

"To be prepared for War is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace."

"A government without the power of defence! it is a solecism."

"Class interest has always been obscured behind an all-encompassing veil called "the national interest." My own war experience, and the history of all those military interventions in which the United States was engaged, made me skeptical when I heard people in high political office invoke "the national interest" or "national security" to justify their policies. It was with such justifications that Truman initiated a "police action" in Korea that killed several million people, that Johnson and Nixon carried out a war in Indochina in which perhaps 3 million people died, that Reagan invaded Grenada, Bush attacked Panama and then Iraq, and Clinton bombed Iraq again and again."

"Is there a "national interest" when a few people decide on war, and huge numbers of others here and abroad-are killed or crippled as a result of such a decision? Should citizens not ask in whose interest are we doing what we are doing? Then why not, I came to think, tell the story of wars not through the eyes of the generals and diplomats but from the viewpoints of the GIs, of the parents who received the black-bordered telegrams, even of "the enemy.""

"What struck me as I began to study history was how nationalist fervor - inculcated from childhood on by pledges of allegiance, national anthems, flags waving and rhetoric blowing permeated the educational systems of all countries, including our own. I wonder now how the foreign policies of the United States would look if we wiped out the national boundaries of the world, at least in our minds, and thought of all children everywhere as our own. And then there is, much as we would want to erase it, the ineradicable issue of race. It did not occur to me, when I first began to immerse myself in history, how badly twisted was the teaching and writing of history by its submersion of nonwhite people. Yes, Indians were there, and then gone. Black people were visible when slaves, then free and invisible. It was a white man's history."

"Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her America's] heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will recommend the general cause, by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself, beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force…. She might become the dictatress of the world: she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit."

"Yes, sir, from Constantinople, or from the Brazils; from Turk or christian; from black or white; from the dey of Algiers or the bey of Tunis; from the devil himself, if he wore a crown, we should receive a minister."

"As we have seen, the Depression caused radical changes in economic policy in most countries, but radical changes in political and legal arrangements in only some. The sub-set of countries that also radically altered their foreign policies was smaller still. Most responded to the crisis as Britain and the United States did, by seeking as far as possible to avoid external conflicts. In his inaugural address in 1933, Roosevelt promised to base US foreign policy on the 'good neighbor' principle, winding up his predecessors' interventions in Central America and the Caribbean and preparing the ground for the independence of the Philippines. This was as much out of parsimony as altruism; the assumption was that the cost of fighting unemployment at home ruled out further expenditures on small wars abroad. Even the majority of authoritarian regimes were quite content to persecute internal enemies and bicker with their neighbours over borders. Stalin had no strong interest in the acquisition of more territory; he already possessed a vast empire. Military dictators like Franco were more likely to wage civil war than inter-state war; as a conservative he understood that foreign wars ultimately helped domestic revolutionaries. Only three countries aspired to territorial expansion and war as a means to achieve it. They were Italy, Germany and Japan. Their dreams of empire were the proximate cause of the multiple wars we know as the Second World War. As we shall see, however, those dreams were far from being irrational responses to the Depression."

"The history of human conduct does not warrant that exalted opinion of human virtue which would make it wise in a nation to commit interests of so delicate and momentous a kind as those which concern its intercourse with the rest of the world to the sole disposal of a magistrate, created and circumstanced, as would be a President of the United States."

"The desire to preserve our country from the calamities and ravages of war, by cultivating a disposition, and pursuing a conduct, conciliatory and friendly to all nations, has been sincerely entertained and faithfully followed. It was dictated by the principles of humanity, the precepts of the gospel, and the general wish of our country, and it was not to be doubted that the Society of Friends, with whom it is a religious principle, would sanction it by their support."

"I have come to a resolution myself as I hope every good citizen will, never again to purchase any article of foreign manufacture which can be had of American make be the difference of price what it may."

"It is, therefore, with the sincerest pleasure I have observed on the part of the British government various manifestations of a just and friendly disposition towards us; we wish to cultivate peace and friendship with all nations, believing that course most conducive to the welfare of our own; it is natural that these friendships should bear some proportion to the common interests of the parties."

"Peace, commerce, and honest friendship, with all nations—entangling alliances with none."

"By this I mean that a political society does not live to conduct foreign policy; it would be more correct to say that it conducts foreign policy in order to live."

"Now this problem of the adjustment of man to his natural resources, and the problem of how such things as industrialization and urbanization can be accepted without destroying the traditional values of a civilization and corrupting the inner vitality of its life—these things are not only the problems of America; they are the problems of men everywhere. To the extent that we Americans become able to show that we are aware of these problems, and that we are approaching them with coherent and effective ideas of our own which we have the courage to put into effect in our own lives, to that extent a new dimension will come into our relations with the peoples beyond our borders, to that extent, in fact, the dreams of these earlier generations of Americans who saw us as leaders and helpers to the peoples of the world at large will begin to take on flesh and reality."

"The purpose of foreign policy is not to provide an outlet for our own sentiments of hope or indignation; it is to shape real events in a real world."

"To those peoples in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required—not because the communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich."

"Our [U.S.] demand for restraint in foreign policy must be stronger than defense contractor lobbyists. Our demand for criminal justice reform must be stronger than the prison-industrial complex."

"When [U.S.] progressives remain silent and don’t talk about why the war in Syria is illegal, then into the void step in neocons like Lindsey Graham. Any wonder that our nation remains mired in endless war. Let’s have the guts to stand for responsible withdrawal."

"Here’s something that the [Western] mainstream media has left out when talking about Trump’s plan to withdraw troops from Syria: Congress never authorized sending troops to Syria. In fact, the UN also never approved. Our troops in Syria are in violation of domestic and international law."

"The challenges before us are monumental. But it is not every generation that is given the opportunity to shape a new international order. If the opportunity is missed, we shall live in a world of chaos and danger. If it is realized we will have entered an era of peace and progress and justice. But we can realize our hopes only as a united people. Our challenge—and its solution—lies in ourselves. Our greatest foreign policy problem is our divisions at home. Our greatest foreign policy need is national cohesion and a return to the awareness that in foreign policy we are all engaged in a common national endeavor."

"But much of what Mr. Wallace calls his global thinking is, no matter how you slice it, still "globaloney." Mr. Wallace's warp of sense and his woof of nonsense is very tricky cloth out of which to cut the pattern of a post-war world."

"Our idea is to create a situation in which those lands to which we have obligations or in which we have interests, if they are ready to fight a fire, should be able to count on us to furnish the hose and water."

"The fundamental question for the United States is how it can cooperate to help meet the basic needs of the people of the hemisphere despite the philosophical disagreements it may have with the nature of particular regimes. It must seek pragmatic ways to help people without necessarily embracing their governments. It should recognize that diplomatic relations are merely practical conveniences and not measures of moral judgment."

"A man must first care for his own household before he can be of use to the state. But no matter how well he cares for his household, he is not a good citizen unless he also takes thought of the state. In the same way, a great nation must think of its own internal affairs; and yet it cannot substantiate its claim to be a great nation unless it also thinks of its position in the world at large."

"There is a homely old adage which runs: "Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far." If the American Nation will speak softly, and yet build, and keep at a pitch of the highest training, a thoroughly efficient navy, the Monroe Doctrine will go far."

"The Government of the United States is not entitled to affirm as a universal proposition, with reference to a number of independent States for whose conduct it assumes no responsibility, that its interests are necessarily concerned in whatever may befall those States simply because they are situated in the Western Hemisphere."

"Every day, for example, politicians, of which there are plenty, swear eternal devotion to the ends of peace and security. They always remind me of the elder Holmes' apostrophe to a katydid: "Thou say'st an undisputed thing in such a solemn way." And every day statesmen, of which there are few, must struggle with limited means to achieve these unlimited ends, both in fact and in understanding. For the nation's purposes always exceed its means, and it is finding a balance between means and ends that is the heart of foreign policy and that makes it such a speculative, uncertain business."

"We have noted that the federal Constitution put the permanent control of the nation's foreign interests in the hands of the President and the Senate, which to some extent frees the Union's general policy from direct and daily popular control. One should not therefore assert without qualification that American democracy controls the state's external affairs."

"If the establishment of an "unlimited" treaty power is to be the ultimate conclusion on this great question, it must be admitted that the incorporation of the treaty-making power into the Constitution of the United States was the introduction into our governmental citadel of a Trojan horse, whose armored soldiery, for years concealed within it, now step forth armed cap-à-pie, shameless in their act of deception, eager and ready to capture the citadel upon which they pretended to bestow their gift. If such construction be possible it would be of interest to know for what purpose the Tenth Amendment was ever demanded and incorporated into the Constitution."

"To me "bipartisan foreign policy" means a mutual effort, under our indispensable two-Party system, to unite our official voice at the water's edge so that America speaks with maximum authority against those who would divide and conquer us and the free world. It does not involve the remotest surrender of free debate in determining our position. On the contrary, frank cooperation and free debate are indispensable to ultimate unity. In a word, it simply seeks national security ahead of partisan advantage. Every foreign policy must be totally debated (and I think the record proves it has been) and the "loyal opposition" is under special obligation to see that this occurs."

"Our present political position has been achieved in a manner unprecedented in the history of nations. It illustrates the American idea that governments rest on the consent of the governed, and that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish them at will whenever they become destructive of the ends for which they were established."

"My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule. But there is a higher Power, by whatever name we honor Him, who ordains not only righteousness but love, not only justice but mercy."

"Here, sir, the people govern; here they act by their immediate representatives."

"The only legitimate right to govern is an express grant of power from the governed."

"The people who own the country ought to govern it."

"The genius of Republican liberty, seems to demand on one side, not only that all power should be derived from the people; but, that those entrusted with it should be kept in dependence on the people, by a short duration of their appointments; and, that, even during this short period, the trust should be placed not in a few, but in a number of hands. Stability, on the contrary, requires, that the hands, in which power is lodged, should continue for a length of time, the same. A frequent change of men will result from a frequent return of electors, and a frequent change of measures, from a frequent change of men; whilst energy in Government requires not only a certain duration of power, but the execution of it by a single hand."

"And finally remember that nothing harms him who is really a citizen, which does not harm the state; nor yet does anything harm the state which does not harm law [order]; and of these things which are called misfortunes not one harms law. What then does not harm law does not harm either state or citizen."

"No people do so much harm as those who go about doing good."

"As to diseases, make a habit of two things—to help, or at least to do no harm. The art has three factors, the disease, the patient, the physician. The physician is the servant of the art. The patient must co-operate with the physician in combating the disease."

"There should be neither harming nor reciprocating harm."

"I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast; for I intend to go in harm's way."

"May I now pass on to this Congress advice which I received recently from a fellow Vermonter—Either impeach him or get off his back."

"The only honest answer is that an impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers [it] to be at a given moment in history; conviction results from whatever offense or offenses two-thirds of the other body considers to be sufficiently serious to require removal of the accused from office."

"Dr. FRANKLIN mentioned the case of the Prince of Orange William V], during the late war. An arrangement was made between France and Holland, by which their two fleets were to unite at a certain time and place. The Dutch fleet did not appear. Every body began to wonder at it. At length it was suspected that the stadtholder was at the bottom of the matter. This suspicion prevailed more and more. Yet, as he could not be impeached, and no regular examination took place, he remained in his office; and strengthening his own party, as the party opposed to him became formidable, he gave birth to the most violent animosities and contentions. Had he been impeachable, a regular and peaceful inquiry would have taken place, and he would, if guilty, have been duly punished,—if innocent, restored to the confidence of the public."

"Dr. Franklin was for retaining the clause [on impeachment], as favorable to the executive. History furnishes one example only of a first magistrate being formally brought to public justice. Every body cried out against this as unconstitutional. What was the practice before this, in cases where the chief magistrate rendered himself obnoxious? Why, recourse was had to assassination, in which he was not only deprived of his life, but of the opportunity of vindicating his character. It would be the best way, therefore, to provide in the Constitution for the regular punishment of the executive, where his misconduct should deserve it, and for his honorable acquittal, where he should be unjustly accused."

"In the case of impeachments, which are the groans of the people,… and carry with them a greater supposition of guilt than any other accusation, there all the Lords must judge."

"Having found, from experience, that impeachment is an impracticable thing, a mere scare-crow, they consider themselves secure for life; they sculk from responsibility to public opinion, the only remaining hold on them, under a practice first introduced into England by Lord Mansfield."

"The power of impeachment is, of course, solely entrusted by the Constitution to the House of Representatives. However, the Executive Branch is clearly obligated, both by precedent and by the necessity of the House of Representatives having all of the facts before reaching its decision, to supply relevant information to the Legislative Branch, as it does in aid of other inquiries being conducted by committees of the Congress, to the extent compatible with the public interest."

"The Constitution specifies that the grounds for impeachment shall be, not partisan consideration, but evidence of “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” Since the Constitution vests the sole power of impeachment in the House of Representatives, it falls to the Judiciary Committee to understand even more precisely what “high crimes and misdemeanors” might mean in the terms of the Constitution and the facts before us in our time. The Founding Fathers clearly did not mean that a President might be impeached for mistakes, even serious mistakes, which he might commit in the faithful execution of his office. By “high crimes and misdemeanors” they meant offenses more definitely incompatible with our Constitution. The Founding Fathers, with their recent experience of monarchy and their determination that government be accountable and lawful, wrote into the Constitution a special oath that the President, and only the President, must take at his inauguration. In that oath, the President swears that he will take care that the laws be faithfully executed. The Judiciary Committee has for seven months investigated whether or not the President has seriously abused his power, in violation of that oath and the public trust embodied in it."

"Conditions may, and are not unlikely to arise, some day, when the exercise of the power to impeach and remove the President may be quite as essential to the preservation of our political system as it threatened to become in this instance destructive of that system. Should that day ever come, it is to be hoped that the remedy of impeachment, as established by the Constitution, may be as patriotically, as fearlessly, and as unselfishly applied as it was on this occasion rejected."

"What makes these warnings odd is that in contemporary foreign policy discourse, isolationism—as the dictionary defines it—does not exist... The problem is that isolationism—as commonly understood—not only doesn't fit American foreign policy today, it doesn't even fit American foreign policy in the 1920s and 1930s. … The only sense in which the United States in the interwar years truly remained apart from other nations lay in its refusal to make binding military commitments, either via the League of Nations or through alliances with particular nations. America wielded power economically, diplomatically, and even militarily, but it jealously guarded its sovereignty. That's why one influential history of the era dubs U.S. foreign policy between the wars "independent internationalism." … The popular "characterization of America as isolationist in the interwar period," argues Ohio State University's Bear Braumoeller in a useful review of the academic literature on the period, "is simply wrong."If calling America isolationist in the 1920s and 1930s is wrong, calling America isolationist today is absurd."

"There is no constituency for isolationism on the right, outside the Buchananite fever swamps."

"and isolationism — the policies that brought us the Great Depression and World War II."

"I love my country enough to admit that one of our national flaws is isolationism. I wanted to combat that in World War Z and maybe give my fellow Americans a window into the political and cultural workings of other nations. Yes, in World War Z some nations come out as winners and some as losers, but isn't that the case in real life as well? I wanted to base my stories on the historical actions of the countries in question, and if it offends some individuals, then maybe they should reexamine their own nation's history"

"In a complex and challenging time, the road of isolationism and protectionism may seem broad and inviting — yet it ends in danger and decline... But our enemies and our friends can be certain. The United States will not retreat from the world, and we will never surrender to evil. America rejects the false comfort of isolationism. We are the nation that saved liberty in Europe, and liberated death camps, and helped raise up democracies, and faced down an evil empire. Once again, we accept the call of history to deliver the oppressed, and move this world toward peace. We remain on the offensive against terror networks. We have killed or captured many of their leaders — and for the others, their day will come."

"Our nations must renew our commitment to open economies, and stand firm against economic isolationism."

"We must reject isolationism and its companion, protectionism. Retreating behind our borders would only invite danger. In the 21st century, security and prosperity at home depend on the expansion of liberty abroad."

"The League of Nations had no sooner been created than it received an almost mortal blow. The United States abandoned President Wilson’s offspring. The President himself, ready to do battle for his ideals, suffered a paralytic stroke just as he was setting forth on his campaign, and lingered henceforward a futile wreck for a great part of two long and vital years, at the end of which his party and his policy were swept away by the Republican Presidential victory of 1920. Across the Atlantic on the morrow of the Republican success isolationist conceptions prevailed. Europe must be left to stew in its own juice, and must pay its lawful debts. At the same time tariffs were raised to prevent the entry of the goods by which alone these debts could be discharged. At the Washington Conference of 1921, far-reaching proposals for naval disarmament were made by the United States, and the British and American Governments proceeded to sink their battleships and break up their military establishments with gusto. It was argued in odd logic that it would be immoral to disarm the vanquished unless the victors also stripped themselves of their weapons. The finger of Anglo-American reprobation was presently to be pointed at France, deprived alike of the Rhine frontier and of her treaty guarantee, for maintaining, even on a greatly reduced scale, a French Army based upon universal service."

"If heretics no longer horrify us today, as they once did our forefathers, is it certain that it is because there is more charity in our hearts? Or would it not too often be, perhaps, without our daring to say so, because the bone of contention, that is to say, the very substance of our faith, no longer interests us? Men of too familiar and too passive a faith, perhaps for us dogmas are no longer the Mystery on which we live, the Mystery which is to be accomplished in us. Consequently then, heresy no longer shocks us; at least, it no longer convulses us like something trying to tear the soul of our souls away from us.... And that is why we have no trouble in being kind to heretics, and no repugnance in rubbing shoulders with them. In reality, bias against ‘heretics’ is felt today just as it used to be. Many give way to it as much as their forefathers used to do. Only, they have turned it against political adversaries. Those are the only ones with whom they refuse to mix. Sectarianism has only changed its object and taken other forms, because the vital interest has shifted. Should we dare to say that this shifting is progress? It is not always charity, alas, which has grown greater, or which has become more enlightened: it is often faith, the taste for the things of eternity, which has grown less. Injustice and violence are still reigning; but they are now in the service of degraded passions."

"No nation's security and well-being can be lastingly achieved in isolation but only in effective cooperation with fellow-nations."

"America cannot be the world's policeman. But we must reject the new isolationism that says: don't help anywhere, because we can not help everywhere."

"In order to get the proper perspective, we must take a quick glance at the past. Seven years ago, Western Europe faced the threat of imminent aggression by Soviet forces of overwhelming strength. In that hour of mortal danger the North Atlantic Treaty was signed. The decision to accede to the Alliance required great vision and great courage on the part of many of the members. For the United States, it meant abandoning their traditional policy of isolationism from the affairs of Europe. For Norway and others it meant abandoning their tradition of neutrality. The free world owes a deep depth of gratitude to the Statesmen of the Western Democracies in these days. Their vision has reaped a rich reward for us all. The Alliance which they brought into being saved the free world from the unfathomable disaster which threatened it. Peace in Europe has been preserved. Soviet westward expansion has been halted. A shield of armed forces has been built up which, though not yet strong enough to resist an all out attack, is at least a significant deterrent to aggression. The forces of NATO are no longer a dream, they are a reality."

"Perfectionism, no less than isolationism or imperialism or power politics, may obstruct the paths to international peace. Let us not forget that the retreat to isolationism a quarter of a century ago was started not by a direct attack against international cooperation but against the alleged imperfections of the peace."

"For the people of my country this meeting today has a special historic significance. After the first world war the United States refused to join the League of Nations and our seat was empty at the first meeting of the League Assembly. This time the United States is not only a member; it is the host to the United Nations. I can assure you that the Government and the people of the United States are deeply proud and grateful that the United Nations has chosen our country for its headquarters. We will extend the fullest measure of cooperation in making a home for the United Nations in this country. The American people welcome the delegates and the Secretariat of the United Nations as good neighbors and warm friends. This meeting of the Assembly symbolizes the abandonment by the United States of a policy of isolation."

"I have no confidence in the system of isolement [isolation]. It does not answer in social life for individuals, nor in politics for nations. Man is a social animal."

"Italy wants to rule over Abyssinia instead of allowing the black people to govern their own country. This, of course, is what used to happen in the old days. Strong countries like England used to capture other people's countries and that was how we got Australia, Canada and India. No one could stop us. We just did it because we were the strongest country. But now that we have got a League of Nations in the world, all the countries have promised not to do that kind of thing any more, and nearly every country, including Abyssinia, whether it consists of white people or black people, has joined the League of Nations. In future if any country feels angry with another country, like Italy does with Abyssinia, it must not go off on its own, like Francis Drake used to, and capture that country. It has to come to the League of Nations and say: "We are angry with our neighbours." And then the League of Nations goes into the trouble and tries to make up its mind who is right and who is wrong, just like a Judge does in our own country when two people have a quarrel."

"[M]ost important of all, we have set up in the League of Nations a new international polity which promises, if it is given free scope and full authority, first to bring about progressive disarmament, and next to provide in future a rational and humane substitute for the ruinous arbitrament of war."

"The idea of the League of Nations was right, but it was not put into practice. This time we must see to it that an international order is established in the world with the power and the will, and not merely the desire, to prevent war breaking out again."

"The dispute between the League and Italy is real, but it is not more real than our friendship...in being true to our pledged word to the League we wish also to preserve an old friendship. But loyalty to our pledge is inescapable, for, as the Secretary of State said in his recent Note to the French Government, we look on the League as the only escape from "the senseless disasters of the past." That is the key to our whole action and to our every motive."

"The League of Nations has had many critics, but I am not aware that, among the multitude of criticisms that have been offered, any suggestion makes its appearance for finding a substitute for that organization which we desire to see entrusted, I admit, with the great task of preserving the peace of the world. Those who criticize the League of Nations have no substitute for the League of Nations. They are prepared, it seems, for the civilized world to go on in the future, as it has gone on in the past, oscillating between those scenes of violence and sanguinary disturbance and the intervals in which great and ambitious nations pile up their armaments for a new effort. To me such an ideal appears to be absolutely intolerable, and I am not prepared, seriously, to discuss with any man what the future of the international relations should be unless he is prepared either to accept in some form or another the League of Nations, or to tell me what substitute he proposes for it."

""Covenants without swords are but words," bleakly wrote Thomas Hobbes in the seventeenth century. The League of Nations possessed no sword. How could it? The League, as such, enjoyed no kind of independent existence and authority at all. The widely made assumption that it did, as when men spoke of "support for the League" or "loyalty to the League", was founded on mass self-deception. For the League was no more than, or other than, its member states... If the League were ever to coerce a lawbreaker, it would not be the Paraguayan army or the Liberian navy that would do the coercing; but the Royal Navy and the French army. So when British internationalists demanded that Britain should disarm and entrust her security to "the League", they were really proposing that Britain should rest her safety on her own weakness. When they demanded that the French too should disarm they were unwittingly trying to deprive the League of the only swords ever likely to be unsheathed against breakers of the Covenant. There was therefore a fundamental and fatal flaw in the internationalists' new world system, glossed over in their idealistic enthusiasm. Without the sanction of overwhelming force behind the new international morality, the League of Nations had no chance whatsoever of putting an end to the anarchy of the power struggle between nation-states. It was like hoping to end the Wars of the Roses by creating a League of Barons pledged to keep the peace and obey the law of the land."

"Talk to me of treaties! Talk to me of the League of Nations! Every Great Power in Europe was pledged by treaty to preserve Belgium. That was a League of Nations, but it failed."

"The League of Nations had no sooner been created than it received an almost mortal blow. The United States abandoned President Wilson’s offspring. The President himself, ready to do battle for his ideals, suffered a paralytic stroke just as he was setting forth on his campaign, and lingered henceforward a futile wreck for a great part of two long and vital years, at the end of which his party and his policy were swept away by the Republican Presidential victory of 1920. Across the Atlantic on the morrow of the Republican success isolationist conceptions prevailed. Europe must be left to stew in its own juice, and must pay its lawful debts. At the same time tariffs were raised to prevent the entry of the goods by which alone these debts could be discharged. At the Washington Conference of 1921, far-reaching proposals for naval disarmament were made by the United States, and the British and American Governments proceeded to sink their battleships and break up their military establishments with gusto. It was argued in odd logic that it would be immoral to disarm the vanquished unless the victors also stripped themselves of their weapons. The finger of Anglo-American reprobation was presently to be pointed at France, deprived alike of the Rhine frontier and of her treaty guarantee, for maintaining, even on a greatly reduced scale, a French Army based upon universal service."

"Up till the year 1934, the power of the conquerors remained unchallenged in Europe and indeed throughout the world. There was no moment in these sixteen years when the three former allies, or even Britain and France with their associates in Europe, could not, in the name of the League of Nations and under its moral and international shield, have controlled by a mere effort of the will the armed strength of Germany. Instead, until 1931 the victors, and particularly the United States, concentrated their efforts upon extorting by vexatious foreign controls their annual reparations from Germany. The fact that these payments were made only from far larger American loans reduced the whole process to the absurd. Nothing was reaped except illwill. On the other hand, the strict enforcement at any time till 1934 of the disarmament clauses of the Peace Treaty would have guarded indefinitely, without violence or bloodshed, the peace and safety of mankind. But this was neglected while the infringements remained petty, and shunned as they assumed serious proportions. Thus the final safeguard of a long peace was cast away. The crimes of the vanquished find their background and their explanation, though not, of course, their pardon, in the follies of the victors. Without these follies crime would have found neither temptation nor opportunity."

"There is no use for us to shut our eyes to realities. The fact remains that the policy of collective security based on sanctions has been tried out, as indeed we were bound to try it out unless we were prepared to repudiate our obligations and say, without having tried it, that the whole system of the League and the Covenant was a sham and a fraud. That policy has been tried out and it has failed to prevent war, failed to stop war, failed to save the victim of the aggression."

"Is it not apparent that the policy of sanctions involves, I do not say war, but a risk of war? Is it not apparent that that risk must increase in proportion to the effectiveness of the sanctions and also by reason of the incompleteness of the League? Is it not also apparent from what has happened that in the presence of such a risk nations cannot be relied upon to proceed to the last extremity of war unless their vital interests are threatened?"

"The Labour movement was loth to accept the logic of its own declarations. Everyone knew in his heart that resolutions of protest wouldn't stop the dictators. But Labour people abhorred war and were deterred by the prospects of a world-wide conflict with all its horrors. We tried to take refuge in repeated demands for collective action by the League of Nations. The League had no forces of its own and it was patent to me that it must rely on those of its member states who were ready and capable of shouldering the major responsibility of defending the collective security we talked so much about. Economic sanctions were both slow to operate and not very effective."

"Whether we wish it or not, it is not the International Parliament of Geneva, subtle epitome of all the Parliaments of this world, with no executive powers, that will determine the peace of the future."

"The League of Nations had been formed largely at the instance of the President of the United States, but President Wilson was repudiated by the electors, the League therefore suffering an almost mortal blow at its inception... Great Britain, blind to the change in the situation, proceeded...to go "international" and our great country, which had been saved by the valour and patriotism of our people, was deliberately encouraged to rely for its safety upon a hotch-potch collection of small states embodied in what was never a world League of Nations but a League of some nations based not on defensive force but on pious resolutions which were endorsed by ceaseless chatter at many conferences. Of all the nations of the League at that time only Britain, France, Italy and Japan were powerful enough to make any impression upon world affairs, and later two of these were to resign their membership... The League of Nations Union had won the day for disarmament in the one country which had made any attempt to make the League a real thing, thus rendering it impotent and delivering the coup-de-grâce to the League itself."

"Despite its poor historical reputation, the League of Nations should not be dismissed as a complete failure. Of sixty-six international disputes it had to deal with (four of which had led to open hostilities), it successfully resolved thirty-five and quite legitimately passed back twenty to the channels of traditional diplomacy. It failed to resolve just eleven conflicts. Like its successor the United Nations, it was capable of being effective provided some combination of the great powers - including, it should be emphasized, those, like the United States and the Soviet Union, who were not among its members - had a common interest in its being effective. Remarkably, given Manchuria's role as an imperial fault line earlier in the century, this was not the case in 1931. So uninterested was Stalin in the Far East at this point that in 1935 he offered to sell the Soviet-owned Chinese Eastern Railway to Japan and to withdraw all Soviet forces to the Amur River. If the Soviets were not interested in Manchuria, it was hard to see why Britain or the United States should be, especially at a time when both were reeling from severe financial crises."

"[T]he two most important and intractable problems were to make the Covenant an efficient instrument for the preservation of peace and to bring about disarmament. Although this was not generally perceived at the time, these aims were contradictory. In order that the Covenant should be made effective it was necessary that sanctions, and in the last resort force, should be used against the aggressor. Men deluded themselves by speaking of collective security. What aggressor nation, they asked, could resist the united might of fifty nations? But they overlooked the elementary truth that zero plus zero still equals zero. In 1925...the only members of the League who possessed significant military forces were England and France... Consequently the whole burden of enforcing the Covenant rested on the[ir] shoulders... This meant that the general staffs of these two countries were faced with more extended military commitments than they had ever known in the days when their sole task was to protect the national interest. The answer should have been to make a proportionate increase in the British and French military establishments. Instead they were told that collective security diminished the extent of their commitments and that in consequence it would be safe to embark on a massive programme of disarmament. Never in our history has there been a more flagrant case of muddled thinking and self-deception."

"[T]he League of Nations will be of no value unless it has behind it the sanction of strong nations, prepared at a moment's notice to stop aggression. Otherwise the League of Nations will be a scrap of paper."

"There are many things the world has realised and is prepared to take into account and to provide against. This League of Nations is an attempt to do it by some less barbarous methods than war. Let us try it. I beg this country to try it seriously, and to try it in earnest. It is due to mankind that we should try it. Anything except the horror of the last four and a half years!"

"The League of Nations is the greatest humbug in history. They cannot even protect a little nation like Armenia. They do nothing but pass useless resolutions."

"I have loved but one flag and I can not share that devotion and give affection to the mongrel banner invented for a league."

"In attaching so much importance to the idea of the League of Nations England was moved in part by a sincere idealism but also by a false idea she had formed of a League of Nations that would overcome cannon with volleys of edifying discourse. Harold Nicolson, a member of the British Parliament, told me he had received the following letter from one of his constituents: "I hope you are for the League of Nations and no foreign entanglements." This confusion of ideas, this incredible self-confidence, this refusal to look reality in the face had produced the effects that might have been foreseen. Having slumbered on her green lawns from 1919 to 1939 England awoke after Munich when it was too late, and she came to the war with almost no army."

"A mirage, and an old one... One may as well talk of London morality being due to the Archbishop of Canterbury. But take away Scotland Yard!"

"I have not read it, and I don't intend to read it. It's not worth the paper it's written on. To the end of time it'll always be a case of “Thy head or my head.” I've no faith in these schemes."

"The real difficulty of the situation lies in the practical working of the coercion. Let it be laid down that the League as a whole will take the necessary action, economic or military. Well and good; but the League is not a military or economic unit and possesses no central executive. It is a society of independent sovereign states, their independence somewhat modified by treaty obligations and a habit of regular conference, but none the less real. I doubt whether the League as a League could declare war or wage war. The force would have to be supplied by each state separately, of its own deliberate will... One cannot expect Siam or Canada to mobilize because one Balkan state attacks another. And if the duty is not incumbent on all members, who is to decide what members are to undertake it? The Council has no absolute authority. No nation will be eager to subject itself to the strain and sacrifice of coercive action unless its own interests are sharply involved. But the question is whether, in a world that increasingly detests war and mistrusts force as a instrument of international policy, the various national Parliaments or Governments will in general have sufficient loyalty to the League, sufficient public spirit and sense of reality, to be ready to face the prospects of war not in defence of their own frontiers or immediate national interests, but simply to maintain the peace of the world."

"It is hard on many people, on naval and military circles, on Philistine newspapers, on smart society in London, just as it is hard on similar circles in Berlin, to have to give up their favourite dreams and admit themselves definitely defeated, defeated even in the Tory Cabinet, by dull middle-class pacifism... all parties are pledged to the League...all Prime Ministers and ex-Prime Ministers support it...no candidate for Parliament dares to oppose it openly."

"I am always a little surprised at the common habit of attributing “the failure of the League” to small defects in the Covenant or to the timidities of the French and British Governments in 1931 and after; the primary cause was obviously the disunion of the Great Powers on whose union everything depended. America withdrew; Japan turned traitor and was too strong to coerce; Italy after a period of blackmail went over to the enemy. Whether Britain and France together might still have saved the situation is of course open to doubt; I am disposed to think they could, but one must not forget how great the difficulties were."

"The League of Nations also failed to prevent conflicts in various parts of the world, such as the attack of Italy on Ethiopia, the civil war in Spain, the Japanese aggression against China and the Anschluss of Austria. Furthermore, in case of the Munich Betrayal that, in addition to Hitler and Mussolini involved British and French leaders, Czechoslovakia was taken apart with the full approval of the League of Nations. I would like to point out in this regard that, unlike many other European leaders of that time, Stalin did not disgrace himself by meeting with Hitler who was known among the Western nations as quite a reputable politician and was a welcome guest in the European capitals."

"It is true that we have the League of Nations, but it is only a mechanical frame and the soul has still to grow into its body. The spirit of ill-will and distrust is widespread. Internationalism is only an idea cherished by a few and not a part of human psychology. Ten years after the peace, the sky is not clearer than it was in August, 1914. Europe has a million more men under arms than there were before the war."

"I was not alone. The atmosphere, after the joys of the armistice, was strange and foreboding for those of us who sought a world of peace and international comity. Woodrow Wilson had, as Martin Luther King had, a dream, and I shared that dream—all fourteen points of it—and watched it come to nothing. (I was in the press gallery of the House of Representatives when President Woodrow Wilson returned from Europe and addressed Congress. I saw Senator Henry Cabot Lodge avoiding him. I heard Wilson's muted passion, and I cried.) What a splendid vision the League of Nations was; how sickening to watch it scuttled."

"No League of Nations, or of individuals, can avail, without a change of heart. Reformers of all classes must recognize that it is useless to preach peace by itself, or socialism by itself, or anti-vivisection by itself, or vegetarianism by itself, or kindness to animals by itself. The cause of each and all of the evils that afflict the world is the same the general lack of humanity, the lack of the knowledge that all sentient life is akin, and that he who injures a fellow-being is in fact doing injury to himself. The prospects of a happier society are wrapped up in this despised and neglected truth, the very statement of which, at the present time, must (I well know) appear ridiculous to the accepted instructors of the people."

"I assert that the problem submitted to the Assembly today is a much wider one. It is not merely a question of the settlement of Italian aggression. It is collective security: it is the very existence of the League of Nations. It is the confidence that each State is to place in international treaties. It is the value of promises made to small States that their integrity and their independence shall be respected and ensured."

"Apart from the Kingdom of the Lord there is not on this earth any nation that is superior to any other. Should it happen that a strong Government finds it may with impunity destroy a weak people, then the hour strikes for that weak people to appeal to the League of Nations to give its judgment in all freedom. God and history will remember your judgment."

"The program of the world's peace, therefore, is our program; and that program, the only possible program, as we see it, is this: 1. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view."

"Twice in this century, in the aftermath of world wars which resulted in considerable measure from the shortcomings of the old diplomacy in regulating the relations of powerful States, world organizations—first the League of Nations and then the United Nations—have been set up to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” This is the central function of the United Nations under the Charter. Both with the League of Nations and with the United Nations, after initial enthusiasm a great disillusionment set in, and Governments tended more and more to disregard the political functions of the international organization which they themselves had set up in the wake of war and to revert to the international practices of earlier times. In the 1930s this process led to the Second World War. I do not believe that any Government has any intention of letting us drift into a third world war, but unless we are prepared to learn from the past and to make our international political institutions work as they were intended to work, that danger will always exist. History tells us that we cannot afford to take for granted the persistence of moderation and reason in international affairs, and that international organization is necessary as a safeguard when moderation and reason fail."

"In the world of the 1930s it was by no means easy to decide what to do in the face of the German menace. The international institution created in the peace settlement, the League of Nations, had been crippled at birth by the absence of the United States and the exclusion of Russia as well as the defeated powers. When confronted by its first serious test in Japan’s 1931 seizure of Manchuria, it failed over a problem inherent in the concept of collective security, recurring monotonously in the 1930s, and of continuing difficulty today. In a world of separate states, the theory of averting the danger of war by the threat of universal or at least large-scale collective action requires for its implementation that in practice countries be willing to go to war if necessary over specific issues that might be, or at least appear to be, of only marginal significance to them. Not only does this require all involved to maintain substantial forces at all times, but it also makes every little war into a very big one. No power was prepared to do so over Manchuria. Hitler’s strategy of fighting a series of isolated wars would confront the powers with the same dilemma: the responsibility for converting his carefully delimited conflicts into a world war would be left to others who were peacefully inclined and who had begun their rearmament after and in response to Germany’s."

"I did not obey your instructions. No. I conformed to the instructions of truth and Nature, and maintained your interest, against your opinions, with a constancy that became me. A representative worthy of you ought to be a person of stability. I am to look, indeed, to your opinions,—but to such opinions as you and I must have five years hence. I was not to look to the flash of the day. I knew that you chose me, in my place, along with others, to be a pillar of the state, and not a weathercock on the top of the edifice, exalted for my levity and versatility, and of no use but to indicate the shiftings of every fashionable gale."

"In all forms of government the people is the true legislator."

"Experienced lawmakers are crucial for effective governance. They understand the intricacies of policy, maintain valuable relationships, and have the historical context necessary to hold bureaucrats accountable. disrupt this, leading to a cycle of inexperienced legislators who are less equipped to oversee complex governmental functions and more reliant on external actors — actors not beholden to the voters."

"The legislator is an indispensable guardian of our freedom. It is true that great executives have played a powerful role in the development of civilization, but such leaders appear sporadically, by chance. They do not always appear when they are most needed. The great executives have given inspiration and push to the advancement of human society, but it is the legislator who has given stability and continuity to that slow and painful progress."

"Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless. What will you do on the day of reckoning, when disaster comes from afar? To whom will you run for help? Where will you leave your riches?"

"Il y a moins de différence entre deux députés dont l'un est révolutionnaire et l'autre ne l'est pas, qu'entre deux révolutionnaires, dont l'un est député et l'autre ne l'est pas."

"I have spoken of one basic characteristics of true legislators. Another very remarkable feature, on which it would be easy to write a book, is that they are never what are called scholars: they do not write, they act on instinct and impulse more than on reasoning, and they have no other means of acting than a certain moral force that bends men's wills like grain before the wind."

"Why so many laws? Because there is no legislator. What have these so-called legislators done in six years? Nothing, for to destroy is not to make."

"The art of the legislator is not to make a people free, but free enough."

"Legislators represent people, not trees or acres. Legislators are elected by voters, not farms or cities or economic interests."

"You'll go quitely to boot camp They'll shoot you dead, make you a man Don't you worry, it's for a cause Feeding global corporations' claws."

"Soldiers! don’t give yourselves to brutes - men who despise you - enslave you - who regiment your lives - tell you what to do - what to think and what to feel! Who drill you - diet you - treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts!"

"1. Defence of the Fatherland shall be the duty and obligation of a citizen of the Russian Federation. 2. Citizens of the Russian Federation shall perform military service in accordance with federal law. 3. In the event that their convictions or religious beliefs run counter to military service and in other cases established by federal law, citizens of the Russian Federation shall have the right to replace it with alternative civilian service"

"I also think there are prices too high to pay to save the United States. Conscription is one of them. Conscription is slavery, and I don't think that any people or nation has a right to save itself at the price of slavery for anyone, no matter what name it is called. We have had the draft for twenty years now; I think this is shameful. If a country can't save itself through the volunteer service of its own free people, then I say : Let the damned thing go down the drain!"

"Any recruiter will tell you that the incentive for enlistment is that it [being drafted] is inevitable if you don't."

"At the present day, civilized opinion is a curious mental mixture. The military instincts and ideals are as strong as ever, but they are confronted by reflective criticisms which sorely curb their ancient freedom. Innumerable writers are showing up the bestial side of military service. Pure loot and mastery seem no longer morally allowable motives, and pretexts must be found for attributing them solely to the enemy."

"We must train and classify the whole of our male citizens, and make military instruction a regular part of collegiate education."

"War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today."

"A young man who does not have what it takes to perform military service is not likely to have what it takes to make a living. Today's military rejects include tomorrow's hard core unemployed."

"Inquiry shall likewise be made about the professions and trades of those who are brought to be admitted to the faith. ... A soldier of the civil authority must be taught not to kill men and to refuse to do so if he is commanded, and to refuse to take an oath; if he is unwilling to comply, he must be rejected. ... If a catechumen or a believer seeks to become a soldier, they must be rejected, for they have despised God."

"Women should be permitted to volunteer for non-combat service,… they should not be accepted, voluntarily or through the draft, as combat soldiers…. We know of no comparable ways of training women and girls, and we have no real way of knowing whether the kinds of training that teach men both courage and restraint would be adaptable to women or effective in a crisis. But the evidence of history and comparative studies of other species suggest that women as a fighting body might be far less amenable to the rules that prevent warfare from becoming a massacre and, with the use of modern weapons, that protect the survival of all humanity. This is what I meant by saying that women in combat might be too fierce."

"Though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does."

"What is conscription? An act of property exercised over families by the government without warning, a robbery of men and money."

"No man who is not willing to bear arms and to fight for his rights can give a good reason why he should be entitled to the privilege of living in a free community."

"It may be laid down as a primary position, and the basis of our system, that every Citizen who enjoys the protection of a free Government, owes not only a proportion of his property, but even his personal services to the defence of it, and consequently that the Citizens of America (with a few legal and official exceptions) from 18 to 50 Years of Age should be borne on the Militia Rolls, provided with uniform Arms, and so far accustomed to the use of them, that the Total strength of the Country might be called forth at a Short Notice on any very interesting Emergency,…"

"Where is it written in the Constitution, in what article or section is it contained, that you may take children from their parents, and parents from their children, and compel them to fight the battles of any war in which the folly or the wickedness of government may engage it?"

"Some of the politicians in this country, in their feverish search for group acceptance, are ready to endorse tumultuous confrontation as a substitute for debate, and the most illogical and unfitting extensions of the Bill of Rights as protections for psychotic and criminal elements in our society…. We have seen all too clearly that there are men—now in power in this country—who do not represent authority, who cannot cope with tradition, and who believe that the people of America are ready to support revolution as long as it is done with a cultured voice and a handsome profile."

"It was weird seeing Ricky act so weaselly and calculating, like he’d become a politician all of a sudden."

"Ὑπὸ λίθῳ γὰρ παντί που χρὴ μὴ δάκῃ ῥήτωρ ἀθρεῖν."

"[Recipe for political success:] If a politician during a campaign finds it necessary to resort to flattery, he should spread it on, not in thin layers, but with a trowel, or better yet, a shovel. Politicians should not forget that voters never grow weary of illusory promises. Politicians should ever remember that the electorate suspects and distrusts men of superb intellect, calmness, and serenity. And, finally, the politician must always tell people what they want to hear."

"I would he were better, I would he were worse."

"The politician has not to revenge what has happened but to ensure that it does not happen again."

"If this law passes I’m going to make you guys forget about Mike Duffy, because I’ve got more information and more proof on politicians in this country than you can shake a stick at, I promise."

"Politicians hide themselves away They only started the war Why should they go out to fight? They leave that role to the poor."

"Politicians have prolonged deaths. In a way, they begin to die the moment they leave office, and their deaths continue thereafter as each of their identifying characteristics – this bold new drive, that exciting new initiative – goes up in smoke, borne away on the winds of change."

"Politicians listen when large corporations speak."

"While we bicker day-to-day about this politician or that one, the true power players like the military industrial complex are doing things like creating A.I. that will control our future world. By keeping us preoccupied with nonsense, they can build our prison in peace & quiet."

"We desperately need a sociopath test for all politicians. We have the technology to find out if people lack empathy. If they do, they should be banned from running for office, serving on corporate boards, or having any kind of authority."

"Wars are fought by teenagers, you realize that. They really ought to be fought by the politicians and old people who start these wars."

"“It soon began to dawn on me He wasn’t very bright, Because when he was twenty-three He couldn’t read or write. ‘What shall we do?’ his parents sob. ‘The boy has got the vapors! He couldn’t even get a job Delivering the papers!’ ‘Ah-ha,’ I said, ‘this little clot Could be a politician.’ ‘Nanny,’ he cried, ‘Oh Nanny, what A super proposition!’ ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘let’s learn and note The art of politics. Let’s teach you how to miss the boat And how to drop some bricks, And how to win the people’s vote And lots of other tricks. Let’s learn to make a speech a day Upon the T.V. screen, In which you never never say Exactly what you mean. And most important, by the way, Is not to let your teeth decay, And keep your fingers clean.’ And now that I am eighty-nine, It’s too late to repent. The fault was mine the little swine Became the President.”"

"The politician follows the line of least resistance; it is easy to fall asleep over the unhappiness of others and to count it for very little; it is easier to throw a hundred men, ninety-seven of whom are innocent, into prison, than to discover the three culprits who are hidden among them; it is easier to kill a man than to keep a close watch on him; all politics makes use of the police, which officially flaunts its radical contempt for the individual and which loves violence for its own sake. The thing that goes by the name of political necessity is in part the laziness and brutality of the police. That is why it is incumbent upon ethics not to follow the line of least resistance; an act which is not destined, but rather quite freely consented to; it must make itself effective so that what was at first facility may become difficult."

"Actors didn’t have to be politicians, but politicians had to be actors."

"Our society is run by a managerial bureaucracy, by professional politicians; people are motivated by mass suggestion, their aim is producing more and consuming more, as purposes in themselves."

"That’s the basis of all politics: it has to be you or me, there’s not enough for both of us. Survival of the fittest... But we can do so much now, with so little, that we can take care of everybody. That’s why the idea of scarcity is all wrong. Up to now, the world of politics doesn’t know that. That’s why all nations are dependent on armaments, why we have the arms race. The politicians still say that it’s you or me, and that’s why they go for the gun... The young world is giving up any interest in their political system. They have decided that it is absolutely corrupt."

"One can judge between candidates by remembering Georges Pompidou’s remark that a statesman is a politician who puts himself at his country’s service, whereas a politician is a statesman who puts the country at his own service—or that of a group or class, usually his own."

"When Bobby Kennedy went after organized crime in the early 1960s, one of the things he learned was that the Mafia had a series of rituals new members went through to declare their loyalty and promise they’d never turn away from their new benefactors. Once in, they’d be showered with money and protection, but they could never leave and even faced serious problems if they betrayed the syndicate. Which brings us to the story of Kyrsten Sinema. For a republican democracy to actually work, average citizens with a passion for making their country better must be able to run for public office without needing wealthy or powerful patrons; this is a concept that dates back to Aristotle’s rants on the topic. And Sinema... Apparently... she decided that if you can only barely beat them, you’d damn well better join them. Sinema quickly joined other Democrats who’d followed the Citizens United path to the flashing neon lights of big money, joining the so-called “Problem Solvers” caucus that owes its existence in part to the Wall Street-funded front group “No Labels.” ... Political networks run by rightwing billionaires and the US Chamber of Commerce showered her with support... She’d proved herself as a “made woman,” just like the old mafiosi documented by RFK in the 1960s, willing to do whatever it takes, compromise whatever principles she espoused..."

"And this is a genuine crisis for America because if President Biden is frustrated in his attempt to pass his Build Back Better legislation (that is overwhelmingly supported by Americans across the political spectrum) — all because business groups, giant corporations and rightwing billionaires are asserting ownership over their two “made” senators — there’s a very good chance that today’s cynicism and political violence is just a preview of the rest of the decade. But this isn’t as much a story about Sinema as it is about today’s larger political dysfunction for which she’s become, along with Joe Manchin, a poster child. Increasingly, because of the Supreme Court’s betrayal of American values, it’s become impossible for people like the younger Sinema to rise from social worker to the United States Senate without big money behind them.... While the naked corruption of Sinema and Joe Manchin is a source of outrage for Democrats across America, what’s far more important is that it reveals how deep the rot of money in American politics has gone, thanks entirely to a corrupted Supreme Court. In Justice Stevens’ dissent in Citizens United, he pointed out that corporations in their modern form didn’t even exist when the Constitution was written..."

"Losing power, utterly and completely, is the most dreadful prospect that a politician can think of. It overshadows everything else."

"Winston Churchill famously claimed that of all human qualities, courage was the most esteemed, because it guaranteed all others. He was right. Courage—moral courage—is the companion of great leadership. No politician could ever be viewed as exceptional unless he or she had it in spades. And historically there would have been no social progress if not for the presence of specific humans dissenting and breaking from herd-inspired suspicion and fear... At best, courage is self-sacrificing, non-violent, modest and based on universal principles — and immensely powerful.... Look at today’s politicians... keen to be viewed as the virile leaders of their respective countries; eager to inflate their image by harming migrants and refugees, the most vulnerable in society. If there is courage in that, I fail to see it. Authoritarian leaders, or elected leaders inclined toward it, are bullies, deceivers, selfish cowards. If they are growing in number it is because (with exceptions) many other politicians are mediocre... focused on their own image... too afraid to stand up..."

"If we do not change course quickly, we will inevitably encounter an incident where that first domino is tipped—triggering a sequence of unstoppable events that will mark the end of our time on this tiny planet... What if 100m or more people marched around the world in protest at what it is we now see: the ineptitude, selfishness, the cruelties and the threats to our collective well-being? ...it might just deliver a sort of shock therapy to those dangerous or useless politicians who now threaten humanity."

"We learned that Tim Geithner, Barack Obama's top economics guy, vetoed any suggestion that the Irish Government might demand that bank bondholders pay some of their own gambling debts. Some weeks later, face to face with Obama, Enda Kenny chickened out of raising that matter. Face to face with Geithner, Michael Noonan also chickened out. We learned, in short, that Irish politicians are tough when they're taking money away from blind people."

"Even back in the days when energy had been abundant, leaders or representatives might not have really been necessary. If everyone had properly understood how the world turned, what was beneficial for only a few, and what would be harmful to the whole, then they might not have needed to choose representatives. It was not that difficult to live without them. However, people had chosen this lazy approach for the sake of a petty peace and to make their lives easier, and as a result they had left the decision-making to others. It was only now—now that the universe was dying—that they belatedly realized the truth: that leaders and representatives were poisonous mushrooms that grew thick in the cracks and crevices widened by indolence, and they were a waste of energy."

"The trouble is that modern countries are usually run by politicians and not by statesmen, which is a different thing altogether."

"Ethics is as crucial to a politician as it is to a religious practitioner. Dangerous consequences will follow when politicians and rulers forget moral principles. Whether we believe in God or karma, ethics is the foundation of every religion."

"He need only not have been a politician (the very name was a stumbling-block to a young lady's romance), and he would have been erected into a hero fit for a modern novel."

"The politician—oh, Job! the devil should have made you prime minister—set the Tories to impeach your religion, the Whigs your patriotism—placed a couple of Sunday newspapers before you—he certainly would have succeeded in making you curse and swear too; and then posterity—it will just be a mooted point for future historians, whether you were the saviour, the betrayer, or the tyrant of your country, those being the three choice epitaphs kept for the especial use of patriots in power."

"[[Stephen A. Douglas|Senator [Stephen] Douglas]] is of world-wide renown. All the anxious politicians of his party, or who have been of his party for years past, have been looking upon him as certainly, at no distant day, to be the President of the United States. They have seen in his round, jolly, fruitful face, postoffices, landoffices, marshalships, and cabinet appointments, chargeships and foreign missions, bursting and sprouting out in wonderful exuberance ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands."

"And I am even sicker of politicians who wrap themselves in the bloody flag and try to rub off some of the stench of death from the bodies of those who have died, mostly in vain for worthless causes, in hopes that taking on some of the odor will cause them to be perceived as admirable patriots themselves."

"The politicians pontificate and manoeuvre with eloquent manifestos and pronouncements saying little about the challenges we must confront."

"It may be, sir, that the politicians of the United States are not so fastidious as some gentlemen are, as to disclosing the principles on which they act. They boldly preach what they practise. When they are contending for victory, they avow their intention of enjoying the fruits of it. If they are defeated, they expect to retire from office. If they are successful, they claim, as a matter of right, the advantages of success. They see nothing wrong in the rule, that to the victor belong the spoils of the enemy."

"Flip-flopping isn't always a bad thing. We want politicians to have principles, but we also want them to be flexible and to change with the times. This is an inherent tension in democratic politics, but it's a needed one. Within that tension, the work of governing gets done. It's where compromise happens, and compromise is needed in a democracy or it's not a democracy. But it's not easy: Flip-flop too much, especially on core principles, and a politician is ineffective. Stick to their principles regardless of social change or their constituents' desires, and they're even more so."

"Well, I think all politicians tend to behave badly under the peculiar pressures of their trade. So I think they have chosen a profession where it's hard to behave well."

"There is no such thing as a nonpolitical speech by a politician."

"Today there is more acceptance than ever before that women bring different experiences, perspectives, and skills to the table and make irreplaceable contributions to decisions, policies and laws that work better for all"

"The politician cannot become religious – for the simple reason that politics, all politics, politics as such, is power politics. It is will-to-power. One wants to dominate, one wants to possess, one wants to be the decisive factor in people’s lives. These are the qualities of the ego.Obviously this type of person cannot be religious because religion is basically the experience of egolessness. In religion there is no place for will-to-power. In fact, in religion there is no place even for will. Will-to-power is far away; even will-to-be is not there. One is in the hands of existence, in a deep let-go. This let-go is what I call religiousness. That’s why I said that religion and politics are opposite dimensions."

"None [of the guardians] should have any property of his own beyond what is absolutely necessary. ... They will live together like soldiers in a camp. We will tell them that they have gold and silver of a divine sort in their souls as a permanent gift from the gods, and have no need of human gold in addition. And we will add that it is impious for the to defile this divine possession by possessing an admixture of mortal gold, because many impious deeds have been done for the sake of the currency of the masses, whereas their sort is pure."

"If they acquire private land, houses, and money themselves, they will be household managers and farmers instead of guardians—hostile masters of the other citizens, instead of their allies. They will spend their whole lives hating and being hated, plotting and being plotted against, much more afraid of internal than of external enemies."

"Superman: I’m here to fight for truth, and justice, and the ."

"So far as one can generalize, the most gracious, cultivated, and innovative people in this country are French Canadians. Certainly they have given us the most exciting politicians of our time: Trudeau, Lévesque. Without them, Canada would be an exceedingly boring and greatly diminished place."

"Now, I don't know why, but that bit of scheduling reminds me of a story which I'll share with you. An evangelical minister and a politician arrived at Heaven's gate one day together. And St. Peter, after doing all the necessary formalities, took them in hand to show them where their quarters would be. And he took them to a small, single room with a bed, a chair, and a table and said this was for the clergyman. And the politician was a little worried about what might be in store for him. And he couldn't believe it then when St. Peter stopped in front of a beautiful mansion with lovely grounds, many servants, and told him that these would be his quarters. And he couldn't help but ask, he said, "But wait, how -- there's something wrong -- how do I get this mansion while that good and holy man only gets a single room?" And St. Peter said, "You have to understand how things are up here. We've got thousands and thousands of clergy. You're the first politician who ever made it.""

"Every living creature will naturally attempt to discover and eliminate the cause of a catastrophe in which it finds itself involved. It will not repeat actions that brought about the catastrophe in the first place. This is how difficulties are surmounted by experience. Our politicians are far removed from such natural reactions. It would not be farfetched to say that it is in the nature of a politician that he does not learn anything from experience."

"The working men and women who think and act in a work-democratic way do not come out against the politician. It is not his fault or his intention that the practical result of his work exposes the illusionary and irrational character of politics. Those who are engaged in practical work, regardless what field they are in, are intensely concerned with practical tasks in the improvement of life. Those who are engaged in practical work are not against one thing or another. It is only the politician who, having no practical tasks is always against and never for something. Politics in general is characterized by this ‘being against’ one thing or another. That which is productive in a practical way is not accomplished by politicians, but by working men and women, whether it is in accord with the politicians’ ideologies or not."

"A shoemaker who loses himself in mystical ecstasy and begins to think of himself as a saviour of the people, sent by God, will inevitably cut the soles the wrong way and mess up his stitches. As time goes on, he will be faced with starvation. It is precisely by this process, on the other hand, that the politician becomes strong and rich."

"Not everyone in this country is a thief or corrupt. If I was, I would be a politician and be doing far better in life."

"The people should always control the politicians' decisions."

"He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career."