posted by Trochilus @ 12/30/2008 07:46:00 PM
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posted by Trochilus @ 12/17/2008 11:52:00 PM
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Former state employee NJ, veteran, attorney, golfer-with-issues (not by choice), pet major domo, and pragmatic conservative.
" ... 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if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?"
-- Publius, Federalist Papers, Number 62
"If you destroy a free market you create a black market."
-- Winston Churchill, House of Commons, 3 February 1949
Churchill added:
"If you make ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law."
(Both quoted in "Churchill By Himself" by Richard M. Langworth.)
"Major Wilkinson, this is a glorious day for our country."
-- General George Washington, December 26, 1776, at Trenton
"Seas roll and months pass between the order and the execution; and the want of a speedy explanation of a single point is enough to defeat a whole system."
-- Edmund Burke, Speech on Conciliation with the Colonies, 22 Mar. 1775
"Irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors."
-- Thomas H. Huxley
"Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk."
-- Henry David Thoreau, upon suspecting his milkman was watering it down.
"Really, the truth is everybody wants to tell their story."
-- Lawrence Wright, September 23, 2007, author of The Looming Tower asked by Sean Hannity why jihadis and their supporters were so willing to be interviewed for his book.
"I believe in having an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out."
-- Grace Murray Hooper, "Amazing Grace" - Mathematician, computer scientist & programming pioneer, Rear Admiral, U.S Navy, patriot, quoted by, Tropp, Henry S. "Grace Hopper: The Youthful Teacher of Us All." Abacus 2 (Fall 1984): p. 18 (ht, Wikipedia).
"For why should my liberty be subject to the judgment of someone else’s conscience?"
-- Paul of Tarsus, The Bible, 1st Letter to the Corinthians 10:29
"Every dollar spent by government is one less dollar spent by taxpayers."
-- Larry Elder, in a column, here.
"After speaking your mind, you can't one fine day return to silence."
-- Yoani Sánchez, Cuban blogger quoted, here.
"Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope."
-- Patrick Henry, American Patriot, in his "Give me liberty or give me death!" speech, posted, here.
"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it."
-- Mark Twain, American Humorist, Writer, and Lecturer, as quoted here.
"I have long been convinced that institutions purely democratic must, sooner or later, destroy liberty, or civilisation, or both.
... Either the poor would plunder the rich, and civilisation would perish; or order and property would be saved by a strong military government, and liberty would perish."
-- Thomas Babington Macaulay, British Historian and Whig Politician, in an 1857 letter to an American friend as quoted here, ht, here.
