WIST Quotations

Lincoln, Abraham -- Speech (1858-07-10), Chicago, Illinois

Dave — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 22:43:53 +0000

I should like to know if, taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle, and making exceptions to it, where will it stop? If one man says it does not mean a negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man? If that declaration is not the truth, let us get the Statute book, in which we find it, and tear it out! Who is so bold as to do it? If it is not true let us tear it out!

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) American lawyer, politician, US President (1861-65)
Speech (1858-07-10), Chicago, Illinois
(Source)

Taleb, Nassim Nicholas -- The Black Swan, Introduction (2007)

Dave — Mon, 31 Mar 2025 17:23:33 +0000

I don’t particularly care about the usual. If you want to get an idea of a friend’s temperament, ethics, and personal elegance, you need to look at him under the tests of severe circumstances, not under the regular rosy glow of daily life. Can you assess the danger a criminal poses by examining only what he does on an ordinary day? Can we understand health without considering wild diseases and epidemics? Indeed the normal is often irrelevant.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb (b. 1960) Lebanese-American essayist, statistician, risk analyst, aphorist
The Black Swan, Introduction (2007)
(Source)

Jackson, Robert H. -- “The Task of Maintaining Our Liberties: The Role of the Judiciary,” speech, Boston (24 Aug 1953)

Dave — Thu, 31 May 2012 13:07:08 +0000

Not every defeat of authority is a gain for individual freedom, nor every judicial rescue of a convict a victory for liberty.

Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954) US Supreme Court Justice (1941-54), lawyer, jurist, politician
“The Task of Maintaining Our Liberties: The Role of the Judiciary,” speech, Boston (24 Aug 1953)
(Source)

Dinner address at the American Bar Association Diamond Jubilee dinner. Reprinted in the American Bar Association Journal (Nov 1953) [citation 39 A.B.A. J. 961 (1953)].

Tacitus -- Annals, Book 3, ch. 27 (AD 117)

Dave — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 12:48:42 +0000

And now bills were passed, not only for national objects but for individual cases, and laws were most numerous when the commonwealth was most corrupt.

[Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.]

Tacitus (c.56-c.120) Roman historian, orator, politician [Publius or Gaius Cornelius Tacitus]
Annals, Book 3, ch. 27 (AD 117)

More common variants:

"The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the government."
"The more corrupt the state, the more laws."