“The most remarkable change in the moral history of mankind has been the rise - and occasionally the application - of the view that all people, and not just one's own kind, are entitled to fair treatment.” PeopleKindHas BeensWarViewsMoralMankindFairsJust OneRemarkableTreatmentApplicationEntitled Book:The Moral Sense Source: The Moral Sense
“[in 1998] I know my political ideas affect what I write but I've tried to follow the facts wherever they land. Every topic I've written about begins as a question. How do police departments behave? Why do bureaucracies function the way they do? What moral intuitions do people have? How do courts make their decisions? What do blacks want from the political system? I can honestly say I didn't know the answers to those questions when I began looking into them.” PeopleKnowsWayWantWritingI CanIdeasFactsPoliticalDecisionAnswersMoralWrittenLandFunctionPoliceCourtIntuitionHonestlyBehaveDepartmentTopicsBureaucracyPolitical SystemsPolice Department Author:James Q. Wilson
“The view that we know less than we thought we knew about how to change the human condition came, in time, to be called neoconservatism. Many ... , myself included, disliked the term because we did not think we were conservative, neo or paleo. (I voted for John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey and worked in the latter's presidential campaign.) It would have been better if we had been called policy skeptics; that is, people who thought it was hard, though not impossible, to make useful and important changes in public policy.” PeopleIfsThinkingKnowsHumansHas BeensImportantHardTermViewsImpossibleConditionsPolicyConservativeCampaignsPresidentialLatterHuman ConditionJohnsonSkepticPublic PolicyPresidential CampaignJohn Kennedy Author:James Q. Wilson
“The great achievement of Western culture since the Enlightenment is to make many of us peer over the wall and grant some respect to people outside it; the great failure of Western Culture is to deny that walls are inevitable or important.” PeopleImportantCultureWallAchievementEnlightenmentWesternDenyInevitableGrantsPeersGreat AchievementWestern Culture Author:James Q. Wilson
“Four innate sentiments dispose people to a universal moral sense. These are sympathy, fairness, self-control and duty.” PeopleInspirationalSelfMoralFourDutyUniversalSentimentsFairnessSelf ControlInnate Author:James Q. Wilson
“The selection process has been powerful enough to produce one indisputable outcome: the family is a universal human institution. . . . In virtually every society into which historians or anthropologists have inquired, one finds people living together on the basis of kinship ties and having responsibility for raising children. . . . Even in societies where men and women have relatively unrestricted sexual access to one another beginning at an early age, marriage is still the basis for family formation. It is desired by the partners and expected by society.” PeopleMenHumansChildrenHas BeensStillsEnoughAgeTogetherProcessPowerfulResponsibilityFamilyProduceMen And WomenUniversalBasesInstitutionsExpectedAccessPartnersTiesOutcomesHistorianSelectionRaising ChildrenFormationKinshipLiving TogetherAnthropologists Author:James Q. Wilson
“Broken Window Theory: Consider a building with a few broken windows. If the windows are not repaired, the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually, they may even break into the building, and if it's unoccupied, perhaps become squatters or light fires inside. Or consider a sidewalk. Some litter accumulates. Soon, more litter accumulates. Eventually, people even start leaving bags of trash from take-out restaurants there or even break into cars.” PeopleIfsMayLightBreakFireCarBuildingTheoryBrokenWindowLeavingTendenciesRestaurantsBagsTrashSidewalkVandalsFire InsideSquattersBroken Windows Author:James Q. Wilson
“Some people suggest that the problem is the separation of powers. If you had a parliamentary system, the struggle for power would not result in such complex peace treaties that empower so many different people to pursue so many contradictory aims” PeopleIfsDifferentProblemPeaceResultsStruggleAimComplexesSeparationPursueEmpoweringDifferent PeoplesContradictoryTreatiesParliamentarySeparation Of PowersPeace TreatiesParliamentary System Author:James Q. Wilson
“Community-based policing has now come to mean everything. It's a slogan. It has come to mean so many different things that people who endorse it, such as the Congress of the United States, do not know what they are talking about.” PeopleKnowsMeanDifferentStatesCommunityUnitedTalkingUnited StatesCongressDifferent ThingsSlogans Author:James Q. Wilson
“What most needs explanation is not why some people are criminals, but why most people are not.” PeopleNeedsCriminalsExplanation Author:James Q. Wilson
