“Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill it teaches the whole people by example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means - to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal - would bring terrible retributions.” PeopleIfsMenMayMeanEndsWholeGovernmentLawOrderLibertyTeachTeacherCrimeExampleTerribleIllConvictionCriminalsEvery ManCommitSecureAdministrationJustifyAnarchyContemptInvitesContagiousRetributionLiberty And JusticeCriminal LawEnds Justify The MeansConflicting Opinions Author:Louis D. Brandeis
“The liberals of the eighteenth century, guided by the ideas of natural law and of the Enlightenment, demanded for everyone equality of political and civil rights... Nothing, however, is as ill-founded as the assertion of the alleged equality of all members of the human race.” HumansIdeasLawPoliticalNaturalRaceRightsCenturyMembersEnlightenmentIllCivil RightsHuman RaceAssertionNatural Law Book:Liberalism: The Classical Tradition: The Economist Source: Liberalism: The Classical Tradition: The Economist
“Thought may well be ever ranging, And opinion ever changing, Task-work be, though ill begun, Dealt with by experience better; By the law and by the letter Duty done is duty done Do it, Time is on the wing!” WellsMayDoneLawOpinionDutyTasksLettersWingsIll Book:Poems: With a Memoir Source: Poems: With a Memoir
“History affords us many instances of the ruin of states, by the prosecution of measures ill suited to the temper and genius of their people. The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. ... These measures never fail to create great and violent jealousies and animosities between the people favored and the people oppressed; whence a total separation of affections, interests, political obligations, and all manner of connections, by which the whole state is weakened.” PeopleStatesWholeLawPoliticalNationsInterestFailingPolicyGeniusConnectionsPrejudiceIllAffectionFavorsSeparationViolentObligationOppressionInstanceRuinsTemperOppressedMistakenAnimosityProsecution Author:Benjamin Franklin
“Some persons hold that, while it is proper for the lawgiver to encourage and exhort men to virtue on moral grounds, in the expectation that those who have had a virtuous moral upbringing will respond, yet he is bound to impose chastisement and penalties on the disobedient and ill-conditioned, and to banish the incorrigible out of the state altogether. For (they argue) although the virtuous man, who guides his life by moral ideals, will be obedient to reason, the base, whose desires are fixed on pleasure, must be chastised by pain, like a beast of burden.” MenPersonsStatesReasonPainLawDesireJusticePleasureMoralVirtueExpectationsIdealsBoundsIllBurdenGuidesArguingFixedBeastVirtuousPenaltiesUpbringingObedientChastisementIncorrigibleBeast Of Burden Author:Aristotle