… entitlement to Social Security benefits is not a contractual right. — IRS’ summary of Flemming v. Nestor (U.S. Supreme Court, 1960)
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for anjust man is also a prison. — Henry David Thoreau
You will always find something in the last place you look.
Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work, driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for, in order to get to a job that you need so you can pay for the clothes, car and the house that you leave empty all day in order to afford to live in it. — Ellen Goodman
The existence of abstract nouns is a proof that abstract thought has occurred; abstract thought is a mark of civilized man; and so it has come about that periphrasis and civilization are by many held to be inseparable. These good people feel that there is an almost indecent nakedness, a reversion to barbarism, in saying No news is good news instead of “The absence of intelligence is an indication of satisfactory developments.”","— Fowler’s English Usage
To pass lightly from old laws to new ones is a certain means to weakening the inmost essence of all law whatever. — Aristotle
The habit of lightly changing the laws is an evil; and when the advantage of change is small, some defects whether in the law or in the ruler had better be met with philosophic toleration. The citizen will gain less by the change than he will lose by acquiring the habit of disobedience. — Aristotle
The trouble with quotes on the Internet is that you can never know if they are genuine. — Abraham Lincoln
The world is rated R, and no one is checking IDs. Do not try to make it G by imagining the shadows away. Do not try to hide your children from the world forever, but do not pretend there is no danger. Train them. Give them sharp eyes and bellies full of laughter. Make them dangerous. Make them yeast, and when they’ve grown, they will pollute the shadows. — N.D. Wilson
To all my hard-core dispensationalist friends: the Godhead is a trinity, not a trilogy. — OneRhetoritician, forum post
“,”
“The virtue that must be guarded is not worth the sentinel;” and these girls, who have been brought up in such strictness and seclusion, with the idea that none of their Mormon companions would dare attempt their virtue, are but poorly prepared to encounter the seductive arts we know to be common in the Gentile world. — J. H. Beadle
I pay no attention to the children, but leave that to their mothers, according to the law of nature. The bull pays no attention to his calves. — Brigham Young [Morman leader, polygamist]
Pagan antiquity has never seen any institution more polluting than the confessional. I know nothing more corrupting than the law which forces a female to tell her thoughts, desires, and most secret feelings and actions to an unmarried priest. The confessional is a school of perdition. — Charles Chiniquy
School is a twelve-year jail sentence where bad habits are the only curriculum truly learned. I teach school and win awards doing it. I should know. — John Taylor Gatto
It is unconstitutional to legislate the impossible. — Jon Roland, on Government-Sponsored Healthcare
If you ever find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics are horrible.
For is the kingdom of God to become words or syllables? — KJV Translators
You can’t expect to go through all your life without being offended. No one has the right to live without being offended. — Phillip Pullman
Lex semper accusat. — Martin Luther
There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult. — Sir Charles Antony Richard Hoare