Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
In the Middle Ages, when it was very difficult to overtake offenders, the judges inflicted the most dreadful tortures on the few who were arrested, which by no means diminished the number of crimes. It has since been discovered that when justice is more certain and more mild, it is at the same time more efficacious.
Alexis de Tocqueville • Democracy in America, Volume I and II (Optimized for Kindle)
He begins by supposing what he calls a “state of nature,” antecedent to all human government. In this state there is a “law of nature,” but the law of nature consists of divine commands, and is not imposed by any human legislator.
Bertrand Russell • History of Western Philosophy
offers nothing even remotely resembling an argument to show that he knows what conditions would produce good men, or that anybody knows. He cannot surely mean that mere conditions of physical comfort and mental culture produce good men; because manifestly they do not.
G. K. Chesterton • The G. K. Chesterton Collection [50 Books]
The main object of the political jurisdiction which obtains in the United States is, therefore, to deprive the ill-disposed citizen of an authority which he has used amiss, and to prevent him from ever acquiring it again. This is evidently an administrative measure sanctioned by the formalities of a judicial decision.
Alexis de Tocqueville • Democracy in America, Volume I and II (Optimized for Kindle)
Religious authority has often, doubtless, been oppressive or unreasonable; just as every legal system (and especially our present one) has been callous and full of a cruel apathy. It is rational to attack the police; nay, it is glorious. But the modern critics of religious authority are like men who should attack the police without ever having
... See moreG. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton • Orthodoxy
There cannot be a general specialist; the specialist can have no kind of authority, unless he has avowedly limited his range. There cannot be such a thing as the health adviser of the community, because there cannot be such a thing as one who specialises in the universe.
G. K. Chesterton • The G. K. Chesterton Collection [50 Books]
jury. There should be only one theory, consisting of a few sentences, that will always tell you where you are and where you need to go when in the midst of an oral argument, deposition, or research.
Vibeke Norgaard Martin • 101 Things I Learned® in Law School
I believe that much of today's crime is also a function of space. We cannot pack a dozen young rats in a concrete shoebox without their attacking and killing each other. We cannot pack millions of our young into the concrete boxes of our cities without expecting them to lash out in pain and anger and violence.
GERRY SPENCE • HOW TO ARGUE AND WIN EVERY TIME
In a community in which lawyers are allowed to occupy, without opposition, that high station which naturally belongs to them, their general spirit will be eminently conservative and anti-democratic.