Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quoteShare via Email Print this Page Daily Quotes Archives2018-07-18 Jul 18, 2018The worst tyrants are those which establish themselves in our own breasts.~ William Ellery ChanningReserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.~ Hypatia of AlexandriaFrom the moment the first leader of the first clan in human history took charge, he busied himself with this question: 'What can I say and do that will make my people react the way I want them to.' He was the first Pavlov. He was the first psychologist, the first propagandist, the first mind-control boss. His was the first little empire. Since then, only the means and methods have changed.~ Jon Rappoport Jul 17, 2018[W]henever the legislators endeavour to take away, and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any farther obedience, and are left to the common refuge, which God hath provided for all men, against force and violence. Whensoever therefore the legislative shall transgress this fundamental rule of society; and either by ambition, fear, folly or corruption, endeavour to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other, an absolute power over the lives, liberties, and estates of the people; by this breach of trust they forfeit the power the people had put into their hands for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the people, who have a right to resume their original liberty ...~ John Locke Jul 16, 2018How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!~ Samuel AdamsIt is not only vain, but wicked, in a legislature to frame laws in opposition to the laws of nature, and to arm them with the terrors of death. This is truly creating crimes in order to punish them.~ Thomas JeffersonTo disregard such a deliberate choice of words and their natural meaning, would be a departure from the first principle of constitutional interpretation. "In expounding the Constitution of the United States," said Chief Justice Taney in Holmes v. Jennison, 14 U.S. 540, 570-1, "every word must have its due force and appropriate meaning; for it is evident from the whole instrument, that, no word was unnecessarily used, or needlessly added. The many discussions which have taken place upon the construction of the Constitution, have proved the correctness of this proposition; and shown the high talent, the caution and the foresight of the illustrious men who framed it. Every word appears to have been weighed with the utmost deliberation and its force and effect to have been fully understood.~ Wright v. United States Jul 13, 2018For a government to declare a vice to be a crime, and to punish it as such, is an attempt to falsify the very nature of things. It is as absurd as it would be to declare truth to be a falsehood, or falsehood a truth.~ Lysander SpoonerFor a punishment to be just it should consist of only such gradations of intensity as suffice to deter men from committing crimes.~ Cesare BeccariaThe function of the prosecutor under the federal Constitution is not to tack as many skins of victims as possible against the wall. His function is to vindicate the rights of the people as expressed in the laws and give those accused of crime a fair trial.~ Justice William O. Douglas Jul 12, 2018There is no zeal blinder than that which is inspired with a love of justice against offenders.~ Henry FieldingThe laws of man may bind him in chains or may put him to death, but they never can make him wise, virtuous, or happy.~ John Quincy AdamsEvery crime is born of necessity. If you want less crime, you must change the conditions. Poverty makes crime. Want, rags, crusts, misfortune - all these awake the wild beast in man, and finally he takes, and takes contrary to law, and becomes a criminal. And what do you do with him? You punish him. Why not punish a man for having consumption? The time will come when you will see that that is just as logical. What do you do with the criminal? You send him to the penitentiary. Is he made better? Worse. The first thing you do is to try to trample out his manhood, by putting an indignity upon him. You mark him. You put him in stripes. At night you put him in darkness. His feeling for revenge grows. You make a wild beast of him, and he comes out of that place branded in body and soul, and then you won't let him reform if he wants to.~ Robert G. Ingersoll Previous week's quotes Next week's quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print