Legislation Quotes - Page 16

• Priestly was the first (unless it was Becarria) who taught my lips to pronounce this sacred truth--that the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.

  Jeremy Bentham

  Happiness, Numbers, Foundation

  "The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham". p. 142,

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• Precedents are the disgrace of legislation. They are not wanted to justify right measures, are absolutely insufficient to excuse wrong ones. They can only be useful to heralds, dancing masters, and gentlemen ushers.

  Laurence Sterne

  Dancing, Gentleman, Excuse

  Richard Griffith, Laurence Sterne (1794). “The Posthumous Works of Laurence Sterne: ...”

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• All legislation, all government, all society is founded upon the principle of mutual concession, politeness, comity, courtesy; upon these everything is based...Let him who elevates himself above humanity, above its weaknesses, its infirmities, its wants, its necessities, say, if he pleases, I will never compromise; but let no one who is not above the frailties of our common nature disdain compromises.

  Henry Clay

  Government, Humanity, Weakness

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• No distinction seems to be more obvious than that between spiritual and temporal matters. Yet whenever they have been made objects of Legislation, they have clashed and contended with each other, till one or the other has gained the supremacy.

  James Madison

  Spiritual, Religion, Matter

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• If the national mind of America be judged of by its legislation, it is of a very high order ... If the American nation be judged of by its literature, it may be pronounced to have no mind at all.

  Harriet Martineau

  Order, Law, America

  Harriet Martineau (2004). “Harriet Martineau: Studies of America, 1831-1868”

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• Legislation may at times be disobeyed, but never law, for the breaking brings swift punishment of its own.

  Myrtle Reed

  Law, Punishment, May

  Myrtle Reed (2012). “The Spinster Book”, p.53, tredition

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• Perhaps the best testimony to the effectiveness of the reforms of 1852 is the fact, that men of a slightly later generation, familiar with the working of the courts half a century after, find it difficult to believe that such abuses as are plainly described by the legislation of that year, should really have existed in the middle of the nineteenth century.

  Edward Jenks

  Believe, Men, Years

  Edward Jenks (1922). “A Short History of English Law: From the Earliest Times to the End of the Year 1919”

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• I believe in strong legislation for the environment. So the only question is being smart enough and educated enough to scrutinize the people who are writing the legislation, because there are plenty of ulterior motives out there.

  Greg Graffin

  Strong, Smart, Believe

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• My legislation would cut off all funding for trials of anyone from Guantanamo in any court in the United States of America. This bill would help stop the misguided plan to put Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other 9/11 terrorists on trial in Downtown Manhattan.

  Peter King

  Cutting, America, United States

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• You can support trans-positive legislation, tranny artists, and the inclusion of trannies in your neighborhood, schools, place of worship, whatever. For the long term? Join or initiate some good legal battles against the puritanical laws that exist around sex and gender.

  Kate Bornstein

  Sex, School, Artist

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• Up until, really, Roosevelt, African-Americans largely voted ninety per cent Republican. That was the political origins, that's what their political voice was in the Republican party. During that history, that last sixty or seventy years of history, the Republican party effectively walked away from the community. They were afraid to really embrace civil rights even though they embraced civil rights legislation. And so it's not enough to just to put it on paper, you gotta actually show up and be in the community, and understand what that struggle was really about.

  Michael Steele

  Party, Struggle, Rights

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• In vain shall Great Britain confer upon her colonies the free government and liberal principles of legislation, for which she is distinguished, if she do not carry with her the revelations of God.

  John Strachan

  Government, Principles, Revelations

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• America should meet its obligations in the form of Social Security, Medicare, our ability to pay our military, legally binding legislation that allows unemployment compensation, the judiciary, the federal court system, the federal prison system, all those kinds of things have to be paid for.

  Bill Johnson

  Military, America, Pay

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• The presumption that the law can tell us what natural institution is supposed to be is a formula for totalitarianism. There's not equality in a family; there never is. And yet for that reason, the family is condemned as patriarchal. The goal of this sort of legislation is about the destruction of the traditional family, not just marriage.

  Francis George

  Law, Goal, Reason

  Source: www.realclearreligion.org

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• The more I hear of ban-the-gun legislation forming in Washington, and the more I hear it advocated from the editorial pulpit of the New York Times, the more I want my own .45 holstered within easy reach of this typewriter.

  Patrick Bedard

  New York, Gun, Typewriters

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• I'm a little fatigued of adults saying we've got to worry about the kids. And these are the same adults that don't know science and are running things and wielding resources and legislation.

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  Running, Kids, Worry

  "Q&a: Neil Degrasse Tyson Talks 'Cosmos,' Dark Energy and Seth Macfarlane". Fox Conference Call Interview, gazette.com. March 05, 2014.

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• There is one central characteristic of anarchism on the matter of means, and that central principle is a principle of direct action - of not going through the forms that the society offers you, of representative government, of voting, of legislation, but directly taking power.

  Howard Zinn

  Mean, Direct Action, Government

  "Rebels Against Tyranny". Interview with Ziga Vodovnik, www.counterpunch.org. May 12, 2008.

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• You just can't get anything done. You can't get hearings, you can't get legislation, you can't get responses by the regulatory agencies - you can't get anything done. I'm a realist. I don't work harder and harder to get less and less.

  Ralph Nader

  Hard Work, Agency, Done

  Interview with Gregg LaGambina, www.avclub.com. September 24, 2008.

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• Local and state governments have outrun the federal government. The EPA has served notice that it will enact a rule requiring CO2 reductions by major emitters in the absence of major legislation. But it's a blunt instrument that is a little more difficult to use than a legislative remedy.

  Al Gore

  Government, Use, Littles

  ""What in the Hell Do They Think Is Causing It?"". Interview with John Dickerson, www.slate.com. December 8, 2009.

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• The existence of the EPA regulation will require large carbon polluters to look at their hole cards, and some of them have decided that they much prefer legislation.

  Al Gore

  Cards, Looks, Regulation

  ""What in the Hell Do They Think Is Causing It?"". Interview with John Dickerson, www.slate.com. December 8, 2009.

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• Loggers losing their jobs because of Spotted Owl legislation is, in my eyes, no different than people being out of work after the furnaces of Dachau shut down.

  David

  Jobs, Eye, People

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• A territory cannot become a state or a nation unless Congress approves legislation and the president signs it.

  Pedro Pierluisi

  President, Territory, States

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• All Catholics must make themselves felt as active elements in daily political life in the countries where they live. They must penetrate, wherever possible, in the administration of civil affairs; must constantly exert the utmost vigilance and energy to prevent the usages of liberty from going beyond the limits fixed by God's law. All Catholics should do all in their power to cause the constitutions of states and legislation to be modeled on the principles of the true Church.

  Pope Leo XIII

  Country, Law, Scary

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• I don't consider myself to be a crusader of any sort. I was bystander to a certain number of newspaper crusades. They end badly, in terms of being either fraudulent or by inspiring legislations that makes things worse. So, I regard myself as someone coming to the campfire with the truest possible narrative he can acquire.

  David Simon

  Bystanders, Numbers, Narrative

  "Behind The Wire". Interview with Meghan O'Rourke, www.slate.com. December 1, 2006.

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• Can you understand why the Congress, most states and most cities refuse to pass legislation requiring the registration and licensing of any and all guns? For the life of me, I can't. We must register our cars and be licensed to drive. In many places we must get licenses for dogs and even bicycles. Being required to register firearms and show the competence and capacity to handle them hardly seems unreasonable, hardly seems an infringement of freedom. What is it that blocks such legislation? Why do they block it? How are they able to block it?

  Malcolm Forbes

  Dog, Block, Gun

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