Wayne Paul Poetry

Probably, no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization.  We must make our choice; we cannot have both.  Abraham Flexner

I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends.  Abraham Lincoln

Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short lived.  Abraham Lincoln

America will never be destroyed from the outside.  If we falter, and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.  Abraham Lincoln

We must recognize the chief characteristic of the modern era-a permanent state of what I call violent peace.  Admiral Sir John Fisher

Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.  Adolph Hiter

In war, truth is the first casualty.  Aeschylus

Any excuse will serve a tyrant.  Aesop

One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing; that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one.  Agatha Christie

No war is inevitable until it breaks out.  A. J. P. Taylor

Wars based on principle are far more destructive...the attacker will not destroy that which he is after.  Alan Watts

I am a moderate liberal, as all rational people are and ought to be, and it is in this spirit that I have tried to act throughout a long life.  Johann Wolfgang von Geothe, quoted by Johann Peter Eckermann, Conversations with Goethe, 1830

Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence; Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear.  William E. Gladstone, speech in Plumstead England, 1878

A liberal mind is a mind that is able to imagine itself believing anything.  Max Eastman, Masses, 1917

It is the duty of the liberal to protect and to extend the basic democratic freedoms.  Chester Bowles, New Republic, 1946

A rich man told me recently that a liberal is a man who tells other people what to do with their money.  LeRoi Jones, "Tokenism: 300 years for five cents", Home, 1966

The sickly, weakly, timid man fears the people, and is a Tory by nature.  Thomas Jefferson, letter to Marquis de Lafayette, 1823

The principle of Conservatism has always appeared to me to be not only foolish, but to be actually felo de se:  it destroys what it loves, because it will not mend it.  Thomas Arnold, letter to James Marshall, 1840

Men are conservatives when they are least vigorous, or when they are most luxurious.  They are conservatives after dinner.  Ralph Waldo Emerson, "New England Reformers", 1844

A conservative government is an organized hypocrisy.  Benjamin Disraeli, speech in the House of Commons, 1845

The man for whom law exists-the man of forms, the conservative-is a tame man.  Henry David Thoreau, Journal, 1851

When a nation's young men are conservative, its funeral bell is already rung.  Henry Ward Beecher, Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit, 1887

The radical invents the views.  When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them.  Mark Twain, Notebook, 1935

A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward.  Franklin D. Roosevelt, radio address, 1936

How can wealth persuade poverty to use its political freedom to keep wealth in power?  Here lies the whole art of Conservative politics in the twentieth century.  Aneurin Bevan, In Place of Fear, 1952

I am driven to grudging toleration of the Conservative Party because it is the party of non-politics, of resistance to politics.  Kingsley Amis, Sunday Telegraph, 1967

I've got money so I'm a Conservative.  Roy Herbert Thomson, Lord Thomson of Fleet, recalled on his death, 1976

Conservatives do not worship democracy.  Sir Ian Gilmour, Inside Right, 1977

Mankind censures injustice, fearing that they may be victims of it and not because they shrink from committing it.  Plato, The Republic, c 390 BC

Let the punishment match the offense.  Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Legibus, c 52 BC

More law, less justice.  Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Legibus, c 52 BC

Extreme justice is often unjust.  Jean Racine, The Thebaid, 1664

Rigid justice is the greates injustice.  Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia, 1732

Be just before you're generous.  Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal, 1777

That it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer, is a Maxim that has been long and generally approved.  Benjamin Franklin, letter to Benjamin Vaughan, 1785

All punishment is mischief.  All punishment in itself is evil.  Jeremy Bentham, Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, 1789

The art of policing is, in order not to punish often, to punish severly.  Napoleon I, letter to M. Fouche, 1805

It is the feeling of injustice that is insupportable to all men.  Thomas Carlyle, Chartism, 1839

Justice is truth in action.  Joseph Joubert, Pensees, 1842

I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.  Abraham Lincoln, speech in Washington D.C., 1865

National injustice is the surest road to national downfall.  William E. Gladstone, speech in Plumstead England, 1878

Once the laws are just, then men will be just.  Anatole France, Monsieur Bergeret a Paris, 1900

For my part I think it is a less evil that some criminals should escape, than that the government should play an ignoble part.  Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Olmstead vs. United States, 1928

Peace and justice are two sides of the same coin.  Dwight D. Eisenhower, radio and television address, 1957

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.  Martin Luther King Jr., "Letter from the Birmingham Jail", 1963

Before going to prison I believed that criticism of the criminal justice system for its treatment of the poor was so much liberal bleating and bunk.  I was wrong.  G. Gordon Liddy, Connecticut, 1977

Even when laws have been written down, they ought not to always remain unaltered.  Aristotle, Politics, 343 BC

Good laws, if they are not obeyed, do not constitute good government.  Aristotle, Politics, 343 BC

No law is quite appropriate for all.  Livy, Ab Urbe Condita, c 29 BC

Laws are like spider's webs which, if anything small falls into them they ensnare it, but large things break through and escape.  Solon, quoted by Diogenes Laertius Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, 3rd cen. AD

The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.  William Shakespeare, Henry VI Part II, 1591

The more laws, the more offenders.  Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia, 1732

The language of laws should be simple; directness is always better than elaborate wording.  Charles Louis de Montesquieu, De l'Esprit des lois, 1748

Good laws lead to the making of better ones; bad ones bring about worse.  Jean Jacque Rosseau, The Social Contract, 1762

Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.  Oliver Goldsmith, The Traveller, 1765

Laws made by common consent must not be trampled on by individuals.  George Washington, letter to Col. Vanneter, 1781

The mass of the people have nothing to do with the laws but to obey them.  Samuel Horsley, speech in the House of Lords, 1795

The victim to too severe a law is considered as a martyr rather than a criminal.  Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon, 1825

Good men must not obey the laws too well.  Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Politics" Essays: Second Series, 1844

The lawyer's truth is not Truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency.  Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience, 1849

Many laws as certainly make bad men, as bad men make many laws.  Walter Savage Landor, "Diogenes and Plato" Imaginary Conversations, 1824-1853

Riches without law are more dangerous than is poverty without law.  Henry Ward Beecher, Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit, 1887

So long as governments set the example of killing their enemies, private individuals will occasionally kill theirs.  Elbert G. Hubbard, Contemplations, 1902

Great cases like hard cases make bad law.  Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Northern Securities Company vs. United States, 1904

As in law so in war, the longest purse finally wins.  Mohandas K. Gandhi, lecture to the Bombay Provincial Cooperative Conference, 1917

The law must be stable, but it must not stand still.  Roscoe Pound, Introduction to the Philosophy of Law, 1922

Nobody has a more sacred obligation to obey the law than those who make the law.  Jean Anouilh, Anigone, 1942

Every so often, we pass laws repealing human nature.  Howard Lindsay, quoted by John Crosby New York Herald Tribune, 1954

The police must obey the law while enforcing the law.  Earl Warren, unanimous opinion, 1959

Law alone cannot make men see right.  John F. Kennedy, televised speech, 1963

There are not enough jails, not enough policemen, not enough courts to enforce a law not supported by the people.  Hubert H. Humphrey, speech in Williamsburg VA, 1965

Law is a reflection and a source of prejudice.  It both enforces and suggests forms of bias.  Diane B. Schulder, "Does the law Oppress Women?" Sisterhood Is Powerful, 1970

There are times when national interest is more important than the law.  Henry A. Kissinger, New York Times Magazine, 1976

There is far too much law for those who can afford it and far too little for those cannot.  Derek Bok, report to the Board of Overseers of Harvard Univ., 1983