“ It does set very dangerous precedents. It would now be difficult to find a common international approach to dealing with other political hotspots such as North Korea. ”
- Helen Clark- Copy
- 627
“ The glory of each generation is to make its own precedents. ”
- Belva Lockwood- Copy
- 3.3K
“ The man who will follow precedent, but never create one, is merely an obvious example of the routineer. You find him desperately numerous in the civil service, in the official bureaus. To him government is something given as unconditionally, as absolutely as ocean or hill… ”
- Walter Lippmann- Copy
- 3.5K
“ It is found by experience that admirable laws and right precedents among the good have their origin in the misdeeds of others. ”
- Publius Cornelius Tacitus- Copy
- 1.6K
“ Precedents are dangerous things; let the rein of government then be braced and held with a steady hand. ”
- George Washington- Copy
- 2.8K
“ To say that a thing has never yet been done among men is to erect a barrier stronger than reason, stronger than discussion. ”
- Thomas Brackett Reed- Copy
- 78
“ Judicial judgment must take deep account of the day before yesterday in order that yesterday may not paralyze today. ”
- Felix Frankfurter- Copy
- 2.4K
“ Man's capacities have never been measured. Nor are we to judge of what he can do by precedents, so little has been tried. ”
- Henry David Thoreau- Copy
- 2.3K
“ Truth always originates in a minority of one, and every custom begins as a broken precedent. ”
- William J. Durant- Copy
- 3.6K
“ The position of First Lady has no rules, just precedent, so its evolution has been at a virtual standstill for years. If Martha Washington didn't do it, then no one is sure it should be done. ”
- Paula Poundstone- Copy
- 2.3K
“ The past which is so presumptuously brought forward as a precedent for the present was itself founded on some past that went before it. ”
- Anne Germain De Stael- Copy
- 1.2K
“ He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. ”
- Thomas Paine- Copy
- 1.3K
“ Give me the critic bred in Nature's school, who neither talks by rote, nor thinks by rule; who feeling's honest dictates still obeys, and dares, without a precedent, to praise. ”
- Sir Martin Archer Shee- Copy
- 1K
“ Genius is the ability to act rightly without precedent — the power to do the right thing the first time. ”
- Elbert Hubbard- Copy
- 2.9K
“ He who would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. ”
- Thomas Paine- Copy
- 1.2K
“ If you're strong enough, there are no precedents. ”
- Francis Scott Fitzgerald- Copy
- 3.5K
“ To do something, say something, see something, before anybody else — these are things that confer a pleasure compared with which other pleasures are tame and commonplace, other ecstasies cheap and trivial. ”
- Mark Twain- Copy
- 3.2K
“ I have an almost complete disregard of precedent and a faith in the possibility of something better. It irritates me to be told how things always have been done… I defy the tyranny of precedent. I cannot afford the luxury of a closed mind. I go for anything new that might improve the past. ”
- Clara Barton- Copy
- 838
“ It is in the very nature of things human that every act that has once made its appearance and has been recorded in the history of mankind stays with mankind as a potentiality long after its actuality has become a thing of the past. ”
- Hannah Arendt- Copy
- 1.3K
“ It is a maxim among these lawyers, that whatever hath been done before, may legally be done again: and therefore they take special care to record all the decisions formerly made against common justice and the general reason of mankind. ”
- Jonathan Swift- Copy
- 3.3K
“ When you raise issues with the President, try to come away with both that decision and also a precedent. Pose issues so as to evoke broader policy guidance. This can help to answer a range of similar issues likely to arise later. ”
- Donald Rumsfeld- Copy
- 1.9K
“ I shall always be consistent and never change my ways so long as I am in my senses; but for the sake of precedent the Senate should beware of binding itself to support the acts of any man, since he might through some mischance suffer a change. ”
- Tiberius Caesar- Copy
- 3K
“ Ready comprehension is often a knee-jerk response and the most dangerous form of understanding. It blinks an opaque screen over your ablility to learn. The judgemental precedents of law function that way, littering your path with dead ends. Be warned… ”
- Frank Herbert- Copy
- 3.6K
- 1