To say that a farm boy knows how to milk a cow is to say that we can send him out to the barn with an empty pail and expect him to return with milk. To say that a criminologist understands crime is not to say that we can send him out with a grant or a law and expect him to return with a lower crime rate. He is more likely to return with a report on why he has not succeeded yet, and including the inevitable need for more money, a larger staff, more sweeping powers, etc.
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There is in us a tendency to locate the shaping forces of our existence outside ourselves. Success and failure are read more
There is in us a tendency to locate the shaping forces of our existence outside ourselves. Success and failure are unavoidably related in our minds with the state of things around us. Hence it is that people with a sense of fulfillment think it is a good world and would like to preserve it as it is, while the frustrated favor radical change. The tendency to look for all causes outside ourselves persists even when it is clear that our state of being is the product of personal qualities such as ability, character, appearance, health and so on.
It is the invariable habit of bureaucracies, at all times and everywhere, to assume...that every citizen is a criminal. Their read more
It is the invariable habit of bureaucracies, at all times and everywhere, to assume...that every citizen is a criminal. Their one apparent purpose, pursued with a relentless and furious diligence, is to convert the assumption into a fact. They hunt endlessly for proofs, and, when proofs are lacking, for mere suspicions. The moment they become aware of a definite citizen, John Doe, seeking what is his right under the law, they begin searching feverishly for an excuse for withholding it from him.
Both free speech rights and property rights belong legally to individuals, but their real function is social, to benefit vast read more
Both free speech rights and property rights belong legally to individuals, but their real function is social, to benefit vast numbers of people who do not themselves exercise these rights.
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violen trevolution inevitable.
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violen trevolution inevitable.
It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me. But it can keep him from lynching read more
It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me. But it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.
The public must be put in its place, so that it may exercise its own powers, but no less and read more
The public must be put in its place, so that it may exercise its own powers, but no less and perhaps even more, so that each of us may live free of the trampling and the roar of a bewildered herd.
What right does Congress have to go around making laws just because they deem it necessary?
What right does Congress have to go around making laws just because they deem it necessary?
Every St. Patrick's Day every Irishman goes out to find another Irishman to make a speech to.
Every St. Patrick's Day every Irishman goes out to find another Irishman to make a speech to.
I am working for the time when unqualified blacks, browns, and women join the unqualified men in running our government.
I am working for the time when unqualified blacks, browns, and women join the unqualified men in running our government.
