"The mere title of lawyer is sufficient to deprive a man of the public confidence ... The most innocent and irreproachable life cannot guard a lawyer against the hatred of his fellow citizens." -- John Quincy Adams
This is a site containing my more or less systematic thinking about "the Law" and interesting or entertaining general law stuff. Please feel free to read, download and give me feedback by e-mail.
Law Links
Moriel: A review of an important Texas Supreme Court opinion (an example of my legal writing).
Extropian Law: An essay about law and extropiansim.
A Liability Primer for Nanotechnologists: A paper I presented at the 1998 Foresight Institute Senior Associate's Gathering.
Interested in legal issues and the future? Drop me a line about Extropy Institute's "Law and the Future" online forum. I moderate the mail list. Traffic is low and quality high.
Abraham Lincoln's Practical Legal Wisdom
Interesting Reading
Readings in Law and Social Science: Selections from my personal reading list.
Law as a Private Good, David Friedman.
"Smart Contracts": Nick Szabo's fascinating idea of "contracts embedded in the world".
Legal Quotes and Aphorisms
"Barrister's speeches vanish quicker than Chinese dinners, and even the greatest victory in court rarely survives longer than the next Sunday's papers." -- Rumpole o' the Bailey
"There is no debt with so much prejudice put off as that of justice." -- Plutarch, Of those whom God is slow to punish
"Lysander said that the law spoke too softly to be heard in such a noise of war." -- Plutarch, Life of Caius Marius.
"Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice." -- H.L. Mencken
"Lawyer - One who protects us from robbers by taking away the temptation." -- H.L. Mencken
"Jury - A group of 12 people, who, having lied to the judge about their health, hearing, and business engagements, have failed to fool him." -- H.L. Mencken
"It is the fundamental theory of all the more recent American law...that the average citizen is half-witted, and hence not to be trusted to either his own devices or his own thoughts." -- H.L. Mencken
"I do not say that all lawyers are bad, but I do maintain that the general tendency is bad: standing up in a court for whichever side has paid you, affecting warmth and conviction, and doing everything you can to win the case, whatever your private opinion may be, will soon dull any fine sense of honour. The mercenary soldier is not a valued creature, but at least he risks his life, whereas these men merely risk their next fee.
"... [I]t is often to the lawyer's interest to make wrong seem right, and the more skilful he is the more he succeeds. Judges are even more exposed to temptation, since they sit every day; though it is a temptation of a different sort: they have enormous powers, and if they choose they may be cruel, opprressive, forward and perverse virtually without control -- they may interrupt and bully, further their political views, and pervert the course of justice." -- Stephen Maturin, surgeon of the Royal Navy, in P. O'Brian, The Reverse of the Medal, 226-27.
Justice! Custodian of the world! But since the world errs, justice must be cutodian of the world's errors. -- Ugo Betti
There is no such thing as justice in the abstract; it is merely a compact between men. -- Epicurus
Justice is a faculty that may be developed. This development is what constitutes the education of the human race. -- P.J. Proudhon
There's no surer justice in the world that that which makes a rich thief hang a poor one. -- Piere Cardenal
Justice: A commodity which in a more or less adulterated condition the State sells to the citizen as a reward for his allegiance, taxes and personal service. -- Ambrose Bierce
If you study the history of the world, you must admit that the source of justice was the fear of injustice. -- Horace
Justice consists in no injury to men; decency in giving them no offence. -- Cicero
Somehow, our sense of justice never turns in its sleep till long after the sense of injustice in others has been thoroughly aroused. -- Max Beerbohm
Justice is always violent to the party offending, for each man is innocent in his own eyes. -- Daniel Defoe
If we do not maintain justice, justice will not maintain us. -- Francis Bacon
| Return to my | Dig deeper at
|
