Francis Atterbury Quotes

Tis not in battles that from youth we train The Governor who must be wise and good, And temper with the sternness of the brain Thoughts motherly, and meek as womanhood.

Such a trial is not only unlawful but is a gross blunder in policy. It denies the great, fundamental principle, that ours is a government of Law, and that the law is strong enough to rule the people wisely and well.

…mortals cannot cherish what is private without injury to the community…to the extent that we call anything our own it absorbs our affections and diverts them from the service of the common good.

Benefit to the community precedes benefit to the individual.

The fathers who contrived and passed the Consititution were wise in their generation; as time passes, we come more and more to realize their powers of divination.

A world is supported by four things: the learning of wise, the justice of great, the prayers of the righteous and the valor of the brave. But all of these are as nothing without a ruler who knows the art of ruling.

Govern wisely, and as little as possible

The government that is wise will consider what is best for all its people.

Wise laws and just restraints are to a noble nation not chains, but chains of mail, -- strength and defense, though something of an incumbrance.

It's of more importance to community that innocence should be protected than it is that guilt should be punished

What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all of its children.

There are certain basic principles regarding the proper role of government. If principles are correct, then they can be applied to any specific proposal with confidence... The true statesman values principle above popularity, and works to create popularity for those political principles which are wise and just.

We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism.

We refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.

The profession of the law of which he [a judge] is a part is charged with the articulation and final incidence of the successive efforts towards justice; it must feel the circulation of the communal blood or it will wither and drop off, a useless member.

The principle of real leadership ignored, the immortal objects of society forgotten, practical conservatism degenerated into mere laudation of private enterprise, economic policy almost wholly surrendered to special interests.

While craving justice for ourselves, it is never wise to be unjust to others.

We want a state of things in which crime will not pay, a state of things which allows every man the largest liberty compatible with the liberty of every other man.

There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing.

It is fortunate for this community that I am not a criminal.

How I wish that somewhere there existed an island for those who are wise and of good will.

The health of a community is an almost unfailing index of its morals.

I am more optimistic though, that this court will eventually conclude that the effort to eliminate arbitrariness while preserving fairness in the infliction of [death] is so plainly doomed to failure that is - and the death penalty - must be abandoned altogether. I may not live to see that day, but I have faith that eventually it will arrive.