Massachusetts Essex Quotes

I found a mistake in a rule. They addressed the wrong rule number... I pointed it out, did an amendment, and everybody was happy after that.

A constitution … is good for a certain people and for a certain time. It shouldn’t be mummified.

When you have made an error of historic proportions, the sooner you change policy, the smaller the price you will pay.

The functionaries of public power rarely strengthen in their dispositions to abridge it, and an unorganized call for timely amendment is not likely to prevail against an organized opposition to it

The example of changing a constitution by assembling the wise men of the State instead of assembling armies will be worth as much to the world as the former examples we had given them

Happy for us that when we find our constitutions defective and insufficient to secure the happiness of our people, we can assemble with all the coolness of philosophers and set it to rights, while every other nation on earth must have recourse to arms to amend or to restore their constitutions

After an error you need not only to remove the causes but also to correct the error itself: after a sin you must not only, if possible, remove the temptation, you must also go back and repent the sin itself. In each case an 'undoing' is required.

Every time I make a mistake with a company, I write it out and try to figure out why it happened.

Constitutions should consist only of general provisions; the reason is that they must necessarily be permanent, and that they cannot calculate for the possible change of things.

To me, error analysis is the sweet spot for improvement.

It is easier to criticize than to correct our past errors.

A changeless constitution becomes the protector not only of vested rights but of vested wrongs.

Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence and deem them, like the arc of the covenant, too sacred to be touched.

Constitutional reform is exasperatingly slow.

It will give satisfaction to the people; and be a happy means, under providence, of preventing popular commotions, mobs, bloodshed and civil war.

If a constitutional amendment could regulate the relation of master and servant, it certainly can, on the same principle, make regulations concerning the relation of parent and child, husband and wife, and guardian and ward.

The old order of the country gave way to the new order of the city. Rural morality was replaced by urban morality, rural voices by urban voices, rural votes by urban votes.

All human constitutions are subject to corruption and must perish unless they are timely renewed and reduced to their first principles.

Let nothing prevent you from changing your previous decision if after consideration you feel that the previous decision was incorrect.

If one doesn't know his mistakes, he won't want to correct them.

The Constitution will be reformed in accordance with our revolution.

Is there a man who will say that the Constitution wants no reform? Will any man be found to say that the Constitution is perfect?

The problem in any constitutional change is the great care put to solve the problems of the past instead of grasping those of the future.

We must correct what we find objectively wrong.

We follow the rules and some guys make some mistakes and we gotta correct those mistakes. We follow the rules and we do it the right way at Florida and we have to do a better job of correcting some of the people making mistakes.