Quotes About Enactments

Myths are the mental supports of rites; rites, the physical enactments of myths.

When the laws regulating human society are so formed as to come into collision with the nature of things, and in particular with the fundamental realities of human nature, they will end by producing an impossible situation which, unless the laws are altered, will issue in such catastrophes as war, pestilence and famine. Catastrophes thus caused are the execution of universal law upon arbitrary enactments which contravene the facts; they are thus properly called by theologians, judgments of God.

Memory (...) should be treated like a pest; while old solutions retained in memory provide stability and some degree of predictability in an uncertain world, that stability - often called tradition or the way things have always been - can also stifle flexibility. The world remains uncertain no matter what we do to protect ourselves from it; we must always be prepared to leap outside of retained solutions to new enactments.

Legislative enactments proceed from men carrying their views a long time back; while judicial decisions are made off hand.

Legislative enactments proceed from men carrying their views a long time back; while judicial decisions are made off hand.

Memory, with its fugitive adjustments, is the merciful veil to the grim enactments of the first law. It hides the anguish in the human heart which is always craving for perpetuity.

The alteration of a human law is right exactly so far as the alteration is conducive to the public interest. But the mere change of itself is in some measure prejudicial to that interest, because custom goes a long way towards getting the laws observed, so much so that enactments running counter to common custom, though light in themselves, seem burdensome. Hence, when the law is changed, the binding power of the law is diminished, inasmuch as a custom is set aside.