Producing strong, consistent originalist interpretation and wisdom at the Supreme Court for two decades is no small feat. So, it only seemed fitting that The Federalist compile 10 of the justice’s best quotes from over the years to celebrate the occasion.

Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.

Adam Smith
Adam Smith (2012). “The Theory of Moral Sentiments”, p.89, Courier Corporation

The more I study the history of intellectuals, the more they seem like a wrecking crew, dismantling civilization bit by bit — replacing what works with what sounds good.

Some people are wondering what takes so long for the negotiations about the "fiscal cliff." Maybe both sides are waiting for supplies. Democrats may be waiting for more cans to kick down the road. Republicans may be waiting for more white flags to hold up in surrender.

If I were rich, I would have a plaque made up, and sent to every judge in America, bearing a statement made by Adam Smith more than two and a half centuries ago: "Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent."

Any community's arm of force - military, police, security - needs people in it who can do necessary evil, and yet not be made evil by it. To do only the necessary and no more. To constantly question the assumptions, to stop the slide into atrocity.

Lois McMaster Bujold, "Barrayar", 1991

Mike: (during his and Pearl's neighborly chat) So... you are gonna send us a movie though, huh?
Pearl: Yeeeaaah. And it's pretty bad. I hope that's okay. It was made in Vermont and it's about this guy who travels through time, and then he has to go back in time to change what he did in the future. It's- it's called Time Chasers. Oh, it's got that guy in it. Oh, and that other guy, too.
Film watched: Time Chasers //

[In the dystopian future, an eyepatch-wearing armed survivor leaps atop a smashed car for a better shooting angle]
Mike [as Gunman]: Arrgh! Sixteen men on a dead Dodge Dart! //

Crow: But I only have one jar of mustard!

[In the dystopian future, an eyepatch-wearing armed survivor leaps atop a smashed car for a better shooting angle]
Mike [as Gunman]: Arrgh! Sixteen men on a dead Dodge Dart!

For every action there is an equal and opposite government program. -- Bob Wells

The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We — even we here — hold the power, and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free — honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just — a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless.

“People Sleep Peacefully in Their Beds at Night Only Because Rough Men Stand Ready to Do Violence on Their Behalf.”. //

Indeed, Orwell did make thematically similar statements. He wrote an essay in 1942 about writer Rudyard Kipling in which he stated, “[Kipling] sees clearly that men can only be highly civilized while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to guard and feed them.”

In another essay, Orwell included a line with a similar sentiment while discussing pacifists: “Those who ‘abjure’ violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf.” //

The website Quote Investigator traced the quote to columnist Richard Grenier’s 1993 article in The Washington Times, where he wrote, “As George Orwell pointed out, people sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”

Some readers likely mistook Grenier’s attempt at summarizing Orwell’s viewpoint for a direct quotation, even though Grenier’s sentence did not enclose the expression in quotation marks.

It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.

Here are 34 favorite sayings from Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, author of The Power of Positive Thinking and founder of Guideposts. //

19 of 34 I’ll tell you a secret: The way to handle the little things is to bring God into them, for nothing is so small that it is beneath His notice.
—Dr. Norman Vincent Peale

First, one (mis)attributed to Solzhenitsyn:

They are lying. We know they are lying. They know we know they are lying. Yet, they are still lying.

Next, one (correctly) attributed to Theodore Dalrymple (Anthony Daniels):

When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control.

Zman makes the interesting and controversial point that endemic lying is an inevitable feature of democracy:

In a world where the standard is public opinion, winning public opinion is what matters most. In fact, it must count for more than the truth, as the public often accepts as true things that turn out to be false. If the goal is to win the crowd, then playing to their deeply held misconceptions is just as good, if not better, than disabusing them of those misconceptions.
…
Like the Athenians, we have embraced the democratic spirit to the point where factual reality is just one tool in the toolkit of persuasion that may or may not be used by the successful. The modern sophist is untethered from the truth, both spiritually and emotionally, because the only thing that matters is tricking some portion of the public.

Whether or not his thesis is correct, the trajectory is accurately delineated and the West appears to have arrived at the endpoint he describes.

On October 11, 1798, John Adams wrote to the Massachusetts Militia that

Because We have no Government armed with Power capable of contending with human Passions unbridled by morality and Religion. Avarice, Ambition, Revenge or Gallantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

But are we still a moral and religious people? In “The Real American Founding: A Conversation,” professors of politics David Azerrad and Thomas West help us answer that question.

In the fifth lecture of that course, titled “Morality and Virtue,” professors Azerrad and West discuss the fact that government always legislates morality, but what that morality consists of depends on the beliefs of those who make the laws. The nature of the legislative power is to tell people what they can and cannot do, what is right and wrong.

In the Founders’ understanding, they believed that government ought to support true morality and virtue. That is, morality and virtue grounded in the laws of nature and of nature’s God, from which they derived man’s natural rights and duties.

The Founders also believed that the laws of nature and of nature’s God, along with the natural rights and duties derived from them, were in accord with their Christian beliefs. Government therefore ought not to be hostile to Christianity, but rather should support it with laws that are friendly to it and encourage its flourishing among the citizenry.

What is the true and original root of Dutch aversion to British rule? It is the abiding fear and hatred of the movement that seeks to place the native on a level with the white man … the Kaffir is to be declared the brother of the European, to be constituted his legal equal, to be armed with political rights.

-- Winston Churchill
On the Boer War, London to Ladysmith via Pretoria (1900).

Apt analogies are among the most formidable weapons of the rhetorician.

-- Winston Churchill
The Wit and Wisdom of Winston Churchill (1984)

I have derived continued benefit from criticism at all periods of my life and I do not remember any time when I was ever short of it.

-- Winston Churchill
in House of Commons 27 November 1914

Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization.

-- Winston Churchill
The Second World War (ed. 1952)

Never give in — never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

-- Winston Churchill
Speech given at Harrow School, Harrow, England, October 29, 1941. Quoted in Churchill by Himself (2008), ed. Langworth, PublicAffairs, 2008, p. 23 ISBN 1586486381

Headmasters have powers at their disposal with which Prime Ministers have never yet been invested.

-- Winston Churchill

“Then you admit confirming not denying you ever said that?"
"NO! ... I mean Yes! WHAT?"
I’ll put 'maybe.' ~ Bloom County