Mike Murdock

“On the first day of law school, I always remind my new students of a fact that all of us know but most of us forget: the police officers who enforce our laws go armed. Why do they do so? Because it is possible that their efforts will be resisted. They might need their guns in order to make others obey the law--or accept the punishment for their disobedience. Consequently, every time we enact a new law, we create the possibility that violent means will be required to transform the new law's command into reality. What I tell my students is a lesson I learned from the late, great legal scholar Robert Cover: Law is violence.”
― Stephen L. Carter, Civility

“Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.

Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith.

Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love.

No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.”
― Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History

“What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know. It's what we know for sure that just ain't so.”
― Mark Twain