Top 100 Precedent Quotes
#1. The lack of women among the twelve disciples isn't prescriptive or a precedent for exclusion of women any more than the choice of twelve Jewish men excludes Gentile men from leadership.
Sarah Bessey
#2. One precedent in favor of power is stronger than a hundred against it.
Thomas Jefferson
#3. Every bad precedent originated as a justifiable measure.
Sallust
#5. The world is now changing, reviving fears that were familiar in Hitler's time, and to which Hitler responded. The history of the Holocaust is not over. Its precedent is eternal, and its lessons have not yet been learned.
Timothy Snyder
#6. In a period of less than 150 years, to progress from slavery to Pennsylvania Avenue speaks volumes about this family and our nation. Distracted by the rush of our everyday life, we might shrug it off today, but 100 years from now, historians will be discussing this precedent.
Megan Smolenyak
#7. So what I'm trying to say is you should text me back. Because there's a precedent. Because there's an urgency. Because there's a bedtime. Because when the world ends I might not have my phone charged and If you don't respond soon, I won't know if you'd wanna leave your shadow next to mine.
Marina Keegan
#9. Think carefully, Gideon. I have exes in my past, too. You're setting the precedent now for how I'll handle them. I'm taking my cues from you.
Sylvia Day
#10. It is when the colors do not match, when the references in the index fail, when there is no decisive precedent, that the serious business of the judge begins
Benjamin Cardozo
#11. From the early days of European migration to America, in the 17th Century, the prototype of buildings was based on English precedent, even if mostly translated into the locally available material in abundance: timber.
Harry Seidler
#12. Judge Roberts has assured me personally that he has a healthy respect for precedent and the hard-won rights of Americans.
Max Baucus
#13. Mere precedent is a dangerous source of authority.
Andrew Jackson
#14. Worse still is that mankind - the non-Jewish world - learned nothing from the Holocaust: The event which had no precedent in history, which should be equal to the Revelation at Sinai in significance.
Elie Wiesel
#15. All these schools of though gradually transformed into legal institutions, the diversity of ideas and freedom of opinion that characterized their early development gave way to rigid formalism, strict adherence to precedent, and an almost complete stultification of independent though
Reza Aslan
#16. One precedent creates another and they soon accumulate and constitute law. What yesterday was a fact, today is doctrine.
Junius
#17. While Roberts wanted to give the impression he respected the right to privacy and the precedent of Roe vs. Wade, his answers look dangerously similar to the responses (Associate Justice) Clarence Thomas gave senators during his confirmation hearings 14 years ago.
Nancy Keenan
#18. To set a precedent, I guess. So that if in the future she ever fell from grace, it would be understood that presidents - even the most despicable - get special treatment.
Suzanne Collins
#19. He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
Thomas Paine
#20. A great believer in precedent,' Della Street said. 'I think if he were ever confronted with a really novel situation he'd faint. He runs to his law books, digs around like a mole and finally comes up with case that's what he calls on all fours and was decided seventy-five or a hundred years ago.
Erle Stanley Gardner
#21. Always interline a contract before signing it, merely to impress the Party of the First Part. The one who puts his signature to Articles of Agreement drawn up by the other fellow is establishing a dangerous precedent.
George Ade
#22. Money can come and go, and fame comes and goes. Peace of mind and a relationship with God is far more important, so this is the precedent that we've set in our lives. The bottom line is, we all die, so Jesus is the answer.
Phil Robertson
#23. I have known Hillary Clinton for 25 years. I remember her, as you do, as a great first lady who broke precedent in terms of the role that a first lady was supposed to play as she helped lead the fight for universal health care.
Bernie Sanders
#24. Inserting the FCC into our states' economic and fiscal affairs sets a dangerous precedent and violates state sovereignty in a manner that warrants deeper examination.
Marsha Blackburn
#25. Surely our inaction with respect to Syria is a poor precedent if we're fighting a war on terror.
Bill Kristol
#26. What is today supported by precedents will hereafter become a precedent.
Tacitus
#27. This, it may be said, is no more than a hypothesis ... only of that force of precedent which in all times has been so strong to keep alive religious forms of which the original meaning is lost.
William Robertson Smith
#28. Every public action which is not customary, either is wrong or, if it is right, is a dangerous precedent. It follows that nothing should ever be done for the first time.
Francis Cornford
#29. I think this sets a very bad precedent, the president unilaterally on his own starting war without any consent from Congress.
Rand Paul
#30. Today it is not nearly enough to be a saint, but we must have the saintliness demanded by the present moment, a new saintliness, itself also without precedent.
Simone Weil
#31. The assassination at Sarajevo was certainly the crucial precedent of the European war that its conspirators had sought, but was not the historical cause ... The assassination acted as a lever, prying the various powers into predictable paths.
J. Bowyer Bell
#32. Just... isn't giving up allowed sometimes? Isn't it okay to say, 'This really hurts, so I'm going to stop trying'?"
"It sets a dangerous precedent."
"For avoiding pain?"
"For avoiding life.
Rainbow Rowell
#33. I shall always be consistent and never change my ways so long as I am in my senses; but for the sake of precedent the Senate should beware of binding itself to support the acts of any man, since he might through some mischance suffer a change.
Tiberius
#34. Every four years in the presidential election, some new precedent is broken.
Nate Silver
#35. The scale of marital breakdowns in the West since 1960 has no historical precedent that I know of, and seems unique, ... There has been nothing like it for the last 2,000 years, and probably longer.
Lawrence Stone
#36. I think when any one kind of film does well, it creates a precedent and paves the way for more like it.
Tessa Thompson
#37. The British Isles are awash with the choice of beautiful historic churches, abbeys, and cathedrals where one king or another has tied the knot and bestowed a royal precedent.
Tina Brown
#38. Pacifism, not murder, is precedent. To say that war presupposes peace begs the question; it does not explain how violent impulses can be overcome. In
Sarah LaChance Adams
#39. Right now, my career is in three directions: as a performer, as an arranger, as an author - and I don't give any one of them true precedent, or true top marks, as opposed to the other two.
Mel Torme
#40. Too frightened to set a precedent, but quite happy to pass the buck.
Jeffrey Archer
#41. The American president had allowed the old order to topple without a viable alternative in place, a reckless act with no precedent in modern statecraft. And for some reason he had chosen this moment in time to throw Israel to the wolves.
Daniel Silva
#42. We can't say that when x happens we get a mass extinction. To the extent we understand mass extinction, one has been caused by glaciation event, one has been caused by a massive climate change, and one has been caused by an asteroid. These events turn out to have no precedent.
Elizabeth Kolbert
#43. There's not a lot of precedent for weird, bald musicians in the Lower East Side making records in their bedrooms and going on to sell a lot of copies of the record. Especially if you look at the pop climate.
Moby
#44. Judges wear legal professionalism and precedent as a mantel that secures legitimacy for their decisions. It's how they distinguish themselves from politicians or administrative agencies, while wielding power that is sometimes much greater than those democratically accountable actors.
Yochai Benkler
#45. She probably longed to slap my face. They can hit us, there's Scriptural precedent. But not with any implement. Only with their hands.
Margaret Atwood
#46. I don't think in Art there is ever a precedent; each moment is a new one & terrifying & threatening & bursting with hope.
Martha Graham
#47. It irritates me to be told how things have always been done. I defy the tyranny of precedent. I cannot afford the luxury of a closed mind.
Clara Barton
#48. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for a second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of the society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sin and suffering.
Thomas Jefferson
#49. The obvious precedent for Beijing 2008 was the Berlin Olympics, in 1936. Both were showcases for a muscle-flexing nation, although Hitler made an elementary error when he chose not to dress his young National Socialists in lime-green catsuits laced with twinkling fairy lights.
Anthony Lane
#50. No gleam of reason, no momentary return to first principles, no abstract asking of any obvious question, can interrupt this mad and monotonous gallop of mere progress by precedent.
G.K. Chesterton
#51. It was a sight surpassing all precedent, and one we never dreamed of seeing.
Howard Carter
#52. Clouds of a different sort signal an environmental holocaust without precedent. Once again, world leaders waffle, hoping the danger will dissipate. Yet today the evidence is as clear as the sounds of glass shattering in Berlin.
Al Gore
#53. Is it conceivable that a newly emancipated people can soar to the heights of liberty, and, unlike Icarus, neither have its wings melt nor fall into an abyss? Such a marvel is inconceivable and without precedent. There is no reasonable probability to bolster our hopes.
Simon Bolivar
#54. With so little input from labor, the proportion of this wealth that flows back to the machine owners - in this case, the venture investors - is without precedent. It's no wonder that a venture capitalist I interviewed for my last book admitted to me with some concern, "Everyone wants my job.
Cal Newport
#55. Uh ... what can I say? Made money. Given a launch pad for a working life. Set a precedent I had no interest in following. Created expectations that I was not cut-out to match. Disappointed virtually all of my readers subsequently. But I like what I've done, and I stand by it all.
Alex Garland
#56. What are we going to say if tomorrow it occurs to some African state to send its agents into Mississippi and to kidnap one of the leaders of the segregationist movement there? And what are we going to reply if a court in Ghana or the Congo quotes the Eichmann case as precedent?
Hannah Arendt
#57. Google is in an amazing position to be the target of tons of lawsuits that will set precedent for many important things for us on the Internet.
Joichi Ito
#58. All the networks have always been willing to have ethnic people as the third or fourth lead or the best friend to the white person. But to actually let a black family or an Asian family carry a show, that's something where there hasn't really been a precedent set in terms of a real financial gain.
Constance Wu
#59. The only thing that can be safely predicted is that sometime soon your organization will be challenged to change in ways for which it has no precedent.
Gary Hamel
#60. In terms of my work with Nike, obviously signing Michael Jordan to a $500,000 contract in 1984 set a new precedent for the business side of the game.
Sonny Vaccaro
#61. The Supreme Court should follow settled precedent and allow states like New York to manage our own labor relations to achieve labor peace and government efficiency and to continue our long tradition of support for workers.
Eric Schneiderman
#62. I have an almost complete disregard of precedent, and a faith in the possibility of something better. It irritates me to be told how things have always been done. I defy the tyranny of precedent. I go for anything new that might improve the past.
Clara Barton
#63. The history of the Holocaust is not over. Its precedent is eternal, and its lessons have not yet been
Timothy Snyder
#64. Mastering the lawless science of our law,- that codeless myriad of precedent, that wilderness of single instances.
Alfred Lord Tennyson
#65. We may repeat here that these pages propose mainly to show one thing: that progress ought to be based on principle, while our modern progress is mostly based on precedent.
G.K. Chesterton
#66. We stand at a moment in history without precedent. Decisions that are ours to make over the next ten years will have a sweeping impact on the future direction of life on the planet.
Eban Goodstein
#67. Every ounce of my cynicism is supported by historical precedent.
Glen Cook
#68. This is going right to the police. So, it's a very dangerous precedent.
Floyd Abrams
#69. The mark of mediocrity is to look for precedent.
Norman Mailer
#70. Truth always originates in a minority of one, and every custom begins as a broken precedent.
Will Durant
#71. In 'Bush v. Gore,' five justices had a partisan outcome in mind and then made up the judicial principle to justify it, while claiming that the decision would not be precedent for any future cases.
Marvin Ammori
#72. Jawaharlal Nehru's first Cabinet list set a standard that would never again be matched, while establishing a precedent for diversity that all his successors would strive to emulate. A
Shashi Tharoor
#73. Ultimately, with every film I'd done before, there was a reference. They have their own uniqueness, but there was always a precedent.
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
#74. Custom is the law of one description of fools, and fashion of another; but the two parties often clash
for precedent is the legislator of the first, and novelty of the last. Custom, therefore, looks to things that are past, and fashion to things that are present.
Charles Caleb Colton
#75. When you raise issues with the President, try to come away with both that decision and also a precedent. Pose issues so as to evoke broader policy guidance. This can help to answer a range of similar issues likely to arise later.
Donald Rumsfeld
#76. Men decide far more problems by hate, love, lust, rage, sorrow, joy, hope, fear, illusion or some other inward emotion, than by reality, authority, any legal standard, judicial precedent, or statute.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
#77. So, I think there's a danger that good stuff can fall by the wayside if it doesn't conform to formula. But I think it comes down to money and they just don't know where it's going if they haven't got any precedent.
Colin Firth
#78. A lawsuit with no legal precedent, seeking no damages, from no jury, in the name of stopping something that isn't happening? Only in New York.
Kenneth Langone
#79. I have resolved on an enterprise that has no precedent and will have no imitator. I want to set before my fellow human beings a man in every way true to nature; and that man will be myself.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
#81. Unchallenged, opinions became respected precedent then exceptionless concepts and sometimes even civil and academically accepted social law.
R. Buckminster Fuller
#82. Although I know no actual precedent for it, in the case of a particularly powerful Double, such as was given in this romance to Queen
H. Rider Haggard
#83. It is in vain to oppose constitutional barriers to the impulse of self-preservation. It is worse than in vain; because it plants in the Constitution itself necessary usurpations of power, every precedent of which is a germ of unnecessary and multiplied repetitions.
James Madison
#84. Every event in this world is the effect of some precedent cause, and also the cause of some subsequent effect.
Horace Mann
#85. The position of First Lady has no rules, just precedent, so its evolution has been at a virtual standstill for years. If Martha Washington didn't do it, then no one is sure it should be done.
Paula Poundstone
#86. You shouldn't reward me for endangering your life, you know. Think of the precedent you're setting.
Rainbow Rowell
#87. As time goes on, I realize more and more that, beginning in the early 30's, David Smith began setting the precedent for what was to come later for many of us.
Kenneth Noland
#88. When I won the belt, it was kind of a precedent ... The only Canadian to have ever held it.
Owen Hart
#89. Society likes to file you away, put you in this or that category. And I never fit any category. Maybe that's why I was left out of a lot of things, or why my work was not really understood, because there was no precedent for it.
Agnes Denes
#90. There is no evidence when we look to the past for any precedent for the rate of change in atmospheric composition that we're causing, and the rates of change in climate that we can expect, as we continue to burn fossil fuels and elevate these greenhouse gas concentrations.
Thom Hartmann
#92. I will look, your Honor, and endeavor to find a precedent, if you require it; though it would seem to be a pity that the Court should lose the honor of being the first to establish so just a rule.
Rufus Choate
#93. The president is supposed to execute faithfully the laws that the legislature has written. So, the executive orders that Barack Obama president is writing are without precedent. Without precedent so with he's rewriting law. It's totally illegal.
Rafael Cruz
#94. I'm inspired by looking at art, by looking at precedent. Looking is what you have to do if you want to make things, so you develop a critical eye.
Annabelle Selldorf
#95. Judges have to have the humility to recognize that they operate within a system of precedent, shaped by other judges equally striving to live up to the judicial oath.
John Roberts
#96. There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus. What you've got is everything, and I mean everything, being run by the political arm. It's the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis.
John DiIulio
#97. Everything I write has a precedent in truth.
Ian Fleming
#98. But the fact that judges follow precedent regularly even though not invariably does not support the legalistic theory as strongly as one might expect. The original precedent in a line of precedents could not have been based on precedent.
Richard A. Posner
#99. All I can say is that with business and the interest of any party before me, I will consider and apply the law as it is written by Congress and informed by precedent.
Sonia Sotomayor
#100. I think that presidents don't give up power that has accrued to them by the precedent of previous presidents. Even when they say they would like to, I think once they get there they don't give it up.
Rachel Maddow
