#arbitrary

Be just and if you can't be just, be arbitrary. ↗

— William S. Burroughs

#just #you

The decree of a coercive tribunal would not need to conform to the true standard of wages, the final productivity of social labor. It would introduce into distribution a genuinely arbitrary element, with a very large ultimate power to pervert the natural system. ↗

— John Bates Clark

#coercive #conform #decree #distribution #element

Our work on light bulbs wasn't an arbitrary mandate. We didn't just pick a standard out of the air, or look for a catchy sounding standard like 25 by 2025 not based in science or feasibility. Instead, we worked with both industry and environmental groups to come up with a standard that made sense and was doable. ↗

— Fred Upton

#arbitrary #based #both #bulbs #catchy

Police in China can do whatever they want; after 81 days in arbitrary detention you clearly realise that they don't have to obey their own laws. In a society like this there is no negotiation, no discussion, except to tell you that power can crush you any time they want - not only you, your whole family and all people like you. ↗

— Ai Weiwei

#any #arbitrary #china #clearly #crush

If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place. ↗

— Margaret Mead

#arbitrary #contrasting #culture #diverse #each

The possession of arbitrary power has always, the world over, tended irresistibly to destroy humane sensibility, magnanimity, and truth. ↗

— Frederick Law Olmsted

#arbitrary #arbitrary power #destroy #humane #irresistibly

The bad man desires arbitrary power. What moves the evil man is the love of injustice. ↗

— John Rawls

#arbitrary power #bad #bad man #desires #evil

If vice and corruption prevail, liberty cannot subsist; but if virtue have the advantage, arbitrary power cannot be established. ↗

— Algernon Sidney

#arbitrary #arbitrary power #cannot #corruption #established

Freedom is the emancipation from the arbitrary rule of other men. ↗

— Mortimer Adler

#emancipation #freedom #men #other #rule

But if it not be true, the myth itself requires to be explained, and every principle of philosophy and common sense demand that the explanation be sought, not in arbitrary allegorical categories, but in the actual facts of ritual or religious custom to which the myth attaches. ↗

— William Robertson Smith

#allegorical #arbitrary #attaches #be true #categories