An enactment for the favour and liberty of the subject ought to have a liberal construction.
--
Johnson v. Harris (1854), 3 W.R. 104.William Henry Maule
» William Henry Maule - all quotes »
...what would be most extraordinary is this, that anybody who considered the state of the Liberal party then and now should expect me voluntarily to return to the Liberal party. (Laughter.) I left the Liberal party because I found it impossible to lead it, in the main owing to the divisions to which I referred in my letter. (Hear, hear.) The Liberal party in that respect is no better now, but rather worse; and it would indeed be an extraordinary evolution of mind if, after having left the Liberal party on that ground, I were to announce my intention of voluntarily returning to it in its present condition. No, gentlemen, so far as I am concerned, I must repeat what I have said on that subject in all my speeches, that for the present, at any rate, I must proceed alone. I must plough my furrow alone.
Archibald Primrose Rosebery
Rawls' notion of liberty, however, is the impoverished notion of contemporary liberals, for whom liberty consists in the expressive or lifestyle freedom to say what one wants and have sexual relations with the species of one's choice. So, for example, being subject to a 75 percent tax on one's income or being subject to the seizure of 90 percent of one's peacefully acquired property does not count at all as an abridgment of liberty. Indeed, it is not really clear that chaining the talented and energetic to their desks should, for Rawls, count as an infringement of their liberty as long as these individuals are still permitted to express their views, cast their votes, meet with their chosen sexual partners, and, perhaps, are paroled on weekends to travel to their preferred cultural events. In any case, Rawls does not view anything the modern welfare state does in the name of income redistribution as an abridgment of liberty.
John Rawls
It was an ancient and commonly received practice, (derived from the civil law, and which also to this day obtains in the kingdom of France) that, as counsel was not allowed to any prisoner accused of a capital crime, so neither should he be suffered to exculpate himself by the testimony of any witnesses. And therefore it deserves to be remembered, to the honour of Mary I, (whose early sentiments, till her marriage with Philip of Spain, seem to have been humane and generous) that when she appointed sir Richard Morgan chief justice of the common-pleas, she injoined him, “that notwithstanding the old error, which did not admit any witness to speak, or any other matter to be heard, in favour of the adversary, her majesty being party; her highness' pleasure was, that whatsoever could be brought in favour of the subject should be admitted to be heard: and moreover, that the justices should not persuade themselves to fit in judgment otherwise for her highness than for her subject."
Mary I of England
It appears to me that the subject of music, from Machaut to Boulez, has always been its construction. Melodies of 12-tone rows just don't happen. They must be constructed....To demonstrate any formal idea in music, whether structure or stricture, is a matter of construction, in which the methodology is the controlling metaphor of the composition...Only by 'unfixing' the elements traditionally used to construct a piece of music could the sounds exist in themselves--not as symbols, or memories which were memories of other music to begin with.
Morton Feldman
Sleep teaching was actually prohibited in England. There was something called liberalism. Parliament, if you know what that was, passed a law against it. The records survive. Speeches about liberty of the subject. Liberty to be inefficient and miserable. Freedom to be a round peg in a square hole.
Aldous Huxley
Maule, William Henry
Maunder, Edward Walter
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