Quotations

«Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God.»

«Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, / (Touch not; taste not; handle not; / Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men? / Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body: not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh.»

«Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the LORD of hosts. But ye said, Wherein shall we return? / Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.»

«Then verily the first covenant had also ordinances of divine service, and a worldly sanctuary.»

«Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? / Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons? / Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth? / Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may cover thee? / Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go and say unto thee, Here we are? / Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? or who hath given understanding to the heart? / Who can number the clouds in wisdom? or who can stay the bottles of heaven, / When the dust groweth into hardness, and the clods cleave fast together? / Wilt thou hunt the prey for the lion? or fill the appetite of the young lions, / When they couch in their dens, and abide in the covert to lie in wait? / Who provideth for the raven his food? when his young ones cry unto God, they wander for lack of meat.»

«EXECUTIVE, n. An officer of the Government, whose duty it is to enforce the wishes of the legislative power until such time as the judicial department shall be pleased to pronounce them invalid and of no effect. Following is an extract from an old book entitled, _The Lunarian Astonished_ --Pfeiffer & Co., Boston, 1803:LUNARIAN: Then when your Congress has passed a law it goes directly to the Supreme Court in order that it may at once be known whether it is constitutional? TERRESTRIAN: O no; it does not require the approval of the Supreme Court until having perhaps been enforced for many years somebody objects to its operation against himself --I mean his client. The President, if he approves it, begins to execute it at once. LUNARIAN: Ah, the executive power is a part of the legislative. Do your policemen also have to approve the local ordinances that they enforce? TERRESTRIAN: Not yet --at least not in their character of constables. Generally speaking, though, all laws require the approval of those whom they are intended to restrain. LUNARIAN: I see. The death warrant is not valid until signed by the murderer. TERRESTRIAN: My friend, you put it too strongly; we are not so consistent. LUNARIAN: But this system of maintaining an expensive judicial machinery to pass upon the validity of laws only after they have long been executed, and then only when brought before the court by some private person --does it not cause great confusion? TERRESTRIAN: It does. LUNARIAN: Why then should not your laws, previously to being executed, be validated, not by the signature of your President, but by that of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court? TERRESTRIAN: There is no precedent for any such course. LUNARIAN: Precedent. What is that? TERRESTRIAN: It has been defined by five hundred lawyers in three volumes each. So how can any one know?»

«Ye shall do my judgments, and keep mine ordinances, to walk therein: I am the LORD your God.»

«Unto this day they do after the former manners: they fear not the LORD, neither do they after their statutes, or after their ordinances, or after the law and commandment which the LORD commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel; / With whom the LORD had made a covenant, and charged them, saying, Ye shall not fear other gods, nor bow yourselves to them, nor serve them, nor sacrifice to them: / But the LORD, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt with great power and a stretched out arm, him shall ye fear, and him shall ye worship, and to him shall ye do sacrifice.»

«They continue this day according to thine ordinances: for all are thy servants.»

«School days are the unhappiest in the whole span if human existence. They are full of dull, unintelligible tasks, new and unpleasant ordinances, with brutal violations of common sense and common decency.»