A Quote by Esther Dyson

Dyson's Law: Do ask; don't lie. — © Esther Dyson
Dyson's Law: Do ask; don't lie.
I know that my race must change. We cannot hold our own with the white men as we are. We only ask an even chance to live as other men live. We ask to be recognized as men. We ask that the same law shall work alike on all men. If an Indian breaks the law, punish him by the law. If a white man breaks the law, punish him also.
The Law is a lie, and through it men lie most shamelessly.
Glorify a lie, legalize a lie, arm and equip a lie, consecrate a lie with solemn forms and awful penalties, and after all it is nothing but a lie. It rots a land and corrupts a people like any other lie, and by and by the white light of God's truth shines clear through it, and shows it to be a lie.
To state a lie firmly, categorically and with great authority, undeterred by the fact that all concerned know it to be a lie, is one of the principal activities defined by the term practising law.
Don’t ask me any more questions, Keller. I’m just going to lie to you and I’d rather not have the stress of trying to remember what lie I handed you. (Alexion)
You know, in the oath that brand-new citizens take, it contains six different references to 'the law.' If it's good enough for us to ask brand-new citizens to affirm their devotion to the law, is it too much to ask that the president do the same?
If you ask judges, do you always agree on everything? Of course not, we divide just as you do. Why aren't you transparent about it? Because the people would begin to think that the law is not stable, the law is unclear. And that would not give them much faith in the law.
No doubt, corporate CEOs who lie to their shareholders and politicians who lie to their public know and believe intellectually that lying is immoral. Why then do they lie? They lie to others because they first lie to themselves.
We must never lose sight of the fact that the law has a moral foundation, and we must never fail to ask ourselves not only what the law is, but what the law should be.
Ask not of me, love, what is love? Ask what is good of God above; Ask of the great sun what is light; Ask what is darkness of the night; Ask sin of what may be forgiven; Ask what is happiness of heaven; Ask what is folly of the crowd; Ask what is fashion of the shroud; Ask what is sweetness of thy kiss; Ask of thyself what beauty is.
They ask how the universe is arranged, philosophers, mathematicians, and they draw pretty pictures, impossibilities on the page. They save phenomena by telling one ugly lie after another, epicycles upon epicycles, and the fools care not. It is not enough, I tell you, to ask how the cosmos is designed. We must ask why.
The House, being strong, should be generous ... but the constituents have a right to more than generosity.... The law gives me my seat. In the name of the law I ask for it. I regret that my personality overshadows the principles involved in this great struggle; but I would ask those who have touched my life, not knowing it, who have found for me vices which I do not remember in the memory of my life, I would ask them whether all can afford to cast the first stone ... then that, as best judges, they will vacate their own seats, having deprived my constituents of their right here to mine.
Again, I shall be told that the law presumes the husband to be kind, affectionate, and ready to provide for and protect his wife. But what right, I ask, has the law to presume at all on the subject?
Adorn thyself with simplicity and with indifference towards the things which lie between virtue and vice. Love mankind. Follow God. The poet says that Law rules all. And it is enough to remember that law rules all.
There is but one law for all, namely that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity - the law of nature and of nations.
Every heat engineer knows he can design his heat engine reliably and accurately on the foundation of the second law [of thermodynamics]. Run alongside one of the molecules, however, and ask it what it thinks of the second law. It will laugh at us. It never heard of the second law. It does what it wants. All the same, a collection of billions upon billions of such molecules obeys the second law with all the accuracy one could want
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