“Arbitrary power has seldom … been introduced in any country at once. It must be introduced by slow degrees, and as it were step by step.”

— Lord Chesterfield

“Usurpation, the exercise of power not granted, is not legitimized by repetition.”

— Raoul Berger

“The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness”

— Richard Horton

“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as editor of The New England Journal of Medicine”

— Marcia Angell

“The production of wealth is the result of agreement between labor and capital, between employer and employed. Its distribution, therefore, will follow the law of its creation, or great injustice will be done.”

— Leland Stanford

“Fairness does not require the redistribution of wealth; it requires the creation of wealth, geared to an economy that can provide employment for everyone able and willing to work.”

— Felix Rohatyn

“The test of good law is not whether it will accomplish its purpose if properly administered, but what damage it will do if improperly administered.”

— Sam Ervin

“Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.”

— Oscar Wilde

“There is no such thing as ‘democratic’ socialism. Socialism is the government control of the means of production and there’s nothing ‘democratic’ about it. They’ll confiscate your freedom and your property, by force if necessary. Socialism is for imbeciles; don’t be an imbecile.”

— Dan Bongino

“I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.

“Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

“There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.”

— Michael Crichton