Quotations

«In all the work we do, our most valuable asset can be the attitude of self-examination. It is forgivable to make mistakes, but to stand fast behind a wall of self-righteousness and make the same mistake twice is not forgivable.»

«In cross-examination, as in fishing, nothing is more ungainly than a fisherman pulled into the water by his catch»

«Anger blows out the lamp of the mind. In the examination of a great and important question, everyone should be serene, slow-pulsed and calm.»

«Fraud and falsehood only dread examination. Truth invites it.»

«Humor is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humor; for a subject which will not bear raillery is suspicious, and a jest which will not bear serious examination is false wit.»

«HOMILETICS, n. The science of adapting sermons to the spiritual needs, capacities and conditions of the congregation.So skilled the parson was in homiletics That all his normal purges and emetics To medicine the spirit were compounded With a most just discrimination founded Upon a rigorous examination Of tongue and pulse and heart and respiration. Then, having diagnosed each one's condition, His scriptural specifics this physician Administered --his pills so efficacious And pukes of disposition so vivacious That souls afflicted with ten kinds of Adam Were convalescent ere they knew they had 'em. But Slander's tongue --itself all coated --uttered Her bilious mind and scandalously muttered That in the case of patients having money The pills were sugar and the pukes were honey. --_Biography of Bishop Potter_»

«INADMISSIBLE, adj. Not competent to be considered. Said of certain kinds of testimony which juries are supposed to be unfit to be entrusted with, and which judges, therefore, rule out, even of proceedings before themselves alone. Hearsay evidence is inadmissible because the person quoted was unsworn and is not before the court for examination; yet most momentous actions, military, political, commercial and of every other kind, are daily undertaken on hearsay evidence. There is no religion in the world that has any other basis than hearsay evidence. Revelation is hearsay evidence; that the Scriptures are the word of God we have only the testimony of men long dead whose identity is not clearly established and who are not known to have been sworn in any sense. Under the rules of evidence as they now exist in this country, no single assertion in the Bible has in its support any evidence admissible in a court of law. It cannot be proved that the battle of Blenheim ever was fought, that there was such as person as Julius Caesar, such an empire as Assyria. But as records of courts of justice are admissible, it can easily be proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge to mankind. The evidence (including confession) upon which certain women were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a flaw; it is still unimpeachable. The judges' decisions based on it were sound in logic and in law. Nothing in any existing court was ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which so many suffered death. If there were no witches, human testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value.»

«A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.»

«In religion and politics people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other»

«It is the essence of truth that it is never excessive. Why should it exaggerate? There is that which should be destroyed and that which should be simply illuminated and studied. How great is the force of benevolent and searching examination! We must not resort to the flame where only light is required.»