“There be no mutual contract made upon certain conditions, but if the conditions be not fulfilled the party injured is loosed from the contract.” – Samuel Rutherford, “Lex Rex” (in A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty)
Month: May 2026
“Every man by nature is a free man born, that is, by nature no man cometh out of the womb under any civil subjection to king, prince, or judge, to master, captain, conqueror, teacher, &c, because freedom is natural to all.” – Samuel Rutherford, “Lex Rex” (in A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty)
“Strength as strength victorious, is not law nor reason.” – Samuel Rutherford, “Lex Rex” (in A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty)
“The first, the ultimate, and native subject of all power is the community, as reasonable men naturally inclining to a society ; but the ethical and political subject, or the legal and positive receptacle, of this power is various, according to the various constitutions of the policy.” – Samuel Rutherford, “Lex Rex” (in A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty)
“If all men be born, as concerning civil power, alike (for no man cometh out of the womb with a diadem on his head, or a sceptre in his hand), and yet men united in a society may give crown and sceptre to this man, and not to this man, then this power was in this united society.” – Samuel Rutherford, “Lex Rex” (in A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty)
“It most seldom chanceth that kings so temper themselves that their will never swerveth from that which is just and right; again, that they be furnished with so great sharpness of judgment and wisdom that every one of them seeth so much as is sufficient. Therefore the fault or default of men maketh that it is safer and more tolerable that many should have the government, that they may mutually one help another, one teach and admonish another, and if any advance himself higher than is meet, there may be overseers and masters to restrain his wilfulness.” – John Calvin, “Institution of Christian Religion” (trans. Thomas Norton, in A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty)
“The reason of man can only imperfectly judge—nay, and is often therein cozened—hence it must needs follow that all human constitutions are of necessity liable to imperfection, error, and injustice.” – William Ames, “Conscience” (in A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty)
“A division of things is by the law of nations. Nevertheless, by the common consent it may, upon just grounds, be somewhere enacted that almost all possessions should be in common.” – William Ames, “Conscience” (in A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty)
“Man cannot survive on righteous vindication alone.” – Trae Crowder, Liberal Redneck
“Do you ever think of yourself as actually dead, lying in a box with a lid on it?” – Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (emphasis in original)
“To be taken in hand and led, like being a child again, even without the innocence, a child—it’s like being given a prize, an extra slice of childhood when you least expect it.” – Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
“Your smallest action sets off another somewhere else, and is set off by it. Keep an eye open, an ear cocked. Tread warily, follow instructions.” – Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
“The only beginning is birth and the only end is death—if you can’t count on that, what can you count on?” – Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
“All your life you live so close to truth, it becomes a permanent blur in the corner of your eye, and when something nudges it into outline it is like being ambushed by a grotesque.” – Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
“Let all that preach or print affix their names that we may know from whom. The contrary is a kind of unwarrantable modesty at the best. If it be truth they write, why do they not own it? If untruth, why do they write? Some such must either suppress themselves for shame or fear, and they that dare not own what they do, they suspect the magistrate or themselves.” – John Saltmarsh, “Smoke in the Temple” (in A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty)
“Let there be liberty of the press for printing, to those that are not allowed pulpits for preaching. Let that light come in at the window which cannot come in at the door, that all may speak and write one way, that cannot another.” – John Saltmarsh, “Smoke in the Temple” (in A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty)