“But then, in his lifetime, Halt had often ignored what was technically legal. Technicalities didn't appeal to him. All too often, they simply got in the way of doing the right thing.”
Source: The Lost Stories
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John Flanagan115
Irish-American hammer thrower 1873–1938Related quotes
Vannevar Bush book As We May Think
As We May Think (1945)
Context: Thus science may implement the ways in which man produces, stores, and consults the record of the race. It might be striking to outline the instrumentalities of the future more spectacularly, rather than to stick closely to the methods and elements now known and undergoing rapid development, as has been done here. Technical difficulties of all sorts have been ignored, certainly, but also ignored are means as yet unknown which may come any day to accelerate technical progress as violently as did the advent of the thermionic tube.
Robert Oppenheimer (1904–1967) American theoretical physicist and professor of physics
Oppenheimer testifying in his defense in his 1954 security hearings, discussing the American reaction to the first successful Russian test of an atomic bomb and the debate whether to develop the "super" hydrogen bombs with vastly higher explosive power; from volume II of the Oppenheimer hearing transcripts http://www.osti.gov/includes/opennet/includes/Oppenheimer%20hearings/Vol%20II%20Oppenheimer.pdf, pg 95/266 (emphasis added)
Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)
Response to the Frost-Nixon interviews on the Watergate scandal, UPI (21 May 1977)
1970s
“What you can do is often simply a matter of what you will do.”
Norton Juster book The Phantom Tollbooth
Source: The Phantom Tollbooth
James Comey (1960) American lawyer and the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
2010s, Hard Truths: Law Enforcement (2015)
John Mayer (1977) guitarist and singer/songwriter
On being questioned about having a meal with Jessica Simpson in November 2006 <br class="br">2006). "John Mayer Speaks About Eating With Jessica" http://www.accesshollywood.com/news/ah2793.shtml AccessHollywood.com (accessed January 11, 2007
Edward Jenks (1861–1939) British legal scholar
Source: A Short History Of The English Law (First Edition) (1912), Chapter V, The Law Of Chattels, p. 58
Freeman Dyson (1923) theoretical physicist and mathematician
As quoted in The Day After Trinity: J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Atomic Bomb (1981), a documentary film directed by Jon Else, written by David Peoples, Janet Peoples, and Jon Else.
Context: I have felt it myself. The glitter of nuclear weapons. It is irresistible if you come to them as a scientist. To feel it's there in your hands, to release this energy that fuels the stars, to let it do your bidding. To perform these miracles, to lift a million tons of rock into the sky. It is something that gives people an illusion of illimitable power, and it is, in some ways, responsible for all our troubles — this, what you might call technical arrogance, that overcomes people when they see what they can do with their minds.
