“Precedents deliberately established by wise men are entitled to great weight. They are evidence of truth, but only evidence…But a solitary precedent…which has never been reexamined, cannot be conclusive.”
Speech, Senate (18 February 1835).
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Henry Clay 23
American politician from Kentucky 1777–1852Related quotes

Source: 2000s, A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War (2000), p. 231
Context: South Carolina cites, loosely, but with substantial accuracy, some of the language of the original Declaration. That Declaration does say that it is the right of the people to abolish any form of government that becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established. But South Carolina does not repeat the preceding language in the earlier document: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal'.

Warning about the non-conclusiveness for the experimental foundation of electrostatic theory, in a footnote of the third edition of: [James Clerk Maxwell, A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, Vol.1, 3rd Edition, Oxford University Press, 1891, 37]
Quotes eat me
“Being precedes Truth, and … Truth precedes the Good.”
The Four Cardinal Virtues: Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance (1965)

On accusations by Nikita Khrushchev, as quoted in The Times [London] (4 October 1960)

“Informations without the accuser's name subscribed must not be admitted in evidence against anyone, as it is introducing a very dangerous precedent, and by no means agreeable to the spirit of the age.”
Sine auctore vero propositi libelli nullo crimine locum habere debent. Nam et pessimi exempli nec nostri saeculi est.
Letter 97, 2; Trajan to Puny.
Letters, Book X

“Is not Precedent indeed a King of men?”
A Word from the Psalmist.
Undated