“What is the argument on the other side? Only this, that no case has been found in which it has been done before. That argument does not appeal to me in the least. If we never do anything which has not been done before, we shall never get anywhere. The law will stand still whilst the rest of the world goes on; and that will be bad for both.”
Packer v. Packer [1954] P. 15 at 22.
Judgments
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Alfred Denning, Baron Denning27
British judge 1899–1999Related quotes
Juho Kusti Paasikivi (1870–1956) 7th President of Finland
Source: Paasikivi in a private letter (1891) from Novgorod, studying Russian culture on a grant.
“It is a strong presumption that that which never has been done cannot by law be done at all.”
William Henry Ashurst (judge) (1725–1807) English judge
Russell v. The Mayor of Devon (1788), 1 T. R. 673.
Ian Mackay (1922) Australian immunologist
Ian Mackay (2020) cited in: " The U.S. Scientist who Predicted Coronavirus could Kill 65 Million People–Three Months before the Outbreak in Wuhan, China https://electroverse.net/the-u-s-scientist-who-predicted-coronavirus-could-kill-65-million-people/" in Electroverse, 25 January 2020.
Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) British statesman; prime minister of the United Kingdom
Source: Speech in the Royal Albert Hall, London, in support of the aims of the Disarmament Conference in Geneva (11 July 1931), quoted in The Times (13 July 1931), p. 14
Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist
From 1980s onwards, Norie Huddle interview (1981)
Context: Neither the great political or financial powers of the world nor the population in general realize that the engineering-chemical-electronic revolution now makes it possible to produce many more technical devices with ever less material. We can now take care of everybody at a higher standard of living than anybody has ever known. It does not have to be “you or me,” so selfishness is unnecessary and war is obsolete. This has never been done before. Only twelve years ago technology reached the point where this could be done. Since then it has made it ever so much easier to do.
John Cage (1912–1992) American avant-garde composer
as quoted in "Musicage: Cage Muses on Words, Art, Music", January, 1996; ISBN 0819563110
1990s
Joseph Priestley book The History and Present State of Electricity
Preface
The History and Present State of Electricity (1767)
Context: Great conquerors, we read, have been both animated, and also, in a great measure, formed by reading the exploits of former conquerors. Why may not the same effect be expected from the history of philosophy to philosophers? May not even more be expected in this case? The wars of many of those conquerors, who received this advantage from history, had no proper connection with former wars: they were only analogous to them. Whereas the whole business of philosophy, diversified as it is, is but one; it being one and the same great scheme, that all philosophers, of all ages and nations, have been conducting, from the beginning of the world; so that the work being the same, the. labours of one are not only analogous to those of of another, but in an immediate manner subservient to them; and one philosopher succeeds another in the same field; as one Roman proconsul succeeded another in carrying on the same war, and pursuing the same conquests, in the same country. In this case, an intimate knowledge of what has been done before us cannot but greatly facilitate our future progress, if it be not absolutely necessary to it.