Quotes & Sayings About Decree

Truly, the better a person you are, or become, the harder life becomes. No longer are you omnipotent, but are made flaccid. You are exposed to the horrors of the world. I decree that it is harder to live than to die, but sacred are the few whom have chosen to live. The uneducated man possesses the aptitude to destroy his surroundings. It isn't until you are educated in both realms that you stop living for yourself. We must wear the hearts of our opponents on our sleeves in order to be worthy of the pride we wear on our shoulders. Victories against other flesh are only victories when not worn as trophies. Always remember - the futility of man is only surpassed by its greatness. — Phil Volatile

At the North Carolina border, the dull landscape ended abruptly, as if by decree. Suddenly the countryside rose and fell in majestic undulations, full of creeping thickets of laurel, rhododendron and palmetto. — Bill Bryson

O Luxury! thou curst by Heaven's decree! — Oliver Goldsmith

You must convince your heart that whatever Allah has decreed is most appropriate and most beneficial for you. — Al-Ghazali

Have we," he wondered, "conceived a merely human project and then imagined it to be a decree of the Almighty? — Barbara W. Tuchman

That which is useless dies. Animals that fail to serve some useful purpose in the scheme of things slowly but surely become extinct. Let any part of the human body cease to perform its ordained function, and it withers-as when an arm is kept long in a sling. This same decree, that nothing useless is permitted to survive, runs through the mind of the industrial world. — B.C. Forbes

We do not ask to be born; and we do not ask to die. But born we are and die we must. We come into existence and we pass out of existence. And in neither case does high-handed fate await our ratification of its decree. — Corliss Lamont

It wasn't the lower classes that preached the religion of sexual liberation. That came from the upper classes, with their comfortable cushions against the resulting disorder. What did it matter to them that they were polluting the waters? Their houses were upstream. The biological absurdism of same-sex pseudogamy (mock-marriage) is just the latest effort of the same irresponsible destroyers. Let those who are in favor of the world that the sexual revolution has produced defend it on its "merits," and not decree all discussion out of bounds from the beginning. We are not talking about privacy here, but about the air we all must breathe and the water we all must drink. — Anthony M. Esolen

Then we realized that your Kind like to make laws. Like to decree what's what, and whether it's good or not. And the world, being a loving thing, and not wishing to disappoint you or distress you, indulges you. Behaves as though your doctrines are in some way absolute. — Clive Barker

The signs of the soundness of the servant's love for his Lord are three: absence of self-willing; pleasure in every event which takes place through divine decree; and seeing the perfection of the Beloved in everything and being content with Him in everything through submission to Him in all things. — Ibn Ata Allah

Here is something to set both critics and Christians thinking. A decree of a Persian king was deemed to be divine, and any attempt to thwart it was usually met by prompt and drastic punishment; and yet the decree directing the rebuilding of the Temple, issued by King Cyrus in the zenith of his power, was thwarted for seventeen years by petty local governors. How was this? The explanation is that until the very last day of the seventy years of "the Desolations" had expired, God would not permit one stone to be laid upon another on Mount Moriah. Dismissing from our minds, therefore, all mere theories on this subject, we arrive at the following definitely ascertained facts: — Robert Anderson

Your subconscious mind does not argue with you. It accepts what your conscious mind decrees. If you say, "I can't afford it," your subconscious mind works to make it true. Select a better thought. Decree, "I'll buy it. I accept it in my mind." — Joseph Murphy

Wrong are those who magnify the decree of the Father, and the atonement of the Son, so as to depreciate the work of the Spirit. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Jesus Christ became a curse for us by divine decree. Our part in realizing the tremendous meaning of His curse is the conviction of sin. Conviction is given to us as a gift of shame and repentance; it is the great mercy of God. Jesus Christ hates the sin in people, and Calvary is the measure of His hatred. — Oswald Chambers

You better believe that I want to build a Christian nation, because the only option is a pagan nation. Not that the government can make someone a Christian by decree. A Christian nation would be defined as We acknowledge God in our body politic, in our communities, that the God of the Bible is our God, and, we acknowledge that His law is supreme. — Randall Terry

[E]conomic liberty and creative entrepreneurship are the basis of any solution to today's social and economic difficulties. Blaming business, setting wages, and attempting to run the economy by decree from Washington only exacerbates the problems. Consider the minimum wage. It seems so simple: Tell business to pay its workers more. But a hike in the minimum wage is essentially a tax, punishing precisely those companies that hire workers with the least skills. — Doug Bandow

The decree is dreadful indeed, I confess. — John Calvin

The Sphinx-riddle. Solve it, or be torn to bits, is the decree. — D.H. Lawrence

Being desirous of allaying the dissensions of party strife now existing within our realm, I do hereby dissolve and abolish the Democratic and Republican parties, and also do hereby decree the disfranchisement and imprisonment, for not more than 10, nor less than five, years, to all persons leading to any violation of this our imperial decree. — Emperor Norton

Your edict, King, was strong,
But all your strength is weakness itself against
The immortal unrecorded laws of God.
They are not merely now: they were, and shall be,
Operative for ever, beyond man utterly.
I knew I must die, even without your decree:
I am only mortal. And if I must die
Now, before it is my time to die,
Surely this is no hardship: can anyone
Living, as I live, with evil all about me,
Think Death less than a friend? — Sophocles

The activity of modern poets stands under the decree of necessity, as though they were building a pyramid, the monstruos residence of a dead King or an unborn God. — Hugo Von Hofmannsthal

The Lord can see into the heart. If it is His will that some folks has different ideas about honesty from other folks, it is not my place to question His decree. — William Faulkner

Repeatedly and frankly we have announced that in Irans national security doctrine there is no room for atomic and chemical weapons as we consider them against Islamic laws. Irans Supreme Leader (Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei) in this connection had issued a decree that mass destruction weapons are prohibited by the Muslim religion. [ ... ] Therefore we support the idea of a Middle East free from weapons of mass destruction[.] — Ali Larijani

My comrades, hardly strangers to pain before now, we all have weathered worse. Some god will grant us an end to this as well. You've threaded the rocks resounding with Scylla's howling rabid dogs, and taken the brunt of the Cyclops' boulders, too. Call up your courage again. Dismiss your grief and fear. A joy it will be one day, perhaps, to remember even this. Through so many hard straits, so many twists and turns our course holds firm for Latium. There Fate holds out a homeland, calm, at peace. There the gods decree the kingdom of Troy will rise again. Bear up. Save your strength for better times to come. — Virgil

Kings don't beg, they decree. They have only one destiny and that's to reign. God has made you king. Reign and rule, refuse to beg! — Chris Oyakhilome

That same year the same Yakovlev explained on television that the decree rehabilitating all those who had been persecuted since 1917 was not at all a measure of clemency, as people in the Party were saying, but of repentance: "We are not pardoning them, we are asking their pardon. The goal of this decree is to rehabilitate us, who by remaining silent and looking away were accomplices to these crimes." In short, there was a sudden consensus that for the last seventy years the country had been in the hands of a gang of criminals. — Emmanuel Carrere

EDUCATIONAL DECREE NUMBER 87: MISCHIEF MUST ALWAYS BE MANAGED Use moderation when playing tricks on others. Too much Draco-like behavior can get you punched. — Kerin Morataya

Mr. Lincoln's maxim and philosophy were: 'What is to be, will be, and no prayers of ours can arrest the decree.' He never joined any Church. He was a religious man always, I think, but was not a technical Christian. — Mary Todd Lincoln

No amount of worrying can change the future. Go easy on yourself, for the outcome of all affairs is determined by God's decree. If something is meant to go elsewhere, it will never come your way, but if it is yours by destiny, from you it cannot flee. — Umar Ibn Al-Khattaab

Small towns blossomed by elevators and the trains
Once every 14 miles along the prairie veins
We were born of progress, now progress will decree
That we're no longer viable, and should no long be ...
Still Standing about Canada's Prairie Elevators (The First Song album) — Phyllis Wheaton

This had to be Finn Dalton's mother. It simply had to be. From the moment Nash had given Carrie what seemed like the impossible assignment of interviewing Finn, she'd looked for out-of-the-box ways to locate him. Her mother's mention of work on the Alaskan pipeline and that many of those employed came from Washington State had led to a breakthrough. At least she hoped so. The search led Carrie to the birth record for a Finnegan Paul Dalton, not in Alaska but in her own birth state of Washington. That record revealed his mother's name - Joan Finnegan Dalton - which then led to a divorce decree, along with a license for a second marriage several years later. Tax records indicated that Joan, whose married name was now Reese, continued to reside in Washington State. Her hope was that Joan Dalton Reese would be willing to help Carrie find Finn. — Debbie Macomber

How happy is the little stone That rambles in the road alone, And doesn't care about careers, And exigencies never fears; Whose coat of elemental brown A passing universe put on; And independent as the sun, Associates or glows alone, Fulfilling absolute decree In casual simplicity. — Emily Dickinson

Dragons don't ask for maidens, he said. Dragons are offered maidens.
Alys shook her head to show she didn't understand.
Is a king likely to be a maiden? Or a village headman? It's the men who make the laws that decree that maidens be offered. — Vivian Vande Velde

The Poodle
The poodle -- nature's most perfect food -- was invented by Otto Van Plotsberg in 1872. According to Van Plotsberg he had only just begun experimenting with kinky hair and extra toes when he happened upon the formula for poodles. Van Plotsberg's first poodles sported only one leg -- a stumpy appendage protruding from the center of the body. These crude early versions (commonly inverted and used as hat stands) were soon abandoned in favor of the superior French model, which featured a winning smile and four limbs positioned strategically around the torso. Thus began the dizzying proliferation of the modern-day poodle -- hampered temporarily by a 1909 decree which stated that "Henceforth all poodles shall bear the name Svee," marking a slight decline in the population until the edict was overturned. Today, poodles inhabit every corner of the earth. Witness the African Killer Poodle, The Wild Poodles of Borneo, and the elusive Giant Swamp Poodle of Denchai. — Elyse Friedman

I believe that nothing happens apart from divine determination and decree. We shall never be able to escape from the doctrine of divine predestination - the doctrine that God has foreordained certain people unto eternal life. — Charles Spurgeon

All of us who desire the kingdom of God are, by the Lord's decree, under an equal and rigorous necessity of seeking after the grace of Baptism. — Saint Basil

Without doubt cats are intellectuals who have been, by some mysterious decree of Providence, deprived of the comfort of the word. — Rebecca West

The decrees of the Sovereign Ordainer, as related to fate and predestination, are of two kinds. Both are to be obeyed and accepted. The one is irrevocable, the other is, as termed by men, impending. To the former all must unreservedly submit, inasmuch as it is fixed and settled. God however, is able to alter or repeal it. As the harm that must result from such a change will be greater than if the decree had remained unaltered, all, therefore, should willingly acquiesce in what God hath willed and confidently abide by the same. — Baha'u'llah

The transition will not be easy, ended the decree, and it will not be without cost. But we are not cowards to hide from the powers that define us. We are Psy and we are capable of greatness.
It is time to step out of the dark. — Nalini Singh

There is one passage in the Scriptures to which all the potentates of Europe seem to have given their unanimous assent and approbation ... "There went out a decree in the days of Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed." — Charles Caleb Colton

Real divorce takes place without a decree ... — Margaret Deland

It is not an arbitrary "decree of God," but in the nature of man, that a veil shuts down on the facts of to-morrow; for the soul will not have us read any other cipher than that of cause and effect. By this veil, which curtains events, it instructs the children of men to live in to-day. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I ask for a decree
dooming my bitter enemies to laughter
advanced against them. — John Berryman

They say I am a regulator and I think it is just an effort not to comply with the decree. I do not do anything except what the decree requires me to do. — Harold H. Greene

One of the most interesting accomplishments of the film community, it seems to me, is that it has made real for America the exquisite beauty of incompatibility. Divorce among the gods possesses the sweet, holy sadness that has long been associated with marriage among the mortals. There is something infinitely tender about the inability of an actor to get along with an actress. When it is all over, and the decree is final, the two are even more attentive to each other, are seen oftener together, than ever before. — E.B. White

The Constitution exists precisely so that opinions and judgments, including esthetic and moral judgments about art and literature, can be formed, tested, and expressed. What the Constitution says is that these judgments are for the individual to make, not for the Government to decree, even with the mandate or approval of a majority. Technology expands the capacity to choose; and it denies the potential of this revolution if we assume the Government is best positioned to make these choices for us. — Anthony Kennedy

When angels visit earth, the messengers Of God's decree, they come as lightning, wind: Before the throne, they all are living fire. — Emma Lazarus

Yes, business really does change. 400 years ago, corporations were formed by royal decree. 300 years ago, many countries were powered by slave labour, or its closest moral equivalent. 200 years ago, debtors didn't go bankrupt, they went to prison. 100 years ago - well, business is largely the same as it was a century ago. And that's exactly the problem. Business hasn't changed, but today's array of tectonic global shocks demands a different, radically better kind of business. Yesterday's corporations visibly cannot meet today's economic challenges. — Umair Haque

The parliament passes some acts or decree which may have the most devastating consequences, yet nobody bears the responsibility for it. Nobody can be called to account." - — Michael Walsh-McLaughlin

In the great meteor shower of August, the Perseid, I wail all day for the shooting stars I miss. They're out there showering down, committing hari-kiri in a flame of fatal attraction, and hissing perhaps into the ocean. But at dawn what looks like a blue dome clamps down over me like a lid on a pot. The stars and planets could smash and I'd never know. Only a piece of ashen moon occasionally climbs up or down the inside of the dome, and our local star without surcease explodes on our heads. We have really only that one light, one source for all power, and yet we must turn away from it by universal decree. Nobody here on the planet seems aware of that strange, powerful taboo, that we all walk about carefully averting our faces, this way and that, lest our eyes be blasted forever. — Annie Dillard

Whatever happened in the world was a decree from God. A task to be completed. Any crying or joy just got in the way of being useful. Any emotion was decadent. Anticipation or regret was a silly extra. A luxury. — Chuck Palahniuk

One hundred years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, the Spanish government issued a decree authorizing the enslavement of the American Indian as in accord with the law of God and man. — Nelson A. Miles

Either fraternity is spontaneous, or it does not exist. To decree it is to annihilate it. The law can indeed force men to remain just; in vain would it would try to force them to be self-sacrificing. — Frederic Bastiat

When we look at cities across the country, Cincinnati, for example, where they have come under DOJ guidance with a consent decree, we see that, over time, there has been a transformation in the relationship between the police and the community, where now they have a partnership and true collaborative policing, co-policing, to make the community safer overall. — Ronnie Dunn

If slavery be a sin, it is not yours. It does not rest on your action for its origin, on your consent for its existence. It is a common law right to property in the service of man; its origin was Divine decree. — Jefferson Davis

=Lost Hope= You cast to ground the hope which once was mine, But did the while your harsh decree deplore, Embalming with sweet tears the vacant shrine, My heart, where Hope had been and was no more. So on an oaken sprout A goodly acorn grew; But winds from heaven shook the acorn out, And filled the cup with dew. — Alfred Tennyson

Splendor was the decree of the day. — Karen Azinger

The bending of men's hearts to believe and persevere are the supernatural fruits of God's eternal decree, and not the natural fruits of man's depraved and frail free will. — William Jenkyn

Will-power, he saw, was not a thing one could suddenly decree oneself to possess. It must be built up imperceptibly and laboriously out of a succession of small efforts to meet definite objects, out of the facing of daily difficulties instead of cleverly eluding them, or shifting their burden on others. — Edith Wharton

When God calls a man, He does not repent of it. God does not, as many friends do, love one day, and hate another; or as princes, who make their subjects favourites, and afterwards throw theminto prison. This is the blessedness of a saint; his condition admits of no alteration. God's call is founded upon His decree, and His decree is immutable. Acts of grace cannot be reversed.God blots out His people's sins, but not their names. — Thomas Watson

Nebuchadnezzar spoke, saying, ". . . I make a decree that any people, nation, or language which speaks anything amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made an ash heap; because there is no other God who can deliver like this." Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego in the province of Babylon. — David Jeremiah

It has been said that marriages are arranged by Heaven, that destiny will bring even the most distantly separated people together, that all is settled before birth, and no matter how much we wander from our paths, no matter how our fortunes change - for good or bad - all we can do is accomplish the decree of fate. This, in the end, is our blessing and our heartbreak. — Lisa See

All things being at God's disposal, and the decision of salvation or death belonging to him, he orders all things by his counsel and decree in such a manner, that some men are born devoted from the womb to certain death, that his name may be glorified in their destruction. — John Calvin

a woman of her understanding should already presume that marrying the wealthy would come with sacrifices. Jerry Roth told him yesterday that he would courier their prenuptial marriage decree and obviously from her mood, she had not received it. — Charles Soto

Presently comfort came to him, and he thought the she had always given him of her strength though he had never quite realised it until now.
Glory had passed him by; fame too perhaps would not endure; it might well be that the incalculable goddess would decree ill fame as his due. Perhaps there might not be included in his epitah the one tribute to his knighthood the he knew he deserved "Ii fut toujours bon et loyal chevalier" (He was always good and loyal knight)
But whatever the shadowed years might bring, as long as life should last, he knew that he had here at his side one sure recompense and one abiding loyalty. — Anya Seton

Bull of September 1348 in which he said that Christians who imputed the pestilence to the Jews had been "seduced by that liar, the Devil," and that the charge of well-poisoning and ensuing massacres were a "horrible thing." He pointed out that "by a mysterious decree of God" the plague was afflicting all peoples, including Jews; that it raged in places where no Jews lived, and that elsewhere they were victims like everyone else; therefore the charge that they caused it was "without plausibility." He urged the clergy to take Jews under their protection as he himself offered to do in Avignon, but his voice was hardly heard against local animus. — Barbara W. Tuchman

Alif, Lam, Ra. These are the verses of the Book and a clear Qur'an.Perhaps those who disbelieve will wish that they had been Muslims.Let them eat and enjoy themselves and be diverted by [false] hope, for they are going to know.And We did not destroy any city but that for it was a known decree." Quran :Surah Chapter AL-HIJR (THE ROCKY TRACT):15 :1-4 . — Qur'an

It is important to realize that gold and silver are international commodities and that, therefore, when not prohibited by government decree, foreign coins are perfectly capable of serving as standard moneys. — Murray Rothbard

We live without feeling the country beneath our feet,
our words are inaudible from ten steps away.
Any conversation, however brief,
gravitates, gratingly, toward the Kremlin's mountain man.
His greasy fingers are thick as worms,
his words weighty hammers slamming their target.
His cockroach moustache seems to snicker,
and the shafts of his high-topped boots gleam.
Amid a rabble of scrawny-necked chieftains,
he toys with the favors of such homunculi.
One hisses, the other mewls, one groans, the other weeps;
he prowls thunderously among them, showering them with scorn.
Forging decree after decree, like horseshoes,
he pitches one to the belly, another to the forehead,
a third to the eyebrow, a fourth in the eye.
Every execution is a carnival
that fills his broad Ossetian chest with delight. — Osip Mandelstam

The belief in free-will is not in the least incompatible with the belief in Providence, provided you do not restrict the Providence to fulminating nothing but fatal decrees. — William James

Every man hath greater assurance that God is good and just than he can have of any subtle speculations about predestination and the decrees of God. — John Tillotson

The tribunal of conscience exists independent of edicts and decrees. — Edmund Burke

Mubarak was the glue that held this very leaderless and organic and very pluralistic mix of people together. Now that he's gone, there's a lot more debate and division about what happens next, which is healthy. We're essentially still under military dictatorship right now. The military rules the country. It can issue laws by decree. — Sharif Abdel Kouddous

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

To honor God as God, we must worship Him as He and He alone decrees. — R.C. Sproul

God decreed to save and damn certain particular persons. This decree has its foundation in the foreknowledge of God, by which he knew from all eternity those individuals who would, through his preventing [going before] grace, believe, and, through his subsequent grace would persevere by which foreknowledge, he likewise knew those who would not believe and persevere. — Jacobus Arminius

Again I ask whence it happened that the fall of Adam involved, without remedy, in eternal death so many nations, together with their infant children, except because it so seemed good to God? A decree horrible, I confess, and yet true. — John Calvin

Early one morning, before the sun had fully risen over the horizon, he sent two messengers on horseback, each to deliver the royal decree to Laird Armstrong and Laird Montgomery. He only hoped to hell that they didn't kill each other at the wedding. — Maya Banks

God was alone when He made His decrees, and His determinations were influenced by no external cause. He was free to decree or not to decree, and to decree one thing and not another. This liberty we must ascribe to Him who is Supreme, Independent, and Sovereign in all His doings. — Arthur W. Pink

For a generous deed lives longer than a great battle or a king's decree of a scholar's essay, because it spreads and leaves its mark on all nature and endures through many generations. — L. Frank Baum

How can God be happy and decree calamity? Consider that he has the capacity to view the world through two lenses. Through the narrow one he is grieved and angered at sin and pain. Through the wide one he sees evil in relation to its eternal purposes. Reality is like a mosaic. The parts may be ugly in themselves, but the whole is beautiful. — Jonathan Edwards

The flowers of Spring may wither, the hope of Summer fade, The Autumn droop in Winter, the birds forsake the shade; The winds be lull'd - the Sun and Moon forget their old decree, But we in Nature's latest hour, O Lord! will cling to Thee. — Reginald Heber

Leadership does not mean being bossy, always telling others what to do. No, leadership means going ahead, not putting others in the front. Good leaders lead by example, not by decree. — Myles Munroe

Fortuitous circumstances constitute the moulds that shape the majority of human lives, and the hasty impress of an accident is too often regarded as the relentless decree of all ordaining fate. — Olympia Brown

In the exercise of God's efficiency, the decree of God comes first. This manner of working is the most perfect of all and notably agrees with the divine nature. — William Ames

Now, an important word from our Minister of Defense: Certainly the loudspeaker in each and every apartment in North Korea provides news, announcements, and cultural programming, but it must be reminded that it was by Great Leader Kim Il Sung's decree in 1973 that an anti-raid warning system be installed across this nation, and a properly functioning early-warning network is of supreme importance. The Inuit people are a tribe of isolate savages that live near the North Pole. Their boots are called mukluk. Ask your neighbor later today, what is a mukluk? If he does not know, perhaps there is a malfunction with his loudspeaker, or perhaps it has for some reason become accidentally disconnected. By reporting this, you could be saving his life the next time the Americans sneak-attack our great nation. — Adam Johnson

Let us reject this decree. In matters of conscience the majority has no power.
Merle d'Aubigne, History of the Reformation, b. 13, ch. 5. — Ellen G. White

I decree today that life is simply taking and not giving, England is mine and it owes me a living — Steven Morrissey

In 1948 the first severe crash occurred in my life when Stalin put out his decree on 'formalism.' There was a bulletin board in the Moscow Conservatory. They posted the decree, which said Shostakovich's compositions and Prokofiev's were no longer to be played. — Mstislav Rostropovich

1And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2aThis census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria. 3So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city. 4Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to bthe city of David, which is called Bethlehem, cbecause he was of the house and lineage of David, 5to be registered with Mary, dhis betrothed 1wife, who was with child. 6So it was, that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. 7And eshe brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a 2manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. — Anonymous

Well then, take this thought with you for the dark hours to come: It is a ludicrous fiction that love conquers all, but it can, in fact, conquer quite a lot. I am Iason of the Blood, Knight of Arthur, King of the Britons, reborn into dark service in the year of Our Lord five hundred and sixty. My power is vast, and for none to arrogate but by my will and decree. My services are engaged, Selina. Tell me what you need to ease your pain in this, and it is yours. — Chris Dee

An eternal life is a life that one lives according to his or her decree to ultimately be a fine human being, agreeing with the concept of goodness, foreseeing the dangers ahead either by prophesies or by anticipation and to serve our Heavenly Father unselfishly. — Anthony Pan

The Patriot Act followed 9-11 as smoothly as the suspension of the Weimar constitution after the Reichstag Fire Decree. — Srda Trifkovic

Sin must be within God's eternal decrees in some sense in which He is not the author of it ... We must conclude then that within the decrees of God, there are decrees of permission of those things of which God Himself is not the author — J. Oliver Buswell

Decree now, and say it meaningly: "From this moment forward, I will admit to my mind for mental consumption only those ideas and thoughts that heal, bless, inspire, and strengthen — Joseph Murphy

I intend to see that justice is done by presiding, in the manner of the omnipotent Walter Mitty, as chief justice of a tribunal trying the case of those plotting further advances for the Chinese characters on an international scale. Emulating the operatic Mikado's "object all sublime... to let the punishment fit the crime," I hand down the following dread decree:

Anyone who believes Chinese characters to be a superior system of writing that can function as a universal script is condemned to complete the task of rendering the whole of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address into Singlish.
— John DeFrancis

And again and again the human race will decree from time to time: "There is something at which it is absolutely forbidden henceforth to laugh. — Friedrich Nietzsche

The August Decrees were an improvised parliamentary reaction to an emergency situation. — Francois Furet

Cyprian was not issuing a new decree but was keeping to the most solid belief of the Church in order to correct some who thought that infants ought not be baptized before the eighth day after their birth ... He agreed with certain of his fellow bishops that a child is able to be duly baptized as soon as he is born. — Saint Augustine

Because it was enough for one of those favorites of His Distinguished Highness to issue a thoughtless decree. These young smart alecks see it, and they immediately imagine some fatal result and come running to the rescue. They start trying to mend things, straighten things out, patch things up and untangle them. And so instead of using their energy to build their own vision of the future, instead of trying to put their irresponsible, destructive fantasies into action, our malcontents had to roll up their sleeves and start untangling what the minsters had knotted up. And there's always a lot of work to untangling! So they untangle and untangle, drenched in sweat, wearing their nerves to shreds, running around, patching things up here and there, and in all this rush and overwork, in this whirlwind, their fantasies slowly evaporate from their hot heads. — Ryszard Kapuscinski