Posner Quotes & Sayings

I've become less conservative since the Republican Party started becoming goofy, — Richard Posner

We have a tendency to assume people are a unity, and thus good people all good, etc. But the fact that Hitler was good to dogs and children isn't a paradox. — Richard Posner

I was really lucky to grow up in an extremely diverse neighborhood. I grew up in a city called Southfield, and it's one of the most diverse cities in the country. Just from the different socio-economic statuses and racial and ethnic groups I was around, I was around all different types of music from the beginning. — Mike Posner

My smiles don't result from good things, they result in good things. — Mike Posner

Heterosexuals get drunk and pregnant, producing unwanted children; their reward is to be allowed to marry. Homosexual couples do not produce unwanted children; their reward is to be denied the right to marry. Go figure. — Richard Posner

The Kouzes-Posner First Law of Leadership: If you don't believe in the messenger, you won't believe the message. Leaders — James M. Kouzes

Most conspiracy theorists dont understand this. But if there really were a CIA plot, no documents would exist. — Gerald Posner

Marcuse also believed that sexuality was a political., an ideological, category, not found but made. — Richard A. Posner

I do not know how Vladimir Putin will be esteemed by the future history, but I have no doubt that among his successes and advantages for Russia historians shall absolutely note the fact of his not altering the constitution, for he created a precedent. And afterwards, no matter who might become president, it shall be extremely difficult to alter the constitution exactly on that point. Extremely difficult. — Vladimir Posner

I think Taylor Swift is a really good artist. I feel like her personality shines through everything she does, her music, her fashion, her style. She won Album of the Year, and she's a really good writer. I'm a song writer so I respect artists who write their own songs. She won Album of the Year when she was 18 or something like that so, I think she's dope. — Mike Posner

Duke is in extremely competitive environment. In my high school, I think I got one B my whole four years. I was used to being the smartest kid in every class I was in, and then I went to Duke and suddenly I was the dumbest kid in every class. Everybody there is up to something. — Mike Posner

But the fact that judges follow precedent regularly even though not invariably does not support the legalistic theory as strongly as one might expect. The original precedent in a line of precedents could not have been based on precedent. — Richard A. Posner

So I'm in the library, and I have keyboards out and my headphones out. Everybody's like, "Mike are you making beats right now?" and I'm like, "Yeah ... sorry!" — Mike Posner

I was an advocate of the deregulation movement and I made - along with a lot of other smart people - a fundamental mistake, which is that deregulation works fine in industries which do not pervade the economy," he said in the appearance on Spitzer's "Viewpoint." "The financial industry undergirded the entire economy and if it is made riskier by deregulation and collapses in widespread bankruptcies as what happened in 2008, the entire economy freezes because it runs on credit. — Richard Posner

But Friedman seemed to share Friedrich Hayek's extreme and inaccurate view that socialism of the sort that Britain embraced under the old Labour Party was incompatible with democracy, and I don't think that there is a good theoretical or empirical basis for that view. The Road to Serfdom flunks the test of accuracy of prediction! — Richard Posner

There are really only two standards of appellate review: plenary and deferential. Conventionally there are four basic standards (with many variants), which in ascending order of deference to the trial court or administrative agency are de novo, clearly erroneous, substantial evidence, and abuse of discretion. But the last three are, in practice, the same, because finer distinctions are beyond judges' cognitive capacity. The multiplication of unusual distinctions is a familiar judicial pathology. — Richard A. Posner

I never knew, until I came here, that my background could be something to apologize for. That these privileges were so randomly given to me, while other people were just as randomly denied...Privilege has begun to feel like and inescapable infection. I carry its implications with me, and my desire to understand how it works only seems to underscore it. — Jessica Posner

Capitalism is not a synonym for free markets. — Richard A. Posner

I do not apologize for these terms or, more generally, for discussing judicial thinking in a vocabulary alien to most judges and lawyers. Judicial behavior cannot be understood in the vocabulary that judges themselves use, sometimes mischievously. (11) — Richard A. Posner

Bordoni and his wife fled to Venezuela, where he used some of the stolen money to buy a $3 million home and citizenship.103 — Gerald Posner

As a social good, I think privacy is greatly overrated because privacy basically means concealment. People conceal things in order to fool other people about them. They want to appear healthier than they are, smarter, more honest and so forth. — Richard Posner

Fact is often stranger than fiction because most writers of fiction try to make their stories plausible. — Richard Posner

The only rationale that the states put forth with any conviction-that same-sex couples and their children don't need marriage because same-sex couples can't produce children, intended or unintended-is so full of holes that it cannot be taken seriously ... — Richard Posner

No matter how much time I spend here I can't escape the whiteness of my skin, the way I stand out no matter what I do. But it's more than my skin. It's my privilege. — Jessica Posner

They say love is supposed to set you free, but I think love binds you. It's only once you're so full of joy that you can imagine a devastation of loss. — Jessica Posner

In a religiously uniform culture, it is natural for people to take for granted the truth of the prevailing religion and its associated metaphysical propositions. — Richard Posner

It is the censor's business to make a judgment about the propriety of the content or message of the proposed expressive activity. The regulation here does not authorize any judgment about the content of any speeches ... A park is a limited space, and to allow unregulated access to all comers could easily reduce rather than enlarge the park's utility as a forum for speech. Just imagine two rallies held at the same time in the same park area using public-address systems that drowned out each other's speakers. — Richard Posner

Space and time wouldn't let you be mine — Mike Posner

A poem by Rudyard Kipling says derisively of people who despise soldiers and police that they make 'mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep.' You are likely to have a strong reaction pro or con to this sentiment and how Kipling expressed it, but you will not be able to defend your view with arguments that would convince someone who has the opposite reaction. If you are intellectually sophisticated you mare recognize that your conviction, however strong, cannot be shown to be 'right,' but at most reasonable. Yet that recognition will not weaken the strength of your conviction or its influence on your behavior." 105-06 (quoting Rudyard Kipling, Tommy.) — Richard A. Posner

IRWIN: At the time of the Reformation there were fourteen foreskins of Christ preserved, but it was thought that the church of St John Lateran in Rome had the authentic prepuce.
DAKIN: Don't think we're shocked by your mention of the word 'foreskin', sir.
CROWTHER: No, sir. Some of us even have them.
LOCKWOOD: Not Posner, though, sir. Posner's like, you know, Jewish.
It's one of several things Posner doesn't have.
(Posner mouths 'fuck off.') — Alan Bennett

While I live my life expecting to live, others expect that they might die. The rules of the world are not the same for all of us. — Jessica Posner

My team and I live by 3 words: RELATE. LOVE. INSPIRE — Mike Posner

A really large percentage of kids from Duke go to work on Wall Street, and they make a lot of money, but they're almost slaves to their jobs, working crazy hours. Their job totally dominates their lives, and most of them aren't happy. So many of my friends are going down that path. I even thought about it for a second, like "Should I be doing that?" But I just pursued my dreams instead, and I always tell people to do that. Now I make more money than they do, and I'm doing what I love. — Mike Posner

A diversity of approaches is necessary if there is to be a good chance of hitting on one that works. Progress is a social undertaking & achievement, because people see things differently — Richard Posner

Violent video games played in public places are a tiny fraction of the media violence to which modern American children are exposed. Tiny - and judging from the record of this case not very violent compared to what is available to children on television and in movie theaters today. — Richard Posner

There is a whole mythology, a set of rules and issues surrounding a relationship like ours, that sneaks in uninvited. — Jessica Posner

Just having a certain kind of attitude can be magic. — Matt Posner

Richard A. Posner is an extraordinary person. If he did not exist, it would be hard to believe that he could. ( ... ) He writes with a flair that puts most journalists to shame and a depth of knowledge that puts most professors to shame. — Alan Ryan

I didn't originally intend to be an artist; I was much more interested in decorative arts--daily life, beautiful objects. — Helaine Posner

The outstanding examples are still Cardozo's Nature of the Judicial Process18 — Richard A. Posner

I feel like people didn't understand where I was about to go. And a lot of people still don't. — Mike Posner

I think of what it means to be a teenager in America, necessarily pushing boundaries, making expected mistakes. Here there is no margin for error: a mistake, no matter how insignificant, dashes any small hopes to break the cycle of poverty. Here in Kibera the world is relentless and unforgiving. — Jessica Posner

Because reputation lags achievement, we should expect people to reach the zenith of their reputation well past the zenith of their productive output — Richard Posner

One understands why law clerks follow the Bluebook. But why a judge would direct his law clerks to do so, or even tolerate their doing so, is a mystery to me. Are judges sheep? Why should they care what kids at the Harvard Law Review consider proper abbreviation? — Richard A. Posner

The Constitution has to be interpreted loosely, otherwise it becomes a straitjacket. You can't interpret it literally. You can pretend to, and go digging around in 18th Century dictionaries to figure out what 'cruel and unusual punishment' meant or what the 'right to bear arms' meant, but that is all fake really. The Constitution has to be interpreted in light of modern needs, and that's what they (the strict interpreters) end up doing in spite of all their investigations. — Richard Posner

If belief in the existence of God is predicted to lead to a feeling of contentment, and the prediction is fulfilled, does it follow that God exists? Surely not. All that would follow would be the desireability of the belief. — Richard Posner

I do not know what has caused MacKinnon to become, and, more surprisingly, to remain, so obsessed with pornography, and so zealous for censorship. But let us not sacrifice our civil liberties on the altar of her obsession. — Richard Posner

So, I mean to say, as for those who are proving their allegiance with what I would call sickening perseverance, and who are urging the president to brush away the constitution, those I would like to remind of a Russian proverb: Don't spit into the well, it'll come in handy once you're thirsty. — Vladimir Posner

In my own eyes, I could only see how ridiculous I looked. How typical white-girl-goes-to-Africa. But in their eyes, the hair was a way to make me part of them, at least for a moment. — Jessica Posner

Most people go to college to get a job, and here I am sitting in class with a job, making exponentially more than whoever's teaching me, you know what I'm saying? At the end of the day, I wanted to finish what I started, and make my mom proud. A lot of people put a lot of hard work and investment to allow me to go to school, and for me not to finish would have been like a slap in the face to my family and those people. — Mike Posner

The confidentiality of the judicial process would not matter greatly to an understanding and evaluation of the legal system if the consequences of judicial behavior could be readily determined. If you can determine the ripeness of a cantaloupe by squeezing or smelling it, you don't have to worry about the produce clerk's mental processes. — Richard Posner

Ever since I was a child my reaction to the forbidden has been a stubborn desire to keep pushing: obstacles make something uncontrollably and deeply necessary. — Jessica Posner

It is not realistic to put legal constraints on war powers. Law works through general prospective rules that apply to a range of factual situations. International relations and national security are too fluid and unpredictable to be governed by a set of legal propositions that command general assent secured in advance. Laws governing war make us feel more secure but they don't actually make us more secure — Eric A. Posner

It is not the practice of the Holy See to disclose information on the religious discipline of members of the clergy or religious according to canon law. — Gerald Posner

MacKinnon's treatment of the central issue of pornography as she herself poses it - the harm that pornography does to women - is shockingly causal. Much of her evidence is anecdotal, and in a nation of 260 Million people, anecdotes are a weak form of evidence. — Richard Posner

People are just more willing to follow someone they like and trust. — Barry Z. Posner