For eighteen hundred years, though perchance I have no right to say it, the New Testament has been written; yet where is the legislator who has wisdom and practical talent enough to avail himself of the light which it sheds on the science of legislation?
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Although the New Testament offers wisdom, no legislator has yet used its insights to improve lawmaking.
- In plain terms
- No lawmaker has applied New Testament wisdom to legislation.
- What can you take from it?
- Integrate moral teachings into legislative practice.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Can religious wisdom translate into effective law?
- What are the limits of such integration?
Another view
Religious texts may not address modern legislative complexities.
More from Henry David Thoreau
No man with a genius for legislation has appeared in America. They are rare in the history of the world. There are orators, politicians, and eloquent men, by t…
Permalink to quote #64 A very few, as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men, serve the State with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for …
Permalink to quote #66 They who know of no purer sources of truth, who have traced up its stream no higher, stand, and wisely stand, by the Bible and the Constitution, and drink at i…
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