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The author of this satirical work (now known to have been Thomas Taylor, a distinguished Cambridge philosopher) tried to refute Mary Wollstonecraft’s arguments by showing that they could be carried one stage further. If the argument for equality was sound when applied to women, why should it not be applied to dogs, cats, and horses? The reasoning seemed to hold for these “brutes” too; yet to hold that brutes had rights was manifestly absurd. Therefore the reasoning by which this conclusion had been reached must be unsound, and if unsound when applied to brutes, it must also be unsound when applied to women, since the very same arguments had been used in each case.

— Animal liberation by Peter Singer, Peter Singer

That’s one of the great things about New York—no one cares about your emotional state as long as there’s no blood involved. Crying on the sidewalk in the middle of the day is no less private than crying in your bedroom in the middle of the night. Maybe it’s because no one cares. Maybe it’s because it’s a brutal city, and they’ve all been there at one time or another.

— Recursion by Blake Crouch

He has wondered lately if that’s all living really is—one long goodbye to those we love.

— Recursion by Blake Crouch

there is a major exception to the hearsay rule in every state and federal court, which does in fact allow the police officer to tell the jury about a statement made by the defendant, or about any portion of his statement, but only if that information is used against the defendant at the request of a prosecutor who is trying to prove the defendant’s guilt.

— You have the right to remain innocent by James J. Duane

If the police “help you out” by helping you get the death penalty, you might fairly wonder: What is the worse alternative if I don’t agree to talk?

— You have the right to remain innocent by James J. Duane

38 If you are being questioned by the police and trying to decide what your next move ought to be, you need to proceed on the assumption that everything you think you know about the investigation is a lie, and that you know absolutely nothing for sure about what is going on outside that room.

— You have the right to remain innocent by James J. Duane

Even in this modern age, there are many ignorant sentimentalists who believe that our government is deserving of our loyal cooperation and support, and that every good patriot with an innocent conscience should be glad to answer any questions from government agents.

— You have the right to remain innocent by James J. Duane

Because of laws like these and countless others, legal experts now agree that just about everybody in the nation, whether they know it or not, is guilty of numerous felonies for which they could be prosecuted. One reliable estimate is that the average American now commits approximately three felonies a day.

— You have the right to remain innocent by James J. Duane

One federal law makes it a crime “to import, export, transport, sell, receive, acquire, or purchase any fish or wildlife or plant taken, possessed, transported, or sold in violation of any law, treaty, or regulation of the United States or in violation of any Indian tribal law [or] . . . any law or regulation of any State or in violation of any foreign law.”

— You have the right to remain innocent by James J. Duane

As Justice Stephen Breyer of the United States Supreme Court correctly complained in 1998, “The complexity of modern federal criminal law, codified in several thousand sections of the United States Code and the virtually infinite variety of factual circumstances that might trigger an investigation into a possible violation of the law, make it difficult for anyone to know, in advance, just when a particular set of statements might later appear (to a prosecutor) to be relevant to some such investigation.”

— You have the right to remain innocent by James J. Duane

One recent investigation revealed that the United States Congress was passing a new criminal law once a week on average.7 It has been reported that the problem is so severe that even the Congressional Research Service is no longer able to keep count of the exact number of federal crimes!

— You have the right to remain innocent by James J. Duane