«The flaw in the statute [is] that in all its applications, it operates on a fundamentally mistaken premise that high solicitation costs are an accurate measure of fraud.»

«This is the fundamental premise of how the U.S. legal system functions ? you are responsible for your own actions. God, Jesus, Allah, Buddha, the Grand Master of the KKK, the President of Ford Motor Company cannot be held responsible for your actions. God doesn't go to jail for the pound of weed you got caught going over the Laredo with - even though he apparently has the knowledge, power, and care to prevent it ? you go to jail. God passes go and the courts collect two hundred dollars.»

«The capacity to be puzzled is the premise of all creation, be it in art or in science.»

«One thing, however, I must premise, that without the assistance of natural capacity, rules and precepts are of no efficacy.»

«LOGIC, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. The basic of logic is the syllogism, consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion --thus:_Major Premise_: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one man._Minor Premise_: One man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds; therefore --_Conclusion_: Sixty men can dig a posthole in one second. This may be called the syllogism arithmetical, in which, by combining logic and mathematics, we obtain a double certainty and are twice blessed.»

«The press, the machine, the railway, the telegraph are premises whose thousand-year conclusion no one has yet dared to draw.»