There are times when even the most potent governor must wink at transgression, in order to preserve the laws inviolate for the future.
Interpretation
Sometimes, authority must overlook minor faults to maintain greater order.
Herman Melville's quote reflects the complex relationship between governance and morality, suggesting that sometimes leaders may choose to ignore certain transgressions to uphold the integrity of the law as a whole. This highlights the idea that strict adherence to rules can sometimes lead to undesirable outcomes, and that a balance must be struck between enforcement and flexibility for the greater good of society.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about the flexibility of laws in judicial systems during a debate.
A good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a good thing; the more's the pity. So, if any one man, in his own proper person, afford stuff for a good joke to anybody, let him not be backward, but let him cheerfully allow himself to spend and be spent in that way. And the man that has anything bountifully laughable about him, be sure there is more in that man than you perhaps think for.
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If some books are deemed most baneful and their sale forbid, how then with deadlier facts, not dreams of doting men? Those whom books will hurt will not be proof against events. Events, not books should be forbid.
You cannot spill a drop of American blood without spilling the blood of the whole world.... We are not a nation, so much as a world.
Finding myself to exist in the world, I believe I shall, in some shape or other, always exist.
Silence is the unbearable repartee.
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The immense popularity of American movies abroad demonstrates that Europe is the unfinished negative of which America is the proof
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