Arresting a single drunk or a single vagrant who has harmed no identifiable person seems unjust, and in a sense it is. But failing to do anything about a score of drunks or a hundred vagrants may destroy an entire… — James Q. Wilson Copy Share Image
A particular rule that seems to make sense in the individual case makes no sense when it is made a universal rule and applied to all cases. It makes no sense because it fails to take into account the connection… — James Q. Wilson Copy Share Image
What most needs explanation is not why some people are criminals, but why most people are not. — James Q. Wilson Copy Share Image
I believe we ought to subsidize some health care for the poor, but Medicare subsidizes everyone's health care — James Q. Wilson Copy Share Image
Character is not the enemy of self-expression and personal freedom, it is their necessary precondition. — James Q. Wilson Copy Share Image
I believe that the high rates of property crime (and some of the increase in violent crime) are part of the price you pay… — James Q. Wilson Copy Share Image
I will have an administrative system where there is no way to extricate red tape. — James Q. Wilson Copy Share Image
In terms of other functions, we are making a mistake about insisting on a public school monopoly. — James Q. Wilson Copy Share Image
Community-based policing has now come to mean everything. It's a slogan. It has come to mean so many different things that people who endorse… — James Q. Wilson Copy Share Image
Public order is a fragile thing, and if you don't fix the first broken window, soon all the windows will be broken. — James Q. Wilson Copy Share Image
