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Playing God is indeed playing with fire. But that is what we mortals have done since Prometheus, the patron saint of dangerous discoveries. We play with fire and take the consequences, because the alternative is cowardice in the face of the unknown.

— Ronald Dworkin Sovereign Virtue (2000)

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More quotes by Ronald Dworkin

Discretion, like the hole in a doughnut, does not exist except as an area left open by a surrounding belt of restriction. It is therefore a relative concept. It always makes sense to ask, "Discretion under which standards?" or "Discretion as to which authority?"

Taking Rights Seriously (1978)

Perhaps MacKinnon should reflect on these suggestions that the censorship issue is not so simple-minded, so transparently gender-against-gender, as she insists. She should stop calling names long enough to ask whether personal sensationalism, hyperbole, and bad arguments are really what the cause of sexual equality now needs.

No government is legitimate that does not show equal concern for the fate of all those over whom it claims dominion and from whom it claims allegiance. Equal concern is the sovereign virtue of political community without it government is only tyranny and when a nation’s wealth is very unequally distributed, as the wealth of even very prosperous nations now is, then its equal concern is suspect.

Sovereign Virtue (2000)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Ronald Dworkin (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.