Word: precept
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...citizens from such invasions of privacy. The basic principle is laid out in the U.S. Privacy Act of 1974, which at least in theory restricts the government from taking computer data gathered for one purpose (say, the census) and using them for another purpose (say, tax collection). Another guiding precept is that unique numerical identifiers -- like Thailand's ID numbers -- should be avoided because they make dossier preparation temptingly easy. That is why the American Civil Liberties Union gets so upset when a Social Security number is used beyond its original intent...
...novels or so, and reviewers have continued to praise him, especially for his dialogue -- though with diminishing patience, as if having an uncanny ear and using it were a bit too easy. This drives the author a little crazy when he thinks about it, and he thumps down a precept that could be carved in stone: "Dialogue is character is plot." In a shrewd book published last June, On Writing, he approvingly notes that John O'Hara, a novelist he admires above almost all others, would tell a whole chapter with dialogue -- a husband and wife, for instance, punching with...
...indeed, more so; hence the paucity of good memoirs. "You must never undertake the search for time lost," warns the last sentence of Gregor von Rezzori's The Snows of Yesteryear, "in the spirit of nostalgic tourism." The rest of the book shows how carefully he has obeyed this precept...
Mere maintenance of the existing security system would be insufficient--it must be improved. With the above measures, we would not have to provide so much security for ourselves, as the administration would like us to. Apparently the administration fancies Winston Churchill's precept, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." But with vigilance comes fear, a sentiment with which Harvard students should not have to contend. Our security is worth far more than the administration seems to value...
...humane public policy from this or any federal administration? Derek Bok, in several letters to the Harvard community over the last couple of years, has focused on the moral effect of institutions of higher learning, with the conclusion that practice (by administrators and faculty) is more important than precept in influencing the moral behavior of students now and in their future careers. If such members of the intellectual and (presumably) moral elite who are eagerly "packing their bags for Washington (and who) point to a healthy economy" can be so blind and deaf to injustices literally at their doorsteps...