Mason Cooley Quotes
Events are called inevitable only after they have occurred.
Cooley, Mason. City Aphorisms. Pascal Press, 1984-1993.
He argues that it is erroneous to assume motivation and position of individuals at a particular time or with respect to a particular event based on positions and writings that they take later---excepting memoirs. The particular context of Lloyd’s remark was in response to a question of what Thomas Jefferson’s position might have been on several Constitutional provisions given his correspondence post 1800. Lloyd argues that Jefferson’s trials as President later then shaped his views while at the time of the Constitutional convention, he had not had those experiences and were not influenced by them. People change their minds and political philosophies and there is the ever present exigencies of the day that affect views.
Politicians and rulers have always used necessity to justify what they wanted to do in crises.
Mason Cooley was an American aphorist known for his witty aphorisms. One of these such aphorisms Cooley developed was "The time I kill is killing me." He was professor emeritus of French, speech and world literature at the College of Staten Island. He was also an assistant professor of English at Columbia University from 1959 to 1967 and an adjunct professor from 1980 to 1988. He received his B.A. from San Diego State University and his Ph.D. from Oxford.
