If the tongue had not been framed for articulation, man would still be a beast in the forest.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
He is composed and framed of treachery,
And fled he is upon this villainy.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
Constitutional statutes ... which embody the settled public opinion of the people who enacted them and whom they are to govern—can always be enforced. But if they embody only the sentiments of a bare majority, pronounced under the influence of a temporary excitement, they will, if strenuously opposed, always fail of their object; nay, they are likely to injure the cause they are framed to advance.
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)