"It's hard to separate the phrase from all the dicta that have grown up around it," he said.
When Robert Harris read this as part of his research for The Ghost, he sought permission to quote some of Crofts's obiter dicta ("Of all the advantages that ghosting offers, one of the greatest must be the opportunity to meet people of interest") as chapter-heads.
What I shall miss most of all are his obiter dicta on the Today programme, one of which I noted down almost exactly a year ago.
It even follows all of Aristotle's dicta of unity: place, time, and action.
As tanna he was held in affection for his human approach; one of his dicta was, "Receive all men joyfully".
Virtually all of the incidents and obiter dicta narrated in this vignette have figured in previous biographies and memoirs.
He further embraces the ancient view that those dicta entail a common substratum for all matter, as the composition and resolution of material things always yield matter.
This, by the way, is why the Court's holding regarding the choice-of-law provisions is obiter dicta, because it simply didn't matter at all to the outcome.
To arrive at this first assumption, he follows Epicurus and Lucretius in adopting the Parmenidean dicta that nothing comes from nothing and (conversely) that all matter must come from something.
