quotations about necessity
The art of our necessities is strange,
That can make vile things precious.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
King Lear
Sheer necessity -- the proper parent of an art so nearly allied to invention.
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN
The Critic
Necessity is the mistress and guardian of Nature.
LEONARDO DA VINCI
Notebooks
The law of necessity dispenses with things which otherwise are not lawful to be done.
ANONYMOUS
The Dictionary of Legal Quotations
Necessity has no law.
FRANÇOIS RABELAIS
Gargantua and Pantagruel
To feel that everything is a necessity is a warning sign that you may be avoiding an uncomfortable reality. The truth is that your necessities are covered, for the most part.
HOLIDAY MATHIS
"Horoscopes by Holiday", Bismarck Tribune, July 27, 2017
Man cannot be free if he does not know that he is subject to necessity, because his freedom is always won in his never wholly successful attempts to liberate himself from necessity.
HANNAH ARENDT
The Human Condition
Most of us do not have incomes large enough to provide both the things we need and the things we want. We are forced to choose between our necessities and our luxuries. And, very foolishly, we choose to offer up the luxuries. Thus our existence becomes dull and monotonous. We can hardly be said really to live: our lives are lived for us--cut out and sewed together by the habits and customs of the class to which we belong.
BRUCE FAIRCHILD BARTON
More Power to You
Necessity knows no law except to conquer.
PUBLILIUS SYRUS
Moral Sayings
Necessity of action takes away the fear of the act, and makes bold resolution the favorite of fortune.
FRANCIS QUARLES
Enchiridion
Necessity can make even cowards valiant.
JOSEPH HALL
Contemplations on the Old Testament
As for "necessity" not based on reason but on pleasure, he declared that it was a sign of a spirit that was extinguished.
THOMAS OF CELANO
The Life of Saint Francis
Necessity is the law of time and place.
ANONYMOUS
The Dictionary of Legal Quotations
Now sit we close about this taper here,
And call in question our necessities.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Julius Caesar
Necessity when threatening is more powerful than device of man.
QUINTUS CURTIUS RUFUS
De Rebus Gestis Alexandri Magni
Necessity turns lion into fox.
PERSIAN PROVERB
Necessity dispenseth with decorum.
THOMAS FULLER
Gnomologia
Necessity hath no law. Feigned necessities, imaginary necessities ... are the greatest cozenage that men can put upon the Providence of God, and make pretences to break known rules by.
OLIVER CROMWELL
speech to Parliament, September 12, 1654
A man can no more justly make use of another's necessity to force him to become his vassal by withholding that relief God requires him to afford to the wants of his brother, than he that has more strength can seize upon a weaker, master him to his obedience, and with a dagger at his throat, offer him death or slavery.
JOHN LOCKE
Two Treatises of Government
No picture of life can have any veracity that does not admit the odious facts. A man's power is hooped in by necessity, which by many experiments, he touches on every side, until he learns its arc.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
The Conduct of Life