quotations about necessity
Necessity is a strong rider with sharp spurs, who maketh the sorry jade do that which the strongest horse sometimes will not do.
CALANUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
Even the gods are unable to contend against necessity.
SIMONIDES
attributed, Day's Collacon
Soul of the world, divine Necessity,
Servant of God, and master of all things.
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
Festus
We give to necessity the praise of virtue.
QUINTILIAN
Institutio Oratoria
Necessity is a sore penance; and extremity is as hard to bear as death.
CANTACUZENUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
I hold that mortal foolish who strives against the stress of necessity.
EURIPIDES
Hercules Furens
A people never fairly begins to prosper till necessity is treading on its heels.
WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS
Egeria: Or Voices of Thought and Counsel for the Woods and the Wayside
Nothing is more necessary than the unnecessary.
ROBERTO BENIGNI
Life Is Beautiful
Necessity makes an honest man a knave.
DANIEL DEFOE
Serious Reflections of Robinson Crusoe
The necessities that exist are in general created by the superfluities that are enjoyed.
J. G. ZIMMERMAN
Aphorisms and Reflections on Men, Morals and Things
If necessity is the mother of invention, it is no less the mother of crime; eternal justice is one thing, eternal love of bread and butter and other good things another; where it is a necessity of our nature to have, it is a weakness of our being to get.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
attributed, Day's Collacon
Freedom is only necessity understood.
WILLIAM JAMES
"The Dilemma of Determinism"
Necessity is a good school.
AL-ANABARI
attributed, Day's Collacon
Necessity can turn any weapon to advantage.
PUBLILIUS SYRUS
Moral Sayings
Omission to do what is necessary
Seals a commission to a blank of danger.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Troilus and Cressida
Necessity may be the mother of lucrative invention; but is the death of poetical.
WILLIAM SHENSTONE
Essays on Men and Manners
The rule of necessity is a rule of law which states that necessity knows no law.... So the rule of necessity overrides all other laws. It in fact allows one to do that which would normally be against the law.
ROBERT PATRICK
"Technically, we are still in a state of emergency", Victoria Advocate, July 28, 2017
Necessity is an evil; but there is no necessity for continuing to live subject to necessity.
EPICURUS
attributed, Letters, Principle Doctrines and Vatican Sayings
My steps have pressed the flowers,
That to the Muses' bowers
The eternal dews of Helicon have given:
And trod the mountain height,
Where Science, young and bright,
Scans with poetic gaze the midnight-heaven.
Yet have I found no power to vie
With thine, severe necessity!
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
"Necessity"
Fear is the underminer of all determinations; and necessity the victorious rebel of all laws.
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
Aphorisms of Sir Philip Sidney