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necessity quotes

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“Immediate necessity makes many things convenient, which if continued would grow into oppressions. Expedience and right are different things.” Thomas Paine, Common Sense
“Necessity is the mother of invention.” Aesop, Aesop's Fables
“A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity.” Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
“Nothing in the universe is contingent, but all things are conditioned to exist and operate in a particular manner by the necessity of the divine nature.” Baruch Spinoza, Ethics
“Hence it is necessary for a prince wishing to hold his own to know how to do wrong, and to make use of it or not according to necessity.” Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince
“We must not think of the things we could do with, but only of the things that we can’t do without.” Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat
“It was one of the queer things of life that you saw a person every day for months and were so intimate with him that you could not imagine existence without him; then separation came, and everything went on in the same way, and the companion who...” W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage
“In everything on this earth that is worth doing, there is a stage when no one would do it, except for necessity or honor.” G. K. Chesterton, What's Wrong with the World
“Some things are really necessaries of life in some circles, the most helpless and diseased, which in others are luxuries merely, and in others still are entirely unknown.” Henry David Thoreau, Walden
“So spake the Fiend, and with necessity, the tyrant's plea, excused his devilish deeds.” John Milton, Paradise Lost
“There will never be a system invented which will do away with the necessity of work.” Henry Ford, My Life and Work
“you mustn't believe in killing . . . You must do it as a necessity but you must not believe in it. If you believe in it the whole thing is wrong.” Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls
“Chance and chance alone has a message for us. Everything that occurs out of necessity, everything expected, repeated day in and day out, is mute. Only chance can speak to us.” Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
“Money is the root of all evil, and yet it is such a useful root that we cannot get on without it any more than we can without potatoes.” Louisa May Alcott, Little Men
“Human beings are free except when humanity needs them.” Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game
“One day President Roosevelt told me that he was asking publicly for suggestions about what the war should be called. I said at once 'the Unnecessary War'.” Winston Churchill, The Second World War
“Some truths did not bear saying, and some lies were necessary.” George R. R. Martin, A Game of Thrones
“When I made the drawing of the baobabs I was carried beyond myself by the inspiring force of urgent necessity.” Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
“Before all masters, necessity is the one most listened to, and who teaches the best.” Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island
“The smell of her hair, the taste of her mouth, the feeling of her skin seemed to have got inside him, or into the air all round him. She had become a physical necessity, something that he not only wanted but felt that he had a right to.” George Orwell, 1984
“In times of crisis people are generally blind to everything outside their immediate necessities.” Albert Einstein, The world as I see it
“Necessity is the mistress and guide of nature. Necessity is the theme and the inventress, the eternal curb and law of nature.” Leonardo da Vinci, The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci

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evil nature luxury right need blindness truth oppression freedom work desire money action war speech art teaching existence lies law

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W. Somerset Maugham (1)
Albert Einstein (1)
Jerome K. Jerome (1)
George Orwell (1)
Thomas Paine (1)
George R. R. Martin (1)
Henry David Thoreau (1)
Leonardo da Vinci (1)
Ernest Hemingway (1)
Milan Kundera (1)
Louisa May Alcott (1)
Aesop (1)
G. K. Chesterton (1)
Rainer Maria Rilke (1)
John Milton (1)
Jules Verne (1)
Winston Churchill (1)
Henry Ford (1)
Baruch Spinoza (1)
Orson Scott Card (1)

Related sources

Of Human Bondage (1)
1984 (1)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1)
The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1)
The world as I see it (1)
The Little Prince (1)
Walden (1)
A Game of Thrones (1)
Paradise Lost (1)
Letters to a Young Poet (1)
The Prince (1)
My Life and Work (1)
Three Men in a Boat (1)
Ethics (1)
Common Sense (1)
The Second World War (1)
The Mysterious Island (1)
Little Men (1)
Aesop's Fables (1)
Ender's Game (1)