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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
“Nature does not work with an end in view. For the eternal and infinite Being, which we call God or Nature, acts by the same necessity as that whereby it exists.” Baruch Spinoza, Ethics
“So spake the Fiend, and with necessity, the tyrant's plea, excused his devilish deeds.” John Milton, Paradise Lost
“In times of crisis people are generally blind to everything outside their immediate necessities.” Albert Einstein, The world as I see it
“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
“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
“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
“There will never be a system invented which will do away with the necessity of work.” Henry Ford, My Life and Work
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“men are so simple, and so subject to present necessities, that he who seeks to deceive will always find someone who will allow himself to be deceived.” Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince
“Some truths did not bear saying, and some lies were necessary.” George R. R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

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nature evil luxury invention law oppression expedience work money truth God freedom action desire war teaching speech art existence blindness

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Baruch Spinoza (2)
Niccolò Machiavelli (2)
Jules Verne (1)
Jerome K. Jerome (1)
W. Somerset Maugham (1)
George Orwell (1)
George R. R. Martin (1)
Henry David Thoreau (1)
Ernest Hemingway (1)
Louisa May Alcott (1)
Albert Einstein (1)
Henry Ford (1)
Winston Churchill (1)
G. K. Chesterton (1)
Aesop (1)
Milan Kundera (1)
Leonardo da Vinci (1)
Orson Scott Card (1)
Rainer Maria Rilke (1)
John Milton (1)

Related sources

Ethics (2)
The Prince (2)
Common Sense (1)
1984 (1)
A Game of Thrones (1)
Walden (1)
The world as I see it (1)
The Little Prince (1)
Letters to a Young Poet (1)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1)
The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1)
Paradise Lost (1)
My Life and Work (1)
Three Men in a Boat (1)
Of Human Bondage (1)
The Second World War (1)
The Mysterious Island (1)
Little Men (1)
Aesop's Fables (1)
Ender's Game (1)