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Necessity quotes

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“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 times of crisis people are generally blind to everything outside their immediate necessities.” Albert Einstein, The world as I see it

“So spake the Fiend, and with necessity, the tyrant's plea, excused his devilish deeds.” John Milton, Paradise Lost

“Before all masters, necessity is the one most listened to, and who teaches the best.” Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island

“A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity.” Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

“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

“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

“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

“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

“Immediate necessity makes many things convenient, which if continued would grow into oppressions. Expedience and right are different things.” Thomas Paine, Common Sense

“Human beings are free except when humanity needs them.” Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game

“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

“Necessity is the mother of invention.” Aesop, Aesop's Fables

“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

“Some truths did not bear saying, and some lies were necessary.” George R. R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“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

“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

“There will never be a system invented which will do away with the necessity of work.” Henry Ford, My Life and Work

“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

Related topics

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

Related authors

Jerome K. Jerome (1)
Albert Einstein (1)
W. Somerset Maugham (1)
George Orwell (1)
George R. R. Martin (1)
Henry David Thoreau (1)
Leonardo da Vinci (1)
Milan Kundera (1)
G. K. Chesterton (1)
Thomas Paine (1)
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1)
Aesop (1)
Baruch Spinoza (1)
John Milton (1)
Rainer Maria Rilke (1)
Winston Churchill (1)
Jules Verne (1)
Niccolò Machiavelli (1)
Henry Ford (1)
Orson Scott Card (1)

Related sources

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