quotations about necessity
Soul of the world, divine Necessity,
Servant of God, and master of all things.
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
Festus
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
I don't think necessity is the mother of invention -- invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness. To save oneself trouble.
AGATHA CHRISTIE
An Autobiography
Even the gods are unable to contend against necessity.
SIMONIDES
attributed, Day's Collacon
Nothing is more necessary than the unnecessary.
ROBERTO BENIGNI
Life Is Beautiful
We give to necessity the praise of virtue.
QUINTILIAN
Institutio Oratoria
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
Necessity makes an honest man a knave.
DANIEL DEFOE
Serious Reflections of Robinson Crusoe
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
Omission to do what is necessary
Seals a commission to a blank of danger.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Troilus and Cressida
Necessity is a good school.
AL-ANABARI
attributed, Day's Collacon
Freedom is only necessity understood.
WILLIAM JAMES
"The Dilemma of Determinism"
Necessity may be the mother of lucrative invention; but is the death of poetical.
WILLIAM SHENSTONE
Essays on Men and Manners
Necessity can turn any weapon to advantage.
PUBLILIUS SYRUS
Moral Sayings
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
Necessity teaches wisdom, while prosperity makes fools.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
Necessity inspires the fatal thought.
VITTORIO ALFIERI
Agamemnon
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