Necessity

"Necessitas non habet legem"

"Necessity is the mother of invention."

"Necessitas est lex temporis et loci"

"The law of necessity dispenses with things which otherwise are not lawful to be done."

"Necessity turns lion into fox."

"Where necessity speaks it demands."

"These are times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or in the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised, and animated by the scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant, wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman."

"The right of a nation to kill a tyrant, in cases of necessity, can no more be doubted, than to hang a robber, or kill a flea. But killing one tyrant only makes way for worse, unless the people have sense, spirit and honesty enough to establish and support a constitution guarded at all points against the tyranny of the one, the few, and the many."

"Against necessity against its strength, no one can fight and win."

"Necessity is stronger far than art."

"Necessità c'induce, e non diletto."

"Man cannot be free if he does not know that he is subject to necessity, because his freedom is always won in his never wholly successful attempts to liberate himself from necessity."

"In his metaphysics, Abelard held that God created everything from an inner necessity of his own being. Consequently, this must be the best world possible, because of the ."

"For everything that has the possibility of being and of not being, is mutable. But God is absolutely immutable, as has been demonstrated. Therefore it is impossible for God to be and not to be. But anything that exists in such a way that it is impossible for it not to exist, is necessarily Being itself, ipsum esse. Necessary existence, and impossibility of nonexistence, mean one and the same thing. Therefore God must necessarily exist."

"Nature means Necessity."

"Soul of the world, divine Necessity, Servant of God, and master of all things."

"Nothing is more necessary than the unnecessary."

"Wo wir unfähig sind, die Gesetze der Notwendigkeit zu erkennen, da glauben wir, frei zu sein."

"Ananke must above all be regarded as cosmic force, that is as the ruling law in the universe; thus … the super-personal, cosmic significance of "the All" ruled by Ananke as well, can be accepted as certain. It represents in the universe the inviolability of cause and effect and does so as dual essence, as a mythical personage belonging to the oldest theogony or as the earliest philosophical concept of the mechanics of natural events. The two fuse and need not be separated here; but we must also state that the mythical figure was never entirely accepted in the religion proper, the rites of the faith. Ananke remained an elusive outsider, often perceived as cruel. But it is important that at an early stage religious and philosophical speculation closely linked Ananke to the elements of the world's existence (among which Goethe included her too). Like the intellect, Ananke is said to be a highly refined, non-corporeal substance which penetrates the whole world and touches its boundaries. Altogether she is a force belonging to the extremities of the world; like Pythagoras' Chronos she is the outermost layer of the sphere, encircling the cosmos or being the farthest vault of the heavens. The complete identity of her nature shines through the variously established but actually transparent concepts. She may be ethereal for the same reason that she is occasionally even equated with the ether — the world soul and supreme element — thereby becoming associated with the concept of the immaterial and the omnipresent which fills the world as the divine primal substance. We may quote here … Empedocles's cosmic law that "spreads all over the wide-ruling ether" and which, therefore, must have the same place and function in the universe. Finally one can apply here the universal formula of the beginning, middle and end of all things being nothing other than a variant of the formula of the sphere; however, this expresses the creator of being, instead of being itself. Hence Ananke belongs here as the goddess of wisdom, as Aeschylus called her, for the same reason the inner logic of the entire train of thought ends with her. Finally the question is posed about the divine, the sphere itself, and thus the chain comes to an end, forming a perfect ring. It seems to be good archaic terminology, perhaps not without relation to other, mythical aspects of the idea, that Necessity stands for the Strongest, since domination is ascribed to her as to an old goddess of the universe. In the image of the sphere, where the true existence of thought can alone recognize itself, the non-corporeal Ananke becomes conceivable, being the law that forms the world and holds it together. The entire cosmos, as it were, becomes her image and attribute, and Thales in pointing to her poses a question and simultaneously gives the answer."

"When it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change."

"He detested those in the Order who dressed in three layers of clothing or who wore soft clothes without necessity. As for “necessity” not based on reason but on pleasure, he declared that it was a sign of a spirit that was extinguished. “When the spirit is lukewarm,” he said, “and gradually growing cold as it moves from grace, flesh and blood inevitably seek their own interests. When the soul finds no delight, what is left except for the flesh to look for some? Then the base instinct covers itself with the excuse of necessity, and the mind of the flesh forms the conscience."

"Hold it wise … To make a virtue of necessity."

"Thanne is it wysdom, as thynketh me, To maken vertu of necessité, And take it weel, that we may not eschu, And namely that that to us alle is due."

"It is precisely because an ideal is necessary to man that the man without ideals is in permanent danger of fanaticism."

"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."

"We declared our intentions to preserve monarchy, and they still are so, unless necessity enforce an alteration."

"Cruel necessity."

"Necessity hath no law. Feigned necessities, imagined necessities... are the greatest cozenage that men can put upon the Providence of God, and make pretenses to break known rules by."

"It is not necessary for the public to know whether I am joking or whether I am serious, just as it is not necessary for me to know it myself."

"The Citizen, of necessity, must speak to citizens, and therein lies its whole trouble!"

"In human freedom in the philosophical sense I am definitely a disbeliever. Everybody acts not only under external compulsion but also in accordance with inner necessity. Schopenhauer's saying, that "a man can do as he will, but not will as he will," has been an inspiration to me since my youth up, and a continual consolation and unfailing well-spring of patience in the face of the hardships of life, my own and others'. This feeling mercifully mitigates the sense of responsibility which so easily becomes paralyzing, and it prevents us from taking ourselves and other people too seriously; it conduces to a view of life in which humor, above all, has its due place."

"Civilization after civilization, it is the same. The world falls to tyranny with a whisper. The frightened are ever keen to bow to a perceived necessity, in the belief that necessity forces conformity, and conformity a certain stability. In a world shaped into conformity, dissidents stand out, are easily branded and dealt with. There is no multitude of perspectives, no dialogue. The victim assumes the face of the tyrant, self-righteous and intransigent, and wars breed like vermin. and people die."

"Winning doesn't necessarily mean you're right. History will be a better judge of that."

"Necessity is an evil; but there is no necessity for continuing to live subject to necessity."

"How base a thing it is when a man will struggle with necessity! We have to die."

"I hold that mortal foolish who strives against the stress of necessity."

"Nothing has more strength than dire necessity."

"'Tis necessity To which the gods must yield; and I obey, Till I redeem it by some glorious way."

"Art imitates nature, and necessity is the mother of invention."

"Necessity never made a good bargain."

"Necessity dispenseth with decorum."

"What is necessary is never a risk."

"Necessitatem in virtutem commutarum."

"You fight when the necessity arises — no matter the mood! Mood's a thing for cattle or making love or playing the baliset. It's not for fighting."

"The convoluted wording of legalisms grew up around the necessity to hide from ourselves the violence we intend toward each other. Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. You have done violence to him, consumed his energy. Elaborate euphemisms may conceal your intent to kill, but behind any use of power over another the ultimate assumption remains: "I feed on your energy.""

"Intelligence takes chances with limited data in an arena where mistakes are not only possible but also necessary."

"Æqua lege necessitas Sortitur insignes et imos."

"Freedom is only necessity understood."

"We know not of its presence, though its power Be on the gradual round of every hour, Now flinging down an empire, now a flower."

"Necessity is the mistress and guardian of Nature."

"Oh! marvellous, O stupendous Necessity — by thy laws thou dost compel every effect to be the direct result of its cause, by the shortest path. These are miracles..."

"Necessity is the theme and the inventress, the eternal curb and law of nature."

"Experience, the interpreter between formative nature and the human race, teaches how that nature acts among mortals; and being constrained by necessity cannot act otherwise than as reason, which is its helm, requires her to act."

"Necessity is the law of the time and action, and things are lawful by necessity, which otherwise are not; "Quicguid necessitas cogit, defendit"; and the law of the time must regulate the law of the place in such public things."

"Necessitas ultimum et maximum telum est."

"Every great poem is in itself limited by necessity, — but in its suggestions unlimited and infinite."

"Discite quam parvo liceat producere vitam, Et quantum natura petat."

"What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself."

"In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas"

"So spake the Fiend, and with necessity, The tyrant's plea, excused his devilish deed."

"C'est une violente maistresse d'eschole que la necessité."

"Sometimes a great example is necessary to all the public functionaries of the state."

"Necessity dominates inclination, will, and right."

"It is not necessary to prohibit or encourage oddities of conduct which are not harmful."

"At the beginning of a campaign it is important to consider whether or not to move forward; but when one has taken the offensive it is necessary to maintain it to the last extremity."

"In civil war it is not given to every man to know how to conduct himself. There is something more than military prudence necessary; there is need of sagacity and the knowledge of men."

"From blind physical necessity, which is always and everywhere the same, no variety adhering to time and place could evolve, and all variety of created objects which represent order and life in the universe could happen only by the willful reasoning of its original Creator, Whom I call the Lord God."

"I have often been told of people who have been able to continue one and the same dream over three and more successive nights: facts which clearly show that our innermost being, our common foundation, experiences dreams with profound pleasure and joyful necessity."

"Necessity is not an established fact, but an interpretation."

"A person may be as radical as you please, and still may make an extremely conservative estimate of the force of necessity exhibited by a given set of conditions. A radical, for example, may think we should get on a great deal better if we had an entirely different system of government, and yet, at this time and under conditions now existing, he may take a strongly conservative view of the necessity for pitching out our system, neck and crop, and replacing it with another. He may think our fiscal system is iniquitous in theory and monstrous in practice, and be ever so sure he could propose a better one, but if on consideration of all the circumstances he finds that it is not necessary to change that system, he is capable of maintaining stoutly that it is necessary not to change it."

"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil."

"It is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe."

"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!"

"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."

"Qui e nuce nucleum esse vult, frangat nucem."

"Necessity can turn any weapon to advantage."

"A wise man never refuses anything to necessity."

"Necessity knows no law except to conquer."

"Necessity resides in the way we talk about things, not in the things we talk about."

"We give to necessity the praise of virtue."

"What the Russian autocrats and their supporters fear most is that the success of libertarian Socialism in Spain might prove to their blind followers that the much vaunted "necessity of dictatorship" is nothing but one vast fraud which in Russia has led to the despotism of Stalin and is to serve today in Spain to help the counter-revolution to a victory over the revolution of the workers and the peasants."

"Efficacior omni arte imminens necessitas."

"Necessitas etiam timidos fortes facit."

"Ernst ist der Anblick der Nothwendigkeit."

"Berkeley was... the first to treat the subjective starting-point really seriously and to demonstrate irrefutably its absolute necessity. He is the father of idealism."

"It is in these useless and superfluous things that I am rich and happy."

"Necessity — thou best of peacemakers, As well as surest prompter of invention."

"In the first place, it is not improper to observe, that the law of cases of necessity is not likely to be well furnished with precise rules; necessity creates the law, it supersedes rules; and whatever is reasonable and just in such cases, is likewise legal; it is not to be considered as matter of surprise, therefore, if much instituted rule is not to be found on such subjects."

"Malum est necessitati vivere; sed in necessitate vivere necessitas nulla est."

"Necessity must speak."

"Now sit we close about this taper here, And call in question our necessities."

"Necessity's sharp pinch!"

"The art of our necessities is strange, That can make vile things precious."

"All places, that the eye of heaven visits, Are to a wise man ports and happy havens: Teach thy necessity to reason thus; There is no virtue like necessity."

"Omission to do what is necessary Seals a commission to a blank of danger."

"Spirit of nature! all-sufficing power, Necessity! thou mother of the world!"

"Necessity may be the mother of lucrative invention, but it is the death of poetical invention."

"Never say more than is necessary."

"Sheer necessity — the proper parent of an art so nearly allied to invention."

"Not even the gods fight against necessity."

"Nede hath no lawe."

"I hold that to need nothing is divine, and the less a man needs the nearer does he approach divinity."

"The casual is not Enough. The freshness of transformation isThe freshness of a world. It is our own, It is ourselves, the freshness of ourselves, And that necessity and that presentationAre rubbings of a glass in which we peer."

"I am one of you and being one of you Is being and knowing what I am and know. Yet I am the necessary angel of earth, Since, in my sight, you see the earth again, Cleared of its stiff and stubborn, man-locked set And, in my hearing, you hear its tragic drone Rise liquidly in liquid lingerings, Like watery words awash; like meanings said By repetitions of half-meanings."

"I am Inevitable."

"Strongest is Necessity because it governs all things."

"Necessity relieves us from the embarrassment of choice."

"I have argued above that we cannot prevent the Singularity, that its coming is an inevitable consequence of the humans' natural competitiveness and the possibilities inherent in technology. And yet … we are the initiators. Even the largest avalanche is triggered by small things. We have the freedom to establish initial conditions, make things happen in ways that are less inimical than others. Of course (as with starting avalanches), it may not be clear what the right guiding nudge really is..."

"Le superflu, chose très nécessaire."

"He who does not realize to what extent shifting fortune and necessity hold in subjection every human spirit, cannot regard as fellow-creatures nor love as he loves himself those whom chance separated from him by an abyss. The variety of constraints pressing upon man give rise to the illusion of several distinct species that cannot communicate. Only he who has measured the dominion of force, and knows how not to respect it, is capable of love and justice."

"For those who believe, no explanation is necessary; for those who do not believe, no explanation is possible."

"Necessity first mothered invention. Now invention has little ones of her own, and they look just like grandma."

"Who, doomed to go in company with Pain And Fear and Bloodshed,—miserable train!— Turns his necessity to glorious gain."

"Necessity, the mother of invention."