Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Necessity
Necessity is stronger far than art.
Æschylus—Prometheus Chained. L. 513.
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.
Chaucer—Canterbury Tales. The Knighte’s Tale. L. 2,182.
Necessity hath no law. Feigned necessities, imaginary necessities, are the greatest cozenage men can put upon the Providence of God, and make pretences to break known rules by.
Cromwell—Speeches. To Parliament, Sept. 12, 1654.
Necessità c’induce, e non diletto.
It is necessity and not pleasure that compels us.
Dante—Inferno. XII. 87.
Art imitates nature, and necessity is the mother of invention.
Richard Franck—Northern Memoirs. Written in 1658. P. 52.
Necessitatem in virtutem commutarum.
To make necessity a virtue (a virtue of necessity).
Hadrianus Julius—Addition to Adages of Erasmus. F. Geronimo Bermudes—Nise Lastimosa. Act IV. Sc. 2. (1577). Burton—Anatomy of Melancholy. Pt. III. Sec. 3. Memb. 4. Subsec. 1. Dryden—Palamon and Arcite. Bk. III. L. 1,084. Matthew Henry—Paraphrase of Psalm 37. Hieronymus—In Ruf. 3. Also in Epistles 54. Pettie—Civile Conversation. I. 5. Quintilian—Inst. Orat. I. 8. 14. Rabelais—Gargantua. I. II. Pantagruel. Sec. 5. Ch. XXII.
Æqua lege necessitas
Sortitur insignes et imos.
Necessity takes impartially the highest and the lowest.
Horace—Carmina. III. 1. 14.
Necessitas ultimum et maximum telum est.
Necessity is the last and strongest weapon.
Livy—Annales. IV. 28.
Discite quam parvo liceat producere vitam,
Et quantum natura petat.
Learn on how little man may live, and how small a portion nature requires.
Lucan—Pharsalia. IV. 377.
So spake the Fiend, and with necessity,
The tyrant’s plea, excused his devilish deed.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. IV. L. 393.
C’est une violente maistresse d’eschole que la necessité.
Necessity is a violent school-mistress.
Montaigne—Essays. Bk. I. 47.
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.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
William Pitt the Elder—Speeches. The India Bill, November 18, 1783.
Qui e nuce nucleum esse vult, frangat nucem.
He who would eat the kernel, must crack the shell.
Plautus—Curculio. I. 1. 55.
Efficacior omni arte imminens necessitas.
Necessity when threatening is more powerful than device of man.
Quintus Curtius Rufus—De Rebus Gestis Alexandri Magni. IV. 3. 23.
Necessitas etiam timidos fortes facit.
Necessity makes even the timid brave.
Sallust—Catilina. 58.
Ernst ist der Anblick der Nothwendigkeit.
Stern is the visage of necessity.
Schiller—Wallenstein’s Tod. I. 4. 45.
It is in these useless and superfluous things that I am rich and happy.
Scopas. In Plutarch’s Life of Cato.
Necessity—thou best of peacemakers,
As well as surest prompter of invention.
Scott—Peveril of the Peak. Heading of Ch. XXVI.
Malum est necessitati vivere; sed in necessitate vivere necessitas nulla est.
It is bad to live for necessity; but there is no necessity to live in necessity.
Seneca—Epistles. 58.
Now sit we close about this taper here,
And call in question our necessities.
Julius Cæsar. Act IV. Sc. 3. L. 105.
Necessity’s sharp pinch!
King Lear. Act II. Sc. 4. L. 214.
Teach thy necessity to reason thus:
There is no virtue like necessity.
Richard II. Act I. Sc. 3. L. 277.
Omission to do what is necessary
Seals a commission to a blank of danger.
Troilus and Cressida. Act III. Sc. 3. L. 230.
Spirit of Nature! all-sufficing Power!
Necessity, thou mother of the world!
Shelley—Queen Mab. Pt. VI.
Sheer necessity—the proper parent of an art so nearly allied to invention.
Sheridan—The Critic. Act I. Sc. 2.
The gods do not fight against necessity.
Simonides. 3. 20.
Nede hath no lawe.
Skelton—Colyn Cloute. L. 865. Langland—Piers Ploughman. Passus. 23. L. 10.
I hold that to need nothing is divine, and the less a man needs the nearer does he approach divinity.
Socrates. Quoted by Xenophon—Mem. Bk. I. 6. 10.
A wise man never refuses anything to necessity.
Syrus—Maxims. 540.
Necessity knows no law except to conquer.
Syrus—Maxims. 553.
Le superflu, chose très nécessaire.
The superfluous, a very necessary thing.
Voltaire—Le Mondain.
Who, doomed to go in company with Pain
And Fear and Bloodshed,—miserable train!—
Turns his necessity to glorious gain.
Wordsworth—Character of a Happy Warrior.
Necessity, the mother of invention.
Wycherly—Love in a Wood. Act III. Sc. 3.