Arbitrary Quotes - Page 8

• the unconscious forces that govern accessible memory are the most arbitrary of editors and the absolute masters of our lives.

  Helen McCloy

  Memories, Editors, Masters

  4 Copy quote

• Virtue and vice are not arbitrary things; but there is a natural and eternal reason for goodness and virtue, and against vice and wickedness.

  John Tillotson

  Vices, Wickedness, Virtue

  8 Copy quote

• Habit is altogether too arbitrary a master for me to submit to.

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

  Habit, Masters, Submit

  7 Copy quote

• In every society, the definitions of sanity and madness are arbitrary - are, in the largest sense, political.

  Susan Sontag

  Political, Definitions, Madness

  Antonin Artaud, Susan Sontag (1976). “Antonin Artaud, Selected Writings”, p.55, Univ of California Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• success in L.A. is completely arbitrary. One day you're the brilliant genius of life, the next day people act like there's a bad smell when you approach. Lots of expensive, late-model cars are offered in the L.A. Times every day by people who have suddenly begun to smell bad. The stakes are just too high for human dignity.

  Cynthia Heimel

  Next Day, Smell, People

  4 Copy quote

• There is nothing to guarantee the superior judgment, knowledge, and integrity of an inspector or a bureaucrat-and the deadly consequences of entrusting him with arbitrary power are obvious.

  Alan Greenspan

  Integrity, Guarantees, Judgment

  Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Alan Greenspan, Robert Hessen (1986). “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”, p.112, Penguin

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• Law and arbitrary power are at eternal enmity.

  Edmund Burke

  Power, Law, Enmity

  Edmund Burke (1963). “Edmund Burke: Selected Writings and Speeches”, p.479, Transaction Publishers

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Superstition moulds nature into an arbitrary semblance of the supernatural, and then bows down to the work of its own hands.

  John Sterling

  Hands, Superstitions, Bows

  John Sterling (1848). “Essays and Tales: Fragments from the travels of Theodore Elbert. Thoughts. Tales and apologues”, p.128

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Arbitrary power is but the first natural step from anarchy, or the savage life.

  Jonathan Swift

  Savages, Anarchy, Firsts

  Jonathan Swift (1803). “The Works”, p.316

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Wise men wrote the Constitution, but clever judges have been destroying it, bit by bit, turning it into an instrument of arbitrary judicial power, instead of a limitation on all government power.

  Thomas Sowell

  Wise, Clever, Men

  17 Copy quote

• If we set out with... a scrupulous regard to the Constitution, the government will acquire a spirit and a tone productive of permanent blessings to the community. If on the contrary,... the Constitution is slighted, or explained away, upon every frivolous pretext, the future of government will be feeble, distracted and arbitrary. The rights of the subjects will be the sport of every party vicissitude. There will be no settled rule of conduct, but everything will fluctuate with the alternate prevalency of contending factions.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Sports, Party, Blessing

  7 Copy quote

• I have been told by persons of experience in matters of taste, that the fashions follow a law of gradation, and are never arbitrary. The new mode is always only a step onward in the same direction as the last mode; and a cultivated eye is prepared for and predicts the new fashion.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Fashion, Eye, Law

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Barbara L. Packer, Joseph Slater, Douglas Emory Wilson (2003). “The Conduct of Life”, p.156, Harvard University Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The atmosphere of fear and security manipulated by the government has converted American citizens into terrorist suspects who are all subject to arbitrary and unreviewable detention and surveillance.

  Richard A. Falk

  Government, Atmosphere, Citizens

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The danger to a free society is not the guns owned by the citizens but an unconstrained government.... An armed society is a self-governing society, just as a disarmed people are vulnerable to arbitrary power of every kind.

  Llewellyn Rockwell

  Gun, Government, Self

  "Guns and Liberty". Mises Daily, June 03, 1999.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• The people as a body cannot deliberate. Nevertheless, they will feel an irresistible impulse to act, and their resolutions will be dictated to them by their demagogues... and the violent men, who are the most forward to gratify those passions, will be their favorites. What is called the government of the people is in fact too often the arbitrary power of such men. Here, then, we have the faithful portrait of democracy.

  Fisher Ames

  Passion, Men, People

  Fisher Ames, John Thornton Kirkland (1854). “Works of Fisher Ames: With a selection from his speeches and correspondence”, p.393, Burt Franklin

  38 Copy quote

  Show source

• The rule of law does not guarantee freedom, since general law as well as personal edicts can be tyrannical. But increasing reliance on the rule of law clearly played a major role in transforming Western society from a world in which the ordinary citizen was literally subject to the arbitrary will of his master to a world in which the ordinary citizen could regard himself as his own master

  Milton Friedman

  Law, Ordinary, Doe

  Milton Friedman (1975). “There's no such thing as a free lunch”, Open Court Pub Co

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Youth was so mercilessly hard in its decisions; it had its own unyielding standards and had not yet learned enough to know that time would prove them arbitrary.

  Winston Graham

  Decision, Unyielding, Youth

  Winston Graham (1961). “Jeremy Poldark: a novel of Cornwall, 1790-1791”, Vintage

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• I would like, in my arbitrary way, to bring one nearer to the actual human being.

  Francis Bacon

  Humanity, Way, Being Human

  Francis Bacon (1975). “Francis Bacon, recent paintings, 1968-1974: March 20-Jun 29, 1975, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York : [catalog].”, Metropolitan Museum of Art New York

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Set before us the conduct of our own British ancestors, who defended for us the inherent rights of mankind against foreign and domestic tyrants and usurpers, against arbitrary kings and cruel priests; in short against the gates of earth and hell.

  John Adams

  Kings, Rights, Tyrants

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1851). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.462

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Tis a Mistake to think this Fault [tyranny] is proper only to Monarchies; other Forms of Government are liable to it, as well as that. For where-ever the Power that is put in any hands for the Government of the People, and the Preservation of their Properties, is applied to other ends, and made use of to impoverish, harass, or subdue them to the Arbitrary and Irregular Commands of those that have it: There it presently becomes Tyranny, whether those that thus use it are one or many.

  John Locke

  Mistake, Thinking, Hands

  John Locke, Peter Laslett (1988). “Locke: Two Treatises of Government Student Edition”, p.400, Cambridge University Press

  75 Copy quote

  Show source

• The most insupportable of tyrants exclaim against the exercise of arbitrary power.

  Roger L'Estrange

  Exercise, Tyrants

  Sir Roger L'Estrange (1714). “Fables of Æsop and other eminent mythologists: with morals and reflections”, p.550

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The arbitrary division of one's life into weeks and days and hours seemed, on the whole, useless. There was but one day for the men, and that was pay day, and one for the women, and that was rent day. As for the children, every day was theirs, just as it should be in every corner of the world.

  Alice Hegan Rice

  Children, Men, One Day

  4 Copy quote

• Intellect is not sexed;... strength of mind is not sexed; and ... our views about the duties of men and the duties of women, the sphere of man and the sphere of woman, are mere arbitrary opinions, differing in different ages and countries, and dependent solely on the will and judgment of erring mortals.

  Sarah Moore Grimke

  Country, Men, Views

  "Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Woman" by Sarah Moore Grimke, Letter 9, (August 25, 1837), 1837.

  52 Copy quote

  Show source

• Thinking is hard. Making value judgments is difficult. It places you at pure creation, because there are so many times you'll have to say, "I don't know. I just don't know." Yet still you'll have to decide. And so you'll have to choose. You'll have to make an arbitrary choice. Such a choice - a decision coming from no previous personal knowledge - is called pure creation. And the individual is aware, deeply aware, that in the making of such decisions is the Self created.

  Neale Donald Walsch

  Inspirational, Religious, Thinking

  "Conversations with God". Book by Neale Donald Walsch, December 1998.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• In war, in some sense, lies the very genius of law. It is law creative and active; it is the first principle of the law. What is human warfare but just this, - an effort to make the laws of God and nature take sides with one party. Men make an arbitrary code, and, because it is not right, they try to make it prevail by might. The moral law does not want any champion. Its asserters do not go to war. It was never infringed with impunity. It is inconsistent to decry war and maintain law, for if there were no need of war there would be no need of law.

  Henry David Thoreau

  War, Lying, Party

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.2123, Delphi Classics

  14 Copy quote

  Show source