“For property is robbery, but then, we are all robbers or would-be robbers together, and have found it essential to organise our thieving, as we have found it necessary to organise our lust and our revenge. Property, marriage, the law; as the bed to the river, so rule and convention to the instinct; and woe to him who tampers with the banks while the flood is flowing.”
Source: Erewhon (1872), Ch. 12
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Samuel Butler 232
novelist 1835–1902Related quotes

“The more laws and order are made prominent, the more thieves and robbers there will be.”
Variant translation: The more prohibitions there are, the poorer the people will be.
Source: Tao Te Ching, Ch. 57

Source: The Right to Be Happy (1927), p. 241

The Late Forties and the Fifties, 1955 entry.
The Journals of John Cheever (1991)

Klucz niebieski albo opowieści biblijne zebrane ku pouczeniu i przestrodze
Original: "Otóż przeciwnie – to my jesteśmy jej własnością, ponieważ nie jesteśmy w stanie dokonać w niej zmian, ona natomiast wypełnia całość naszego istnienia."
Source: Gestalt Psychology. 1930, p. 137

Speech as president of a national convention of the Woman's National Loyal League (14 May 1863)

Quoted in "Holocaust and the Moving Image" - Page 143 - by Toby Haggith, Joanna Newman - 2005