“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 Butler232
novelist 1835–1902Related quotes
“The more laws and order are made prominent, the more thieves and robbers there will be.”
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Variant translation: The more prohibitions there are, the poorer the people will be.
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Source: The Right to Be Happy (1927), p. 241
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Original: "Otóż przeciwnie – to my jesteśmy jej własnością, ponieważ nie jesteśmy w stanie dokonać w niej zmian, ona natomiast wypełnia całość naszego istnienia."
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Source: Gestalt Psychology. 1930, p. 137
Lucy Stone (1818–1893) American abolitionist and suffragist
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Penny Lernoux (1940–1989) American writer and journalist
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Source: A Moveable Feast
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Quoted in "Holocaust and the Moving Image" - Page 143 - by Toby Haggith, Joanna Newman - 2005