Letter to John Wayles Eppes (9 September 1814). Published in The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes http://oll.libertyfund.org/ToC/0054.php, Federal Edition, Paul Leicester Ford, ed., New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904, Vol. 11 http://files.libertyfund.org/files/807/0054-11_Bk.pdf, pp. 425-426
1810s
Context: [... ] Congress itself can punish Alexandria, by repealing the law which made it a town, by discontinuing it as a port of entry or clearance, and perhaps by suppressing it’s banks. But I expect all will go off with impunity. If our government ever fails, it will be from this weakness. No government can be maintained without the principle of fear as well as of duty. Good men will obey the last, but bad ones the former only.
“Once again prosperous and successful crime goes by the name of virtue; good men obey the bad, might is right and fear oppresses law.”
Hercules Furens (The Madness of Hercules), lines 251-253; (Amphitryon)
Alternate translation: Successful and fortunate crime is called virtue. (translator unknown)
Alternate translation: Might makes right. (translator unknown).
Tragedies
Original
rursus prosperum ac felix scelus virtus vocatur; sontibus parent boni, ius est in armis, opprimit leges timor.
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Seneca the Younger 225
Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist -4–65 BCRelated quotes
Colorado Springs Gazette-Telegraph, “Unlimited Government” (Dec. 29, 1961).
πολλοί τοι πλουτοῦσι κακοί, ἀγαθοὶ δὲ πένονται:
ἀλλ᾽ ἡμεῖς τούτοις οὐ διαμειψόμεθα
τῆς ἀρετῆς τὸν πλοῦτον, ἐπεὶ τὸ μὲν ἔμπεδον αἰεί,
χρήματα δ᾽ ἀνθρώπων ἄλλοτε ἄλλος ἔχει.
Source: Elegies, Lines 315-318, also attributed to Solon
IX. On Providence, Fate, and Fortune.
On the Gods and the Cosmos
“Oh judge! Your damn laws! The good people don't need them, and the bad people don't obey them.”
[Voices from the Catholic Worker, Troester, Rosalie Riegle, 1993, Temple University Press, 114]
“The good needs fear no law,
It is his safety and the bad man's awe.”
The Old Law (c. 1615–18; printed 1656), with Thomas Middleton and William Rowley.
(Autumn 1792) [Source: Oeuvres Complètes de Saint-Just, vol. 1 (2 vols., Paris, 1908), p. 419]
“In the industrial economy success was self-limiting; it obeyed the law of decreasing returns.”
Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995), New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World (1999)