
Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 38, “The Taglian Territories: The Dandha Presh” (p. 502)
Might and Right (July 1, 1915).
Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 38, “The Taglian Territories: The Dandha Presh” (p. 502)
Evolution (1895; 1909)
A Foreword to Krazy (1946)
Context: This hero and villain no more understand Krazy Kat than the mythical denizens of a two dimensional realm understand some three dimensional intruder. The world of Offissa Pupp and Ignatz Mouse is a knowledgeable power-world, in terms of which our unknowledgeable heroine is powerlessness personified. The sensical law of this world is might makes right; the nonsensical law of our heroine is love conquers all. To put the oak in the acorn: Ignatz Mouse and Offissa Pupp (each completely convinced that his own particular brand of might makes right) are simple-minded—Krazy isn't—therefore, to Offissa Pupp and Ignatz Mouse, Krazy is. But if both our hero and our villain don't and can't understand our heroine, each of them can and each of them does misunderstand her differently. To our softhearted altruist, she is the adorably helpless incarnation of saintliness. To our hardhearted egoist, she is the puzzlingly indestructible embodiment of idiocy. The benevolent overdog sees her as an inspired weakling. The malevolent undermouse views her as a born target. Meanwhile Krazy Kat, through this double misunderstanding, fulfills her joyous destiny.
“If mankind had wished for what is right, they might have had it long ago.”
"On the Pleasure of Hating"
The Plain Speaker (1826)
“Might became the standard of right.”
Mensuraque juris
vis erat.
Book I, line 175 (tr. J. D. Duff).
Pharsalia
“Nothing is fair in this world. You might as well get that straight right now”
Source: The Secret Life of Bees