“I never lie unless it is absolutely necessary. Or convenient.”
Walter Slezak (1902–1983) actor
Source: What Time's the Next Swan? (1962), Ch. 1, p. 8
Source: Pride and Prejudice
“I never lie unless it is absolutely necessary. Or convenient.”
Walter Slezak (1902–1983) actor
Source: What Time's the Next Swan? (1962), Ch. 1, p. 8
David D. Levine (1961) science fiction writer
Source: Arabella and the Battle of Venus (2017), Chapter 11, “Prisoners” (p. 164)
“Faith is, at one and the same time, absolutely necessary and altogether impossible.”
Stanisław Lem book The Star Diaries
The Star Diaries (1976)
“Knowing not to have illusions is absolutely necessary in order to have dreams.”
Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet
Ibid., p. 276
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Saber não ter ilusões é absolutamente necessário para se poder ter sonhos.
“In the presence of total Darkness, the mind finds it absolutely necessary to create light.”
Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …
Source: Nightfall One
Mikhail Bakunin book God and the State
Amoureux et jaloux de la liberté humaine, et la considérant comme la condition absolue de tout ce que nous adorons et respectons dans l'humanité, je retourne la phrase de Voltaire, et je dis : Si Dieu existait réellement, il faudrait le faire disparaître.
Source: God and the State (1871; publ. 1882), Ch. II; Variants or variant translations of this statement have also been attributed to Bakunin:
The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, of the phantom of God. As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth.
A boss in Heaven is the best excuse for a boss on earth, therefore If God did exist, he would have to be abolished.
José Ortega Y Gasset book The Revolt of the Masses
Chap. VIII: The Masses Intervene In Everything, And Why Their Intervention Is Solely By Violence
The Revolt of the Masses (1929)
Context: It is not a question of the mass-man being a fool. On the contrary, to-day he is more clever, has more capacity of understanding than his fellow of any previous period. But that capacity is of no use to him; in reality, the vague feeling that he possesses it seems only to shut him up more within himself and keep him from using it. Once for all, he accepts the stock of commonplaces, prejudices, fag-ends of ideas or simply empty words which chance has piled up within his mind, and with a boldness only explicable by his ingenuousness, is prepared to impose them everywhere.… Why should he listen if he has within him all that is necessary? There is no reason now for listening, but rather for judging, pronouncing, deciding. There is no question concerning public life, in which he does not intervene, blind and deaf as he is, imposing his "opinions."
“Don't interrupt me while I'm interrupting.”
Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom