Act I, A Spacious Hall
Faust, Part 2 (1832)
Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532–1564), Fifth Book (1564)
Source: Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532–1564), Fifth Book (1564), Chapter 15.
The Law of the Jungle, Stanza 19.
The Second Jungle Book (1895)
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 267.
“Necessity gives the law without itself acknowledging one.”
Necessitas dat legem non ipsa accipit.
Maxim 444
Variant translation: Necessity knows no law except to conquer.
Necessitas non habet legem, "Necessity has no law", is apparently of medieval origin. See Necessity for further variants.
Sentences
“Necessity is the theme and the inventress, the eternal curb and law of nature.”
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
Speech to the First Protectorate Parliament (12 September 1654)
"The Authority Principle" in No Gods, No Masters : An Anthology of Anarchism (1980) Daniel Guérin, as translated by Paul Sharkey (1998), p. 90
Context: I stand ready to negotiate, but I want no part of laws: I acknowledge none; I protest against every order with which some authority may feel pleased on the basis of some alleged necessity to over-rule my free will. Laws: We know what they are, and what they are worth! They are spider webs for the rich and mighty, steel chains for the poor and weak, fishing nets in the hands of government.
“Civilization never recedes; the law of necessity ever forces it onwards.”
La civilisation ne recule jamais, et il semble qu’elle emprunte tous les droits à la nécessité.
Part III, ch. XVI
The Mysterious Island (1874)
“Honor in safety, survival under threat. Necessity is the only law.”
Source: The Stone Sky (2017), Chapter 9 “the desert, briefly, and you” (p. 231)
