“The invention of an author is a species of property unknown to the common law of England. Its usages are immemorial; and the views of it tend to the benefit and advantage of the public with respect to the necessaries of life, and not to the improvement and graces of mind.”

4 Burr. Part IV., 2387.
Dissenting in Millar v Taylor (1769)

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Joseph Yates (judge)18

English barrister and judge 1722–1770

Joseph Yates (judge) (1722–1770) English barrister and judge

4 Burr. Part IV., 2368.
Dissenting in Millar v Taylor (1769)

Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850–1909) German psychologist

Source: Psychology: An elementary textbook, 1908, p. 44

“There is not even a thought, or an invention, which is not common property, born of the past and the present. Thousands of inventors, known and unknown, who have died in poverty, have co-operated in the invention of each of these machines which embody the genius of man.”

Peter Kropotkin book The Conquest of Bread

Source: The Conquest of Bread (1892), Ch. 1 : Our Riches

“It must not be forgotten that the rules of Courts of equity are not, like the rules of the common law, supposed to have been established from time immemorial. It is perfectly well known that they have been established from time to time — altered, improved, and refined from time to time. In many cases we know the names of the Chancellors who invented them.”

George Jessel (jurist) (1824–1883) British politician

In re Hallett's Estate (1880) 13 Ch.D. 696, 710.

“As for large landed property, its defenders have always, sophistically, identified the economic advantages offered by large-scale agriculture with large-scale landed property, as if it were not precisely as a result of the abolition of property that this advantage, for one thing, would receive its greatest possible extension, and, for another, only then would be of social benefit.”

Karl Marx book Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

Rent of Land, p. 66.
Paris Manuscripts (1844)

“Homo sapiens is the species that invents symbols in which to invest passion and authority, then forgets that symbols are inventions.”

Joyce Carol Oates (1938) American author

"The Calendar's New Clothes," New York Times (30 December 1999)

“Hungry men have no respect for law, authority or human life.”

Marcus Garvey (1887–1940) Jamaica-born British political activist, Pan-Africanist, orator, and entrepreneur

Reported in Ashton Applewhite, Tripp Evans, and Andrew Frothingham, And I Quote: The Definitive Collection of Quotes, Sayings, and Jokes for the Contemporary Speechmaker (St. Martin's Press, 2003), p. 84. ISBN 0312307446.

“But there are altogether too many in the world who consciously or unconsciously do hold those views and follow that example. I believe such a position arises from a misconception of the meaning of life. They seem to think that authority means some kind of an attempt to force action upon them which is not for their own benefit, but for the benefit of others. To me they do not appear to understand the nature of law, and therefore refuse obedience. They misinterpret the meaning of individual liberty, and therefore fail to attain it. They do not recognize the right of property, and therefore do not come into its possession. They rebel at the idea of service, and therefore lack the fellowship and cooperation of others. Our conception of authority, of law and liberty, of property and service, ought not to be that they imply rules of action for the mere benefit of someone else, but that they are primarily for the benefit of ourselves. The Government supports them in order that the people may enjoy them.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Authority and Religious Liberty (1924)

“England's improvement by sea and land. To outdo the Dutch without fighting. To pay debts without moneys. To set at work all the poor of England with the growth of our own lands. To prevent unnecessary suits of law; with the benefit of a voluntary register. Directions where vast quantities of timber are to be had for the building of ships, with the advantage of making the great rivers of England navigable. Rules to prevent fires in London, and other great cities; with directions how the several companies of handicraftsmen in London may always have cheap bread and drink. By Andrew Yarranton, Gent. London, printed for the author, &c., 1677.”

Andrew Yarranton (1619–1684) English civil engineer

Full title cited in Patrick Edward Dove (1854, p. 403)
Quotes from England's Improvement, (1677)

“But it is recognized that punishment for the abuse of the liberty accorded to the press is essential to the protection of the public, and that the common law rules that subject the libeler to responsibility for the public offense, as well as for the private injury, are not abolished by the protection extended in our constitutions. The law of criminal libel rests upon that secure foundation. There is also the conceded authority of courts to punish for contempt when publications directly tend to prevent the proper discharge of judicial functions.”

Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948) American judge

Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697 (1931).
Judicial opinions

“The invention of an author is a species of property unknown to the common law of England. Its usages are immemorial; and the views of it tend to the benefit and advantage of the public with respect to the necessaries of life, and not to the improvement and graces of mind.”

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Joseph Yates (judge)18

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