“Know, Nature, like the cuckoo, laughs at law,
Placing her eggs in whatso nest she will.”
Alfred Austin (1835–1913) British writer and poet
Source: Savonarola (1881), Lorenzo de' Medici in Act I, sc. i; p. 14.
Canto III, line 624
Source: Hudibras, Part III (1678)
“Know, Nature, like the cuckoo, laughs at law,
Placing her eggs in whatso nest she will.”
Alfred Austin (1835–1913) British writer and poet
Source: Savonarola (1881), Lorenzo de' Medici in Act I, sc. i; p. 14.
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician
The News of the World (20 September 1981), quoted in Chris Ogden, Maggie: An Intimate Portrait of a Woman in Power (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990), p. 342.
First term as Prime Minister
Haruki Murakami (1949) Japanese author, novelist
Source: A Wild Sheep Chase: A Novel (1982), Chapter 13, The Rat's First Letter
Joseph De Maistre (1753–1821) Savoyard philosopher, writer, lawyer, and diplomat
Les fausses opinions ressemblent à la fausse monnaie qui est frappée d'abord par de grands coupables et dépensée ensuite par d'honnêtes gens qui perpétuent le crime sans savoir ce qu'ils font.
Les soirées de Saint-Pétersbourg, Ch. I
“And threat'ning France, plac'd like a painted Jove,
Kept idle thunder in his lifted hand.”
Annus Mirabilis, Stanza 39.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments
Imogen and Jace, pg. 78
The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes (2008)
Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright
Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part II (1615), Book III, Ch. 7.
Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist
Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Seventh Son (1987), Chapter 9.
Laura Penny (1975) Canadian journalist
Source: More Money than Brains (2010), Chapter Seven, If You're So Smart, Why Ain't You Rich?, p. 206 (See also: Henry David Thoreau, Karl Marx, James Joyce, Herman Mellville...)