
Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532–1564), Fifth Book (1564)
Source: Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532–1564), Fifth Book (1564), Chapter 15.
Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532–1564), Fifth Book (1564)
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)
“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)
Source: 1920s, Kritische Theorie der Formbildung (1928, 1933), p. 91; as cited in: M. Drack, W. Apfalter, D. Pouvreau (2007) " On the making of a system theory of life: Paul A Weiss and Ludwig von Bertalanffy's conceptual connection http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2874664/". in: Q Rev Biol. 2007 December; 82(4): 349–373.
No one can, in case of affairs, abandon the conviction that the future is co-determined by his transactions.
Antimonies
Gesammelte Mathematische Werke (1876)