Having ever regarded Government as their deadliest bane, they make a jubilee of the suspension of its operations; and pray for nothing so much, as its total annihilation. While, on the other hand, good men, men who love tranquillity, who desire to abide by the laws and enjoy their benefits, who would gladly spill their blood in the defense of their country, seeing their property destroyed, their families insulted, and their lives endangered, their persons injured, and seeing nothing in prospect that forebodes a change for the better, become tired of and disgusted with a government that offers them no protection, and are not much averse to a change in which they imagine they have nothing to lose. Thus, then, by the operation of this mobocratic spirit which all must admit is now abroad in the land, the strongest bulwark of any government, and particularly of those constituted like ours, may effectually be broken down and destroyed — I mean the attachment of the people.
1830s, The Lyceum Address (1838)
“Mastering the lawless science of our law,—
That codeless myriad of precedent,
That wilderness of single instances.”
Aylmer's Field (1864); reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
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Alfred, Lord Tennyson 213
British poet laureate 1809–1892Related quotes
“See the wild herd nobly ranging,
Nature varying, not changing,
Lawful in their lawless ranging.”
Life Without and Life Within (1859), The Captured Wild Horse
Context: p>On the boundless plain careering
By an unseen compass steering, Wildly flying, reappearing, —
With untamed fire their broad eyes glowing
In every step a grand pride showing,
Of no servile moment knowing, —Happy as the trees and flowers, In their instinct cradled hours,
Happier in fuller powers, —See the wild herd nobly ranging,
Nature varying, not changing,
Lawful in their lawless ranging.</p
No. 5
1770s, Novanglus essays (1774–1775)
Context: We are told: "It is a universal truth, that he that would excite a rebellion, is at heart as great a tyrant as ever wielded the iron rod of oppression." Be it so. We are not exciting a rebellion. Opposition, nay, open, avowed resistance by arms, against usurpation and lawless violence, is not rebellion by the law of God or the land. Resistance to lawful authority makes rebellion. … Remember the frank Veteran acknowledges, that "the word rebel is a convertible term."
“There is hardly a single instance of cultural vigor marked by moderation in expression.”
Entry (1954)
Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook (2005)
Context: It is the Frenchman's readiness to exaggerate that is at the root of his intellectual lucidity and also of his capacity for acknowledging merit. The English were not afraid to exaggerate in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and they were then not far behind the French in the lucidity of their thinking.... There is hardly a single instance of cultural vigor marked by moderation in expression.
“The Book of the science of Mechanics must precede the Book of useful inventions.”
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), I Prolegomena and General Introduction to the Book on Painting
“It’s good to remember that in science, mistakes always precede discoveries. Be teachable.”
Book Sometimes you win Sometimes you Learn
Source: Law and Authority (1886), I
"Planning for Wildlife" [1941]; Published in For the Health of the Land, J. Baird Callicott and Eric T. Freyfogle (eds.), 1999, p. 197.
1940s