The Almost Perfect State (1921)
Context: Infancy is not what it is cracked up to be. The child seems happy all the time to the adult, because the adult knows that the child is untouched by the real problems of life; if the adult were similarly untouched he is sure that he would be happy. But children, not knowing that they are having an easy time, have a good many hard times. Growing and learning and obeying the rules of their elders, or fighting against them, are not easy things to do.
“When I obey a rule, I do not choose.
I obey the rule blindly.”
§ 219
Philosophical Investigations (1953)
“She is free not by disobeying the rules but by obeying them.”
Source: Let Me be a Woman
“A wise man rules his passions, a fool obeys them.”
Maxim 49
Sentences, The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, a Roman Slave
Source: Sixth Column (1949; originally serialized in 1941), Chapter 5 (p. 62)
“Obeying an inalienable law, things grew, growing riotous and strange in their impulse for growth.”
Source: Hothouse (1962), Chapter 1 (first line)
p 44
Wonderful, Wonderful Times (1990)
Mussolini and Fascism (2003) by Patricia Knight, p. 46
Undated
Lieutenant Colonel Brian Windham, p. 104
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Company (1982)
Broadcast from the Cabinet Rooms at 10 Downing Street (3 September 1939)
Prime Minister
Context: This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note, stating that, unless we heard from them by 11 o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received and that consequently this country is at war with Germany. … It is evil things that we will be fighting against— brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppression and persecution— and against them I am certain that the right will prevail.
