Arbitrary Quotes

• If any man's money can be taken by a so-called government, without his own personal consent, all his other rights are taken with it; for with his money the government can, and will, hire soldiers to stand over him, compel him to submit to its arbitrary will, and kill him if he resists.

  Lysander Spooner

  Taken, Men, Rights

  Lysander Spooner (1886). “A Letter to Grover Cleveland on His False Inaugural Address, the Usurpation and Crimes of Lawmakers and Judges, and Consequent Poverty, Ignorance, and Servitude of the People”

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• Suffering by nature or chance never seems so painful as suffering inflicted on us by the arbitrary will of another.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Depression, Pain, World Suffering

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• Freedom is the emancipation from the arbitrary rule of other men.

  Mortimer Adler

  Men, Liberty, Libertarian

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• The desire for liberty has also made itself felt as struggle against domestic tyranny or arbitrary rule.

  Emily Greene Balch

  Struggle, Tyrants, Desire

  Emily Greene Balch (1972). “Beyond Nationalism: The Social Thought of Emily Greene Balch”, New York : Twayne Publishers

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• Art is subject to arbitrary fashion.

  Kary Mullis

  Fashion, Art, Architecture

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• A jurisdiction thus vague and arbitrary was exposed to the most dangerous abuse: the substance, as well as the form, of justice were often sacrificed to the prejudices of virtue, the bias of laudable affection, and the grosser seductions of interest or resentment.

  Edward Gibbon

  Justice, Abuse, Substance

  Edward Gibbon (2015). “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire V4: the History Focus”, p.186, 谷月社

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• The recommended daily allowances are based on arbitrary, unscientific, and tainted standards.

  William Proxmire

  Allowance, Standards, Tainted

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• Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.

  George Washington

  Peace, War, 4th Of July

  George Washington (1783). “A circular Letter ... to ... W. Greene, Governor ... of Rhode Island”, p.11

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• Good and bad are really arbitrary words when it comes to character.

  Anson Mount

  Character, Good And Bad

  "To Hell and Back with Anson Mount". Interview with Emma Brown, www.interviewmagazine.com. August 9, 2012.

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• The possession of arbitrary power has always, the world over, tended irresistibly to destroy humane sensibility, magnanimity, and truth.

  Frederick Law Olmsted

  Power, World, Possession

  Frederick Law Olmsted (1856). “A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States: With Remarks on Their Economy”, p.115

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• Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people. When the people give way, their deceivers, betrayers and destroyers press upon them so fast that there is no resisting afterwards. The nature of the encroachments is to, grow every day more encroaching; like a cancer, it eats faster and faster every hour.

  John Adams

  Cancer, People, Giving

  John Adams (1851). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.43

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• In reality they all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs.

  Edith Wharton

  Real, Done, World

  Edith Wharton (2015). “The Age of Innocence”, p.39, Booklassic

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• To me, length is an artificial and arbitrary factor in a film.

  Frank Darabont

  Film, Length, Artificial

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• Thus the creation, which seems an arbitrary act, supposes laws as invariable as those of the fatality of the Atheists. It would be absurd to say that the Creator might govern the world without those rules, since without them it could not subsist.

  Baron de Montesquieu

  Atheist, Law, Atheism

  Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (2015). “The Spirit of Laws”, p.15, Library of Alexandria

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• [I]f vice and corruption prevail, liberty cannot subsist; but if virtue have the advantage, arbitrary power cannot be established.

  Algernon Sidney

  Liberty, Vices, Corruption

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• One of the very basic ideas of Post-Modernism is rejection of arbitrary power structures. Different people are sensitive to different kinds of power structures.

  Larry Wall

  Power, Ideas, People

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• They were saying computers deal with numbers. This was absolutely nonsense. Computers deal with arbitrary information of any kind.

  Ted Nelson

  Numbers, Information, Kind

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• Personally, I don't like the term 'success.' It's too arbitrary and too relative a thing. It's usually someone else's definition, not yours.

  Ichiro Suzuki

  Success, Definitions, Term

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• Not to be offensive, not to be capricious, not to be arbitrary, not to be neurotic, not to be an actor outer, you're just trying to get in and you're given so little time to get in gently, but it's always hard.

  William Hurt

  Trying, Actors, Littles

  Interview with Daniel Robert Epstein, suicidegirls.com. September 18, 2005.

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• Because the Illinois death penalty system is arbitrary and capricious - and therefore immoral - I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death.

  George Ryan

  Illinois, Death Penalty, Penalties

  "Illinois Death Row Emptied". www.washingtonpost.com. January 12, 2003.

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• Those objecting to the concept of race argue that the taxonomic definitions are arbitrary and subjective.

  J. Philippe Rushton

  Race, Definitions, Subjectivity

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• Designs of purely arbitrary nature cannot be expected to last long.

  Kenzo Tange

  Long, Design, Lasts

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• Usually I am on a work for a long stretch, until a moment arrives when the air of the arbitrary vanishes, and the paint falls into positions that feel destined.

  Philip Guston

  Fall, Air, Long

  Philip Guston, Clark Coolidge (2011). “Philip Guston: Collected Writings, Lectures, and Conversations”, p.10, Univ of California Press

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• Science fiction writers put characters into a world with arbitrary rules and work out what happens.

  Rudy Rucker

  Character, Work Out, Rude

  "Adventures In Gnarly Computation". www.rudyrucker.com. October 2005.

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• I wanted to make a movie about the arbitrary nature of love.

  Adrian Lyne

  Wanted

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