Highwaymen Quotes

• When the highwayman holds his gun to your head, you turn your valuables over to him. You 'consent' alright, but you do so because you cannot help yourself, because you are compelled by his gun. Are you not compelled to work for an employer? Your need compels you, just as the highwayman's gun.

  Alexander Berkman

  Gun, Needs, Helping

  Alexander Berkman, Emma Goldman (2005). “The ABC of Anarchism”, p.14, Courier Corporation

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• The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees, The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas, The road was a ribbon of moonlight, over the purple moor, And the highwayman came riding-- Riding--riding-- The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

  Alfred Noyes

  Moon, Doors, Wind

  "The Highwayman" l. 3 (1907)

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• The fact is that the government, like a highwayman, says to a man: Your money, or your life. And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat.

  Lysander Spooner

  Men, Facts, Threat

  Lysander Spooner (1972). “Let's Abolish Government”, Ayer Company Pub

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• It's a family that's loaded with grudges and passion. We come from a long line of robbers and highwaymen in Italy, you know. Killers, even.

  Nicolas Cage

  Passion, Long, Killers

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• I'll come to thee by moonlight,
  though hell should bar the way.

  Alfred Noyes

  Bars, Way, Hell

  "The Highwayman" l. 29 (1907)

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• Gamesters and highwaymen are generally very good to their whores, but they are very devils to their wives.

  John Gay

  Wife, Devil, Very Good

  John Gay (1772). “Plays Written by Mr. John Gay: Viz. The Captives, ... The Beggar's Opera. Polly, ... Achilles, ... The Distress'd Wife, ... The Rehearsal at Gotham, ... To which is Prefixed An Account of the Life and Writings of the Author”, p.79

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• We who have lived before railways were made belong to another world. It was only yesterday, but what a gulf between now and then! Then was the old world. Stage-coaches, more or less swift, riding-horses, pack-horses, highwaymen, knights in armor, Norman invaders, Roman legions, Druids, Ancient Britons painted blue, and so forth -- all these belong to the old period. But your railroad starts the new era, and we of a certain age belong to the new time and the old one. We who lived before railways, and survive out of the ancient world, are like Father Noah and his family out of the Ark.

  William Makepeace Thackeray

  Horse, Father, Blue

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• The kingly office is entitled to no respect. It was originally procured by the highwayman's methods. It remains a perpetuated crime, can never be anything but the symbol of a crime. It is no more entitled to respect than is the flag of a pirate.

  Mark Twain

  Respect, Office, Pirate

  Mark Twain (1973). “Mark Twain and the three R's: race, religion, revolution--and related matters”, Bobbs-Merrill Company

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• Taking a man's money without his consent, is also as much robbery, when it is done by millions of men, acting in concert, and calling themselves a government, as when it is done by a single individual, acting on his own responsibility, and calling himself a highwayman.

  Lysander Spooner

  Responsibility, Men, Acting

  Lysander Spooner (1852). “An Essay on the Trial by Jury”, p.222

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• The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit ... Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you, as you wish him to do ... He does not keep "protecting" you by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that.

  Lysander Spooner

  Taken, Responsibility, Liberty

  "No Treason" by Lysander Spooner, No. VI: The Constitution of No Authority, 1870.

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• The rest of the journey passed uneventfully, if you consider it uneventful to ride fifteen miles on horseback through rough country at night, frequently without benefit of roads, in company with kilted men armed to the teeth, and sharing a horse with a wounded man. At least we were not set upon by highwaymen, we encountered no wild beasts, and it didn't rain. By the standards I was becoming used to, it was quite dull.

  Diana Gabaldon

  Country, Horse, Rain

  Diana Gabaldon (2015). “The Outlander Series 8-Book Bundle: Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, Voyager, Drums of Autumn, The Fiery Cross, A Breath of Snow and Ashes, An Echo in the Bone, Written in My Own Heart's Blood”, p.71, Dell

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• This villainous heterogenous mass of ocean highwaymen are the very ejectment of the four quarters of the globe.

  Peter Earle

  Ocean, Four, Quarters

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• Are you not compelled to work for an employer? Your need compels you just as the highwayman’s gun. You must live … You can’t work for yourself … The factories, machinery, and tools belong to the employing class, so you must hire yourself out to that class in order to work and live. Whatever you work at, whoever your employer may be, it always comes to the same: you must workfor him. You can’t help yourself. You are compelled.

  Alexander Berkman

  Gun, Order, Class

  Alexander Berkman (2010). “Now and After: the ABC of Anarchist Communism”, p.17, Lulu.com

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• Some men use no other means to acquire respect than by insisting on it; and it sometimes answers their purpose, as it does a highwayman's in regard to money.

  William Shenstone

  Respect, Mean, Men

  William Shenstone (1804). “Essays on Men and Manners”, p.122

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• A highwayman is as much a robber when he plunders in a gang as when single; and a nation that makes an unjust war is only a great gang.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Peace, War, Unjust

  Benjamin Franklin (1836). “The Works of Benjamin Franklin: Containing Several Political and Historical Tracts Not Included in Any Former Ed., and Many Letters Official and Private, Not Hitherto Published; with Notes and a Life of the Author”, p.483

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• I have known some grim bells, with not a single joyous note in the whole peal, so forced to hurry for a human festival, with their harshness made light of, as though the Bishop of Hereford had again been forced to dance in his boots by a merry highwayman.

  Alice Meynell

  Light, Sound, Bishops

  Alice Meynell (2013). “The Essential Alice Meynell Collection”, p.225, eBookIt.com

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• We think that we are generous because we credit our neighbor with those virtues that are likely to benefit ourselves. We praise the banker that we may overdraw our account, and find good qualities in the highwayman in the hope that he may spare our pockets.

  Oscar Wilde

  Thinking, Quality, May

  Oscar Wilde, Russell Jackson, Joseph Bristow, Ian Small (2000). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: The picture of Dorian Gray : the 1890 and 1891 texts”, p.52, Oxford University Press on Demand

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• I'll find a place to rest my spirit if I can Perhaps I may become a highwayman again Or I may simply be a single drop of rain But I will remain And I'll be back again, and again and again and again and again...

  Jimmy Webb

  Rain, May, Spirit

  Song: Highwayman, 1996

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• They are more properly ‘The Messengers of Satan to buffet us.’ No rulers are properly God’s ministers, but such as are ‘just, ruling in the fear of God.’ When once magistrates act contrary to their office, and the end of their institution when they rob and ruin the public, instead of being guardians of its peace … they immediately cease to be the ordinance and ministers of God, and no more deserve that glorious character than common pirates and highwaymen.

  Jonathan Mayhew

  Character, Office, Pirate

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