"Higher law" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... soon return my own brother or sister into bondage, as I would return a fugitive slave. Before God, and Christ, and all Christian men, they are my brothers and sisters." What a condition! From the lips, too, of a champion of the Higher Law! Whether the States be separate or united, neither my brother nor any other man's brother shall, with my consent, go back to bondage! So speaks the heart—Mr. Mann's version is that ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength. I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest. What force has a multitude? They only can force me who obey a higher law than I. They force me to become like themselves. I do not hear of men being forced to live this way or that by masses of men. What sort of life were that to live? When I meet a government which says to me, "Your ...
— On the Duty of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... can only by God be taken away. "But," he exultingly exclaims, "it has been taken away by God. The negro, having always been a slave, must have been so by divine appointment; and I, the mark of obloquy to a few fanatical enthusiasts, am really an humble agent in carrying out the designs of a higher law even than that of the State, of a higher will even than my own." This mode of baptizing man's sin and calling it God's providence has not altogether lacked the aid of certain Southern clergymen, who ostentatiously profess to preach Christ and Him crucified, and by such arguments, we may fear, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... ours. It's not the rule of the plains, but—there's a higher law like that somewhere, ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... Gourlay's own cob, which he used for driving round the countryside. It was a black—Gourlay "made a point" of driving with a black. "The brown for sturdiness, the black for speed," he would say, making a maxim of his whim to give it the sanction of a higher law. ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... convention would have preferred Seward; but in the four pivotal States there were many voters who believed Seward's antislavery views to be too radical. They shrank apprehensively from the phrase in one of his speeches that "there is a higher law than the Constitution." These pivotal States all lay adjoining slave States, and their public opinion was infected with something of the undefined dread of "abolitionism." When the delegates of the pivotal States were interviewed, they frankly confessed that they could ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... mad'st the mighty clock Of the great world go; Mad'st its pendulum swing and rock, Ceaseless to and fro; Thou whose will doth push and draw Every orb in heaven, Help me move by higher law ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... think and wish for them. Other people wield their hands and push them and pull them, others, who hold all their controlling threads; in the distance, the people in the center of the infernal orbits, in the capital cities, in the palaces. There is a higher law; up above men there is a machine which is stronger than men. The multitude is at the same time power and impotence—and I remember, and I know well that I have seen it with my own eyes. War is the multitude—and it is not! Why ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... be neutral. Therefore, gentle reader, in the "irrepressible conflict" that is now agitating the country, and will continue to agitate it till slavery is abolished, which side have you chosen, or do you intend to choose? Will you take the "higher law," which is in harmony with God's providence and his word, or act in favor of the "lower law," which opposes both? If slavery is right, sustain, defend and justify it; but if it is a crime, do all in your power, by moral means, to overthrow ...
— An Account of Some of the Principal Slave Insurrections, • Joshua Coffin
... prove it to be a miracle would require not a vast range of knowledge, but absolutely universal knowledge, which it is entirely beyond our faculties to attain. To say that any event was a miracle would be to say that we knew that there was no higher law that could explain it, and this we could not say unless we knew all laws: to say that it was not a miracle would be ex hypothesi to assert what was false. In fact, to assert the occurrence of a miracle is simply to go back to the beginning of science, and to say: ...
— The Relations Between Religion and Science - Eight Lectures Preached Before the University of Oxford in the Year 1884 • Frederick, Lord Bishop of Exeter
... comrades, his wife, were in the last stages of starvation. He, also, was dying. Eddy had not nerve enough, the women could not, and William Foster must-what! Was it murder? No! Every law book, every precept of that higher law, self-preservation, every dictate of right, reason or humanity, demanded the deed. The Indians were past all hope of aid. They could not lift their heads from their pillow of snow. It was not simply justifiable—it was duty; it ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... leaping to his feet and pacing back and forth before Jason, clasping and unclasping his hands with agitation. "You seek to confuse me with your semantics and so-called ethics that are simply opportunism and greed. There is a Higher Law that cannot ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... made fo' those in whom the higher law is inherent," she said calmly. "It is made ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... personally stolen, and really, for my part, though I hope I would not have done it myself, I thought it no sin in him—such valuables being attracted by a natural magnetism towards such a man. He obeys, in stealing them, a higher law than he breaks. I should like to know precisely what portion of his rich and rare collection he has obtained in a similar manner. But far be it from me to speak unkindly or sneeringly of the good ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... secular press generally hostile to Abolitionism as either infidel or anarchical in its spirit and purpose—the great mass of the churches with as little vitality as a grave-yard—the pulpits, with rare exceptions, filled with men as careful to consult the popular will as though there were no higher law—synods, presbyteries, general conferences, general assemblies, buttressing the slave power—the Government openly pro-slavery, and the National District the head-quarters of slave speculators—fifteen Slave States—and now, the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and the consecration ...
— No Compromise with Slavery - An Address Delivered to the Broadway Tabernacle, New York • William Lloyd Garrison
... so damned important to tell Jess, anyhow! Why, sir, the fellow may not be dead, at all! And you mustn't lose sight of the fact, sir, that Dale is my guest, entitled by a higher law to ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... infected by disease were said to be bound by Satan; madness was a "possession" by his spirit, and the whole creation from Adam till Christ groaned and travailed under Satan's power. The nobler nature in man still made itself felt; but it was a slave when it ought to command. It might will to obey the higher law, but the law in the members was over strong for it and bore it down. This was the body of death which philosophy detected but could not explain, and from which Christianity now came forward with its magnificent ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... but one issue to the conflict was possible: obedience to the higher law. In a conversation held with his friend Krumpholz, he expressed doubts as to the value of his work hitherto. "From now on I shall strike out on a new road," he said. He is now dominated by a greater seriousness; ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... the unities! and didn't Napoleon win battles which he should have lost? Let these people then be silent, and know that when a transcendent exhibition of original genius wins success beyond the reach of measurement by their plumb and line and square and compass, the higher law governing the seeming miracle will be duly revealed: and the Taj is just such a miracle, from all I can ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... leads to the revelation of a higher law than that of selfishness. The very assertion of the self which leads into evil, ultimately leaves the self assertion futile. There is the disappointment of utter failure; the sinner is thrown back upon himself empty-handed. He finds himself ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... weakness; will not that satisfy you? Blazon your wrong as you esteem it; ask sympathy of those who see not as I see; reproach, defy, lament. I will bear it all, will make any other sacrifice as an atonement, but I will 'hold fast mine integrity' and obey a higher law than your world recognizes, both for your sake ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... world cannot enter, and the free nature has lifted itself to the light, knowing nothing of, and caring nothing for, the bonds of custom and of prejudice with which men have paralysed and cramped themselves, calling the lower the higher law. ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... him to remonstrate fiercely, but the words died away, for such a protest must of necessity be based on an acceptance of this divided code, and to that he would not stoop. It was some poor consolation to pay the penalty of a higher law than he was supposed to understand. He turned again to the door and got away before a storm of tears swamped ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... gods Who made and set me apart. And Prince and poet and painter Travelled to touch my hand, The minds which had toiled and suffered, The minds which could understand, Marvelling in my workshop At the shining forms they saw.... The children of my spirit Born of a higher law. ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson
... dropped it back into the holster. "Let that teach you never to draw on me again." He doubled his huge fist and shoved it before Dene's eyes. "One blow would crack your skull like an egg-shell. Why don't I deal it? Because, you mindless hell-hound, because there's a higher law than man's—God's law—Thou shalt not kill! Understand that if you can. Leave me and mine alone from this day. ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... patria mori[Lat]; honos habet onus[Lat]; leve fit quod bene fertur onus [Lat][Ovid]; loyaute m'oblige[Fr]; " simple duty bath no place for fear " [Whittier]; " stern daughter of the voice of God " [Wordsworth]; " there is a higher law than the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus |
