“Necessity has no law.”

“...the question is of will, and not, as the insanity of logic has assumed, of power. It is not that the Deity cannot modify his laws, but that we insult him in imagining a possible necessity for modification.”

“Only literature could reveal the process of breaking the law - without which the law would have no end - independently of the necessity to create order.”

“Hunger and necessity are poor teachers of morality. A society that cannot provide the basics of life does not get its laws obeyed.”

“Nothing has more strength than dire necessity.”

“A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the highest virtues of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means.”