Famous quotes containing the word arbitrary:
“... no one who has not been an integral part of a slaveholding community, can have any idea of its abominations.... even were slavery no curse to its victims, the exercise of arbitrary power works such fearful ruin upon the hearts of slaveholders, that I should feel impelled to labor and pray for its overthrow with my last energies and latest breath.”
—Angelina Grimké (1805–1879)
“Languages exist by arbitrary institutions and conventions among peoples; words, as the dialecticians tell us, do not signify naturally, but at our pleasure.”
—François Rabelais (1494–1553)
“Any appellative at all savouring of arbitrary rank is unsuitable to a man of liberal and catholic mind.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)