Arbitrary

Famous quotes containing the word arbitrary:

    Any appellative at all savouring of arbitrary rank is unsuitable to a man of liberal and catholic mind.
    Herman Melville (1819–1891)

    Me, what’s that after all? An arbitrary limitation of being bounded by the people before and after and on either side. Where they leave off, I begin, and vice versa.
    Russell Hoban (b. 1925)

    ... 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)