Licence Quotes

Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seeds of rapacious licence and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind. ~ Charles Dickens

Do you have to pay to be Jewish? Do you need a licence? ~ Markus Zusak

The myriad-minded man, our, and all men's, Shakespeare, has in this piece presented us with a legitimate farce in exactest consonance with the philosophical principles and character of farce, as distinguished from comedy and from entertainments. A proper farce is mainly distinguished from comedy by the licence allowed, and even required, in the fable, in order to produce strange and laughable situations. The story need not be probable, it is enough that it is possible. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The name Firefox is not part of the open source licence, and that's why it's important to us. ~ Mitchell Baker

Come to the bit about soft silk shirts for evening wear?" I asked carelessly.
"Yes, sir," said Jeeves, in a low, cold voice, as if he had been bitten in the leg by a personal friend. "And if I may be pardoned for saying so - "
"You don't like it?"
"No, sir. I do not. Soft silk shirts with evening costume are not worn, sir."
"Jeeves," I said, looking the blighter diametrically in the centre of the eyeball, "they're dashed well going to be. I may as well tell you now that I have ordered a dozen of those shirtings from Peabody and Simms, and it's no good looking like that, because I am jolly well adamant."
"If I might - "
"No, Jeeves," I said, raising my hand, "argument is useless. Nobody has a greater respect than I have for your judgment in socks, in ties, and - I will go farther - in spats; but when it comes to evening shirts your nerve seems to fail you. You have no vision. You are prejudiced and reactionary. Hidebound is the word that suggests itself. It may interest you to learn that when I was at Le Touquet the Prince of Wales buzzed into the Casino one night with soft silk shirt complete."
"His Royal Highness, sir, may permit himself a certain licence which in your own case - "
"No, Jeeves," I said, firmly, "it's no use. When we Woosters are adamant, we are - well, adamant, if you know what I mean."
"Very good, sir."
I could see the man was wounded, and, of course, the whole episode had been extremely jarring and unpleasa ~ P.G. Wodehouse

But the good news was that my elder sister refused to get married straight away and I couldn't get married until she did so I had the licence to go off and dream. ~ Indra Nooyi

Maybe that's what growing up means, in the end - you go far enough in the direction of - somewhere - and you realise that you've neutered the capacity of the term home to mean anything. [ ... ] We don't get an endless number of orbits away from the place where meaning first arises, that treasure-house of first experiences. What we learn, instead, is that our adventures secure us in our isolation. Experience revokes our licence to return to simpler times. Sooner or later, there's no place remotely like home. ~ Gregory Maguire

Everything written, if it has anything in it, will offend someone, and if the mere taking of offence was to amount to a licence to kill the offender, well the world would be sadly underpopulated of novelists, columnists, bloggers, and the writers of editorials. ~ Rex Murphy

Adiyogi's legacy offers you the licence to believe in the god of your choice, or not to believe at all. And if you do not find a god to your taste, it allows you the freedom to create one. That is how the Indian subcontinent arrived at an exuberant 330 million gods and goddesses at last count! To see the divine in a tree, rock or elephant is not considered absurd because every speck of creation is seen as a portal to the ultimate reality. These ~ Sadhguru

Funny how being decrepit, diseased and sentenced to death gave you so much power. She couldn't go to Morocco nor even drive herself into town. She could hardly move off the couch. But she could say whatever she wanted: she had bitch licence. ~ Fiona McGregor

The only store where visitors can officially buy alcohol without a licence is at the Barracuda Beach Resort ~ Lonely Planet

A free market was never meant to be a free licence to take whatever you can get, however you can get it. ~ Barack Obama

Sometimes it seemed like I was the one expected to soldier on while everyone else had a licence to fall apart. ~ Anni Taylor

Even non-commercial media rely on transferring cost to users through licence fees, donations from listeners, viewers, or readers, or grants from companies and foundations that have wrestled their funds from the public in some form of earlier commercial activity. ~ Robert G. Picard

The fact that it has nothing else to contribute to human wisdom is no reason to hand religion a free licence to tell us what to do. Which religion, anyway? The one in which we happen to have been brought up? To which chapter, then, of which book of the Bible should we turn - for they are far from unanimous and some of them are odious by any reasonable standards. How many literalists have read enough of the Bible to know that the death penalty is prescribed for adultery, for gathering sticks on the sabbath and for cheeking your parents? If we reject Deuteronomy and Leviticus (as all enlightened moderns do), by what criteria do we then decide which of religion's moral values to accept? Or should we pick and choose among all the world's religions until we find one whose moral teaching suits us? If so, again we must ask, by what criterion do we choose? And if we have independent criteria for choosing among religious moralities, why not cut out the middle man and go straight for the moral choice without the religion? ~ Richard Dawkins

This excessive licence, which the anarchists think is the only true freedom, provides the stock, as it were, from which a tyrant grows. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

I translated the laws which pertain to our people into German and plan to read them aloud in our next community meeting. Whenever impudent people have to be kept in order, they like to refer to English freedom. However, in the future they will be confronted with the actual laws and will be forced to concede that English laws do not encourage undue licence and libertinism. ~ Johann Martin Boltzius

There is this thing called the GPL (Gnu Public Licence), which we disagree with ... nobody can ever improve the software. ~ Bill Gates

I went to see President Nixon at the White House. It wasn't difficult to get a meeting because I was heavyweight champion of the world. So I came to Washington and walked around the garden with Nixon, his wife and daughter. I said: I want you to give Ali his licence back. I want to beat him up for you. ~ Joe Frazier

For in marriage a little licence,a little independence there must be between people living together day in and day out in the same house; which Richard gave her, and she him. ~ Virginia Woolf

The prospect of the UK without a BBC funded by the licence fee is anywhere between improbable and impossible. ~ Tessa Jowell

I have to admit to not being the greatest technician, but stop motion animation gives me licence to create machines that wouldn't otherwise be possible - inventions that seem real and actually work. ~ Nick Park

I don't have my pilot's licence anymore, but I'm still very political. ~ Mathias Rust

Crash Holly's so short, you can see his feet on his driver's licence photo. ~ Jerry Lawler

Once I know people know who I am, it gives me a lot of licence and freedom to behave in ways I wouldn't normally. ~ Larry David

Freedom of the press can never be the licence to say anything one desires. Freedom of the press is not the freedom to slander and attack and must never be used to fight other people's wars. It does not mean manipulating a story into speaking your views. One might think it common sense but in the world of journalism a lot of what makes sense is lost to the lure of favouritism, greed and fame. Sadly, in this truth-telling business truth is hard to find. ~ Aysha Taryam

Ignorance is ignorance, not a licence to believe what we like. ~ Bryan Magee

The system we have built refuses to recognize people. Only credit cards are recognized. Drivers' licenses are recognized. But not people. People haven't any use for faces anymore, it seems. They are busy looking at your credit card, your driver's licence, your social security number. If a driver's licence is more reliable than the face I wear, then why do I have a face? ~ Muhammad Yunus

Getting hold of illegal weapons is so easy that gun laws would not stop anyone who really wanted to kill. The gun used by Martin Bryant in Port Arthur was stolen and he had no licence. Gun laws would not have stopped that, but the reason such laws are being introduced all over the world is to prevent the population from defending themselves when the order goes out to round up those who are challenging the Agenda. ~ David Icke

I've been a road-rat since I got my driver's licence at 16, so I've probably gone across America 20 times. ~ Sean Penn

The commonplace needs no defence,Dullness is in the critic's eyes,Without a licence life evolvesFrom some dim phase its own surprise;Under these yellow-twinkling elms,Behind these hedges trimly shorn,As in a stable once, so hereIt may be born, it may be born. ~ William Plomer

I want the BBC to be a mass market public service broadcaster still funded by the licence fee ... and the licence fee is more durable than many people in the commercial sector believe. ~ Gavyn Davies

The TV licence people just can't believe we don't have a television. I'm a bolshie git. I shout at them things like, 'I don't need TV, I'm an intellectual.' ~ Julian Cope

I lurch from chaos to chaos. I can't find my driving licence and my clothes are everywhere - cooking is the neatest thing I do. ~ Nigella Lawson

There was no real fringe theatre in London until way after the war, so either a play was done secretly with a club licence or it was done openly and had to be assessed along with everything else. ~ Timothy West

We all have to recognise, no matter how great our strength, that we must deny ourselves the licence to do always as we please. ~ Harry S. Truman

What is a writer of fiction but a liar with a licence? ~ Joanne Harris

Go, write it in a martial hand; be curst and brief; it is no matter how witty, so it be eloquent and fun of invention: taunt him with the licence of ink: if thou thou'st him some thrice, it shall not be amiss; and as many lies as will lie in thy shee. ~ William Shakespeare

You are not wrong," Laurence said. He had assumed as much himself, after all, in his Navy days: had thought the Corps full of wild, devil-may-care libertines, disregarding law and authority as far as they dared, barely kept in check-- to be used for their control over the beasts, and not respected.

"But if we have more liberty than we ought," Laurence said, after a moment, struggling through, "it is because they have not enough: the dragons. They have no stake in victory but our happiness; their daily bread and nation would give them just to have peace and quiet. We are given licence so long as we do what we ought not; so long as we use their affections to keep them obedient and quiet, to ends which serve them not at all-- or which harm."

"How else do you make them care?" Granby said. "If we left off, the French would only run right over us, and take our eggs themselves."

"They care in China," Laurence said, "and in Africa, and they care all the more, that their rational sense is not imposed on, and their hearts put into opposition with their minds. If they cannot be woken to a natural affection for their country, such as we feel, it is our fault, and not theirs. ~ Naomi Novik

Licence my roving hands, and let them go
Before, behind, between, above, below. ~ John Donne

What use is a god with boundless mercy, sir? You mock me as a pagan, yet the gods of my ancestors pronounce clearly their ways and punish severely when we break their laws. Your Christian god of mercy gives men licence to pursue their greed, their lust for land and blood, knowing a few prayers and a little penance will bring forgiveness and blessing. ~ Kazuo Ishiguro

Mr. Brooker, though out of work for two years, was a miner by trade, but he and his wife had been keeping shops of various kinds as a side line all their lives. At one time they had had a pub, but they had lost their licence for allowing gambling on the premises. I doubt whether any of their businesses had ever paid; they were the kind of people who run a business chiefly in order to have something to grumble about. ~ George Orwell

As Joel said, there's a bit more licence to attack over here, whereas the NRL is a bit more grinding-type football. ~ Brett Finch

If you are adding another beauty to a beauty, then you have a soul of an artist! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

If unbridled licence of speech and writing be granted to all, nothing will remain sacred and inviolate; even the highest and truest mandates of nature, justly held to be the common and noblest heritage of the human race, will not be spared. Thus, truth being gradually obscured by darkness, pernicious and manifold error, as too often happens, will easily prevail. ~ Pope Leo XIII

Every man waits his destined hour; even the cities are doomed to their fate. Let us spend our leisure with our books, which will take our minds off these troubles, and will teach us to despise what many people desire....sometimes I am free for reading, free from all care about public affairs...I live free as much as I can

-Freedom here has nothing to do with political libertyir a notion of rights or the licence to say whatever [Poggio] wished or the ability to go wherever [Poggio] chose. It is rather the experience of withdrawing inwardly from the press of the world - and ensphering himself in a space apart. ~ Poggio Bracciolini

L'Age Licence. As in: License to experience, mess up, license to fail, license to do... whatever, before you're settled. ~ Lucy Knisley

Breath is the bridge,
Between living and dying;
Breath is the licence
For joyous living; ~ Banani Ray

He would be atleast sixteen-old enough to have a driver's licence- and he would have crinkles around his eyes that showed he had a sense of humor and he would be tall, the kind of boy all the other girls would like to date ~ Beverly Cleary

There seems little correlation between poverty and honesty. One would rather expect the opposite; dishonesty may not always pay but surely it sometimes does ~ Milton Friedman

War had given Francis his respite, and success had brought him his final reward: the freedom he wished from his marriage. The licence, if he desired it, to go back to Russia. The knowledge, one supposed, that, severed from Philippa, he could allow the past to lie in peace, and cease troubling him. ~ Dorothy Dunnett

This was a vagrant of sixty-five, who was going to prison for not playing the flute; or, in other words, for begging in the streets, and doing noting for his livelihood. In the next cell, was another man, who was going to the same prison for hawking tin saucepans without a licence; thereby doing something for his living, in defiance of the Stamp-office. ~ Charles Dickens

But what is Freedom? Rightly understood, A universal licence to be good. ~ Hartley Coleridge

I'm a songwriter, and I understand artistic licence. We can embellish, go on little journeys and explore our inner selves. It can be quite self-indulgent. ~ Laura Marling

Miss Nodder leaned forward, then glanced round at Stephen. "Are you in this conversation, of just skulking?"
"Mostly skulking." Stephen had a particular knack for making himself unobtrusive. He was mildly impressed that he'd been noticed. "But I have a licence to skulk. ~ K.J. Charles

My crush is old enough to have its own driver's licence. As naïve as it sounds, I want to give Devon a chance to see that he's with the wrong sister, because I believe in my heart that he is.
But unlike skeevy Beefcake, I'll never make an actual move. ~ Lauren Layne

The onset of more severe climate impacts overseas may also open up temporary opportunities, or 'policy windows.' These would allow legislators the licence to take specific bold actions which they ordinarily believe would not otherwise be possible or politically acceptable ... In effect, envisaged solutions can become rapidly translated into practical options for action following a major disaster or near-miss. ~ John Beddington

Cosmic Ordering is a licence to print money. ~ Stephen Richards

You don't approve?" Joan asked, picking up on Delphine's tone.
"Their stories were for themselves, not the Mirrors."
"What do you mean?" said Bea.
"Certainly sometimes a good little character would find a lamp, and would not be so corrupted by the strangely endless possibilities of three wishes that they ended up causing more harm than they ever imagined. Those stories fostered belief, they were retold, certainly; but they were few and far between. Most of the genie's tales showed the characters exactly who they really were, not when they were despised and degraded, not when they'd reached the gutter and been given licence to look at the stars. No, the genies showed them who they were when they were invincible. The characters, they try to forget stories like that. ~ F.D. Lee

I love being able to go on local flights when the weather is right. I've popped to the Isle of Wight, Cornwall and been mountain flying in Wales. When I got my licence I was over the moon, it was one of the greatest days of my life - it took two years to get! ~ Jay Kay

( ... ) I headed over the river to the address listed on Mr Wilkinson's driving licence to see whether there was anyone who loved him enough to kill him. ~ Ben Aaronovitch

In her, as an Alexandrian, licence was in a curious way a form of self-abnegation, a travesty of freedom; and if I saw her as an exemplar of the city it was not of Alexandria, or Plotinus that I was forced to think, but of the sad thirtieth child of Valentinus who fell, 'not like Lucifer by rebelling against God, but by desiring too ardently to be united to him'.* ~ Lawrence Durrell

There's a rumour going 'round that if you amass a certain number of penalty points on your driving licence, the authorities will make you take your test again! Now, if ever there was an incentive to drive carefully, they could not have threatened a more terrifying ordeal. ~ Jasper Carrott

Bear with me G-Harrison because this is going to be a long speech. I've always had this feeling that the world is not enough and I won't be happy in life unless I hold hands with a girl who has a golden eye and a gold finger; I beat the living daylights out a guy called Dr No; I get a postcard from my friend who lives in Russia which reads 'From Russia with love'; I spend some time working for her majesty's secret service; I play the Thunderball Super Spud lottery; I meet a guy called Moonraker; I finally get a licence to kill, which I applied for months ago; I buy a house with a view to kill for and I get a pet octopus called Octopussy. If only I lived twice and tomorrow never died, maybe then I would get a chance to fulfil my dreams. ~ Michael Diack

I thought I'd join the RAF and become a wing commander. I realised this wasn't possible, although I do have a pilot's licence. ~ Mike Oldfield

Tell me, ' he continued, 'would it be true that you are an itinerant dentist and that you came on a tricycle?'
'It would not, ' I replied.
'On a patent tandem?'
'No.'
[ ... ]
'Then maybe you are no ... dentist at all, ' he said, 'but only a man after a dog licence or papers for a bull?'
'I did not say I was a dentist, ' I said sharply, 'and I did not say anything about a bull. ~ Flann O'Brien

This reliance on puns gives Freud an interpretative freedom which might often be considered licence. ~ Sigmund Freud

In the "free world" (Natopolis) the centres of ideological orthodoxy are rarely defined. The diversity of intellectual trends within the orthodoxy, the indeterminate and shifting character of its boundaries, the existence of real centres of dissent (and the licence given to even Stalinist opposition)--all these conspire to create the central illusion of "Natopolitan" culture, that there is in fact no orthodoxy but only an infinite variety of opinions among which one is free to choose. ~ E.P. Thompson

Philip Marlowe, 38, a private licence operator of shady reputation, was apprehended by police last night while crawling through the Ballona Storm Drain with a grand piano on his back. Questioned at the University Heights Police Station, Marlowe declared he was taking the piano to the Maharajah of Coot-Berar. Asked why he was wearing spurs, Marlowe declared that a client's confidence was sacred. Marlowe is being held for investigation. Chief Hornside said police were not yet ready to say more. Asked if the piano was in tune, Chief Hornside declared that he had played the Minute Waltz on it in thirty-five seconds and so far as he could tell there were no strings in the piano. He intimated that someting else was. A complete statement to the press will be made within twelve hours, Chief Hornside said abruptly. Speculation is rife that Marlowe was attempting to dispose of a body. ~ Raymond Chandler

The licence to kill for the Secret Service, the double-0 prefix, was a great honour. It had been earned hardly. It brought James Bond the only assignments he enjoyed - the dangerous ones. ~ Ian Fleming

Opposite the off-licence on Dockers Road, a car was parked on double-yellow lines. Hidden within the sunlight bouncing from its roof was the source of a frail tapping that defeated the din of the city. Squinting into that diamond of light, I discerned a blue tit crystallising from the glare. The little bird was pecking at its reflection. I wanted to tell it to stop. ~ Edward L. Lanner

Lady Sarah Henbery was his hostess, and the inspired projector of a new scheme of existence (that was, in effect, the repudiation of any scheme) that had become quite the 'thing.' She had found life an arbitrary design - a coil of days (like fancy pebbles, dull or sparkling) set in the form of a mainspring, and each gem responsible to the design. Then she had said, 'To-day shall not follow yesterday or precede to-morrow'; and she had taken her pebbles from their setting and mixed them higgledy-piggledy, and so was in the way to wear or spend one or the other as caprice moved her. And she became without design and responsibility, and was thus able to indulge a natural bent towards capriciousness to the extent that - having a face for each and every form of social hypocrisy and licence - she was presently hardly to be put out of countenance by the extremist expression of either.

It followed that her reunions were popular with worldlings of a certain order.

("The Accursed Cordonnier") ~ Bernard Capes

Tackling the environment should not be a licence to lecture people, because they have no excuse not to exercise, or eat their fruit and vegetables. Nannying - at least among adults - is likely to be counterproductive. Providing information is empowering; lecturing people is not. So, no excuses, no nannying. ~ Andrew Lansley

Ten years ago, when I was living in a small flat above an off-licence in SW1, I learned that the big house next door had been bought by the wife of the dictator of Nicaragua, Anastasio Somoza Debayle. The street was obviously going down in the world, what with the murder of the nanny Sandra Rivett by that nice Lord Lucan at number 44, and I moved out a few months later. I never met Hope Somoza, but her house became notorious in the street for a burglar alarm that went off with surprising frequency, and for the occasional parties that would cause the street to be jammed solid with Rolls - Royce, Mercedes-Benz and Jaguar limousines. Back in Managua, her husband 'Tacho' had taken a mistress, Dinorah, and Hope was no doubt trying to keep her spirits up. ~ Salman Rushdie

Keeping pigeons without a licence is illegal as well, but we can't have people going round shooting pigeon-keepers, can we? It is the job of the RUC to enforce the law in Northern Ireland, not paramilitary groups, not vigilantes, not 'concerned citizens', it's our responsibility and ours alone," McCallister said which made me proud of him. Not quite tears-in-eyes but maybe warm-glow-in-tummy. ~ Adrian McKinty