The First Law Quotes

Inertia is the first law of history, as it is of physics. ~ Morris Raphael Cohen

Nothing is lost, Sassenach; only changed." "That's the first law of thermodynamics," I said, wiping my nose. "No," he said. "That's faith. ~ Diana Gabaldon

The first law of business: Make the rules or your rivals will ~ G.Richard Shell

Memories sharp enough to cut himself on - the smells, the sounds, the feel of the air on his skin, the desperate hope and mad anger. ~ Joe Abercrombie

It is the first law of practical courage. To be in the weakest camp is to be in the strongest school. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

Memorizing facts and then regurgitating them into carefully crafted words is not science people. It's intellectual bulimia. Real science happens when we explore what we don't know. The first law of understanding the human brain and the mind within, is to be an explorer. ~ Abhijit Naskar

What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly - that is the first law of nature. ~ Voltaire

The first law of sustainability: population growth and/or growth in the rate of consumption of resources cannot be sustained ~ Albert Allen Bartlett

Three laws governing black hole changes were thus found, but it was soon noticed that something unusual was going on. If one merely replaced the words 'surface area' by 'entropy' and 'gravitational field' by 'temperature', then the laws of black hole changes became merely statements of the laws of thermodynamics. The rule that the horizon surface areas can never decrease in physical processes becomes the second law of thermodynamics that the entropy can never decrease; the constancy of the gravitational field around the horizon is the so-called zeroth law of thermodynamics that the temperature must be the same everywhere in a state of thermal equilibrium. The rule linking allowed changes in the defining quantities of the black hole just becomes the first law of thermodynamics, which is more commonly known as the conservation of energy. ~ John D. Barrow

Acceptance is such an important commodity, some have called it "the first law of personal growth". ~ Peter McWilliams

All knives and forks were working away at a rate that was quite alarming; very few words were spoken; and everybody seemed to eat his utmost, in self defence, as if a famine were expected to set in before breakfast-time to-morrow morning, and it had become high time to assert the first law of nature. ~ Charles Dickens

You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got.

And at one point you'd hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.

And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themsel ~ Aaron Freeman

The only sovereign I can allow to rule me is reason. The first law of reason is this: what exists exists; what is is. From this irreducible, bedrock principle, all knowledge is built. This is the foundation from which life is embraced. Reason is a choice. Wishes and whims are not facts, nor are they a means to discovering them. Reason is our only way of grasping reality–it is our basic tool of survival. We are free to evade the effort of thinking, to reject reason, but we are not free to avoid the penalty of the abyss we refuse to see." -Richard ~ Terry Goodkind

The Three Laws of Robotics:
1: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm;
2: A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law;
3: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law;
The Zeroth Law: A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm. ~ Isaac Asimov

The first law of the land shall be the King's Peace. ~ George R.R. Martin

The first law of social communication is whenever you meet anyone, exalt him or her. ~ Harbhajan Singh Yogi

The First Law of Journalism: to confirm existing prejudice, rather than contradict it. ~ Alexander Cockburn

Only force rules. Force is the first law ~ Adolf Hitler

Order is the first law of heaven, and you have to have order to survive on Earth. Figure out what has to be done each day, each week, each year and develop a system to achieve it. ~ Iyanla Vanzant

The first Law of Heaven is obedience, and it should be the first law of every home. It is the foundation of an orderly home, a successful family, and the successful lives of the children. The wife is the key. ~ Helen Andelin

Monza never had understood why getting out a tit or two made for a better painting. But painters seemed to think it did, so tits is what you got. ~ Joe Abercrombie

Since emotions are few and reasons many, the behavior or a crowd can be
more easily predicted than the behavior of one person can. And that, in turn, means that if laws are to be developed that enable the current of history to be predicted, then one must deal with large populations, the larger the better. That might itself be the First Law of Psychohistory, the key to the study of Humanics. Yet.'

R. Giskard Reventlov ~ Isaac Asimov

The first law I passed in my cabinet was a law eliminating the double salary for the prime minister and the ministers. I have a salary as member of parliament. I don't want a double salary. So it was a very important decision. ~ Enrico Letta

The memories of our glories fade, and rot away into half-arsed anecdotes, thin and unconvincing as some other bastard's lies. The failures, the disappointments, the regrets, they stay raw as the moments they happened. ~ Joe Abercrombie

In truth, the only difference between those who have failed and those who have succeeded lies in the difference of their habits. Good habits are the key to all success. Bad habits are the unlocked door to failure. Thus, the first law I will obey, which precedeth all others is - I will form good habits and become their slave. ~ Og Mandino

It is conflict overall that mires people in poverty. That is the first law of development. ~ Andrew Mitchell

R-4 got stuck on the First Law. "Can anyone really protect a human being from all harm whatever?" it thought. "No. It is inevitable that all humans must be injured, contract illnesses and ultimately die. The future can only be averted for humans who are already dead. Ergo ... " It took a dozen cops to subdue R-4, after his blood orgy in a department store (83 dead, none injured). ~ John Sladek

It was worth repeating, because it constituted the First Law of Sentient Ordnance: Thou shalt not blow up the wrong planet. On that point the programmers had been insistent to the point of fussiness. Accordingly, ~ Tom Holt

Memory, with its fugitive adjustments, is the merciful veil to the grim enactments of the first law. It hides the anguish in the human heart which is always craving for perpetuity. ~ Stacy Aumonier

It is just physics - who can argue with Newton and the first law of thermodynamics? ~ Mark Hyman

If a modified robot were to drop a heavy weight upon a
human being, he would not be breaking the First Law, if he did so with the knowledge
that his strength and reaction speed would be sufficient to snatch the weight away before
it struck the man. However once the weight left his fingers, he would be no longer the
active medium. Only the blind force of gravity would be that. The robot could then
change his mind and merely by inaction, allow the weight to strike. The modified First
Law allows that (79). ~ Isaac Asimov

The first law of success is concentration - to bed all the energies to one point, and to go directly to that point, looking neither to the right nor the left. ~ William Mathews

Man's rights are evident branches of, rather than deductions from, the duty of self-preservation, commonly called the first law of nature. ~ Samuel Adams

That's the first law of magic, Specs. Misdirection. Never forget it. ~ Donna Tartt

No society can survive if it allows its members to behave toward one another in the same way in which it encourages them to behave as a group toward other groups; internal cooperation is the first law of external competition. The struggle for existence is not ended by mutual aid, it is incorporated, or transferred to the group. Other things equal, the ability to compete with rival groups will be proportionate to the ability of the individual members and families to combine with one another.
Hence every society inculcates a moral code, and builds up in the heart of the individual, as its secret allies and aides, social dispositions that mitigate the natural war of life; it encourages by calling them virtues those qualities or habits in the individual which redound to the advantage of the group, and discourages contrary qualities by calling them vices.
In this way the individual is in some outward measure socialized, and the animal becomes a citizen. ~ Will Durant

A fiction which is designed to inculcate an object wholly alien to the imagination sins against the first law of art; and if a writer of fiction narrow his scope to particulars so positive as polemical controversy in matters ecclesiastical, political or moral, his work may or may not be an able treatise, but it must be a very poor novel. ~ Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

The first law of nature is self-preservation. Cut off that which may harm you. But if it is worth preserving, and is meaningful, nourish it and have no regrets. Ultimately, this is true living and love of self ... from within. ~ T.F. Hodge

Order and tidiness is the first law of Heaven. ~ Brunello Cucinelli

You cannot hinder someone's free will, that's the first law of the Universe, no matter what the decision. ~ E.A. Bucchianeri

The trouble with you, Peter, is that when you think of a witness to a planetological statement, you think of planetologists. You divide up human beings into categories, and despise and dismiss most. A robot cannot do that. The First Law says, 'A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.' Any human being. That is the essence of the robotic view of life. A robot makes no distinction. To a robot, all men are truly equal, and to a robopsychologist who must perforce deal with men at the robotic level, all men are truly equal, too. ~ Isaac Asimov

We were ten feet away when we triggered the First Law of Percy Jackson ~ Rick Riordan

Men are brittle, I reckon. They don't bend into new shapes. They get broken into them. Crushed into them. ~ Joe Abercrombie

The First Law: Performance drives success,
but when performance can't be measured,
networks drive success. ~ Albert Laszlo Barabasi

The first law that ever God gave to man was a law of pure obedience; it was a commandment naked and simple, wherein man had nothing to inquire after, or to dispute, forasmuch as to obey is the proper office of a rational soul, acknowledging a heavenly superior and benefactor. From obedience and submission spring all other virtues, as all sin does from self-opinion. ~ Michel De Montaigne

Through silence, through meditation, and through non-judgment, you will access the first law, the Law of Pure Potentiality. ~ Deepak Chopra

It is the first law of friendship that it has to be cultivated. The second is to be indulgent when the first law is neglected. ~ Voltaire

You have to be realistic ~ Joe Abercrombie

The first law of economics is that when the price goes up, consumption comes down. This is a divine law. ~ Ahmed Zaki Yamani

We have said that the State must not absorb the individual or the family; both should be allowed free and untrammelled action so far as is consistent with the common good and the interest of others. Rulers should, nevertheless, anxiously safeguard the community and all its members; the community, because the conservation thereof is so emphatically the business of the supreme power, that the safety of the commonwealth is not only the first law, but it is a government's whole reason of existence ... ~ Pope Leo XIII

The first law of humanity is not to kill your children. ~ Hans Joachim Schellnhuber

Loyalty is the first law of God. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda

The first law of computer science: Every problem is solved by yet another indirection. ~ Bjarne Stroustrup

This compassion, or sympathy with the pains of others, ought also to extend to the brute creation, as far as our necessities will admit; for we cannot exist long without the destruction of other animal or vegetable beings either in their mature or embryon state. Such is the condition of mortality, that the first law of nature is 'eat, or be eaten.' Hence for the preservation of our existence we may be supposed to have a natural right to kill those brute creatures, which we want to eat, or which want to eat us; but to destroy even insects wantonly shows an unreflecting mind, or a depraved heart. ~ Erasmus Darwin

The First Law of Pies: 'No Pastry, No Pie. ~ Janet Clarkson

If the first law of friendship is that it has to be cultivated, the second law is to be indulgent when the first law has been neglected. ~ Voltaire

The first law of the multitude is conformity. Civilization is the mechanism of controlling and maintaining that multitude. The more civilized a nation, the more conformed its population, until that civilization's last age arrives, when multiplicity wages war with conformity. The former grows ever wilder, ever more dysfunctional in its extremities; whilst the latter seeks to increase its measure of control, until such efforts acquire diabolical tyranny. ~ Steven Erikson

I should coldly, clinically think of myself and stop worrying about other people, as though I'm a necessary woman, indispensable to their happiness and well-being. Self-preservation is the first law. I must start trying to obey the law. ~ Helen Van Slyke

We're called to be faithful, to take those first difficult steps
and to leave the results up to God. ~ Alex Harris

It's very important in a restaurant to really do the right hiring because there's no restaurant that you have one cook and one chef and nobody else in the kitchen. Generally you have five, ten, 15 people with you. So that's really important is to train them right, but first you have to hire the right people. ~ Wolfgang Puck

You look good."
"You look like shit."
"That's how I feel."
"Good. What do you want?"
He gave her a faint smile. "To tell you how much I love you, Izzy. I probably have from the first moment we met. ~ Susan Mallery

Though this is my first trip to the United Kingdom, I am a proud Anglophile. I admire the practical temperament of the people. I love the artful details of daily life: a hand-stitched tea cozy in the shape of a Victorian mansion, the Wellie boots, the sheep's wool stockings, and the best tailors in the world. ~ Adriana Trigiani

Discussing the attempts of Augustus' generals to add to the extent of the Roman Empire early in his reign:
The northern countries of Europe scarcely deserved the expense and labour of conquest. The forests and morasses of Germany were filled with a hardy race of barbarians, who despised life when it was separated from freedom; and though, on the first attack, they seemed to yield to the weight of the Roman power, they soon, by a signal act of despair, regained their independence, and reminded Augustus of the vicissitude of fortune. ~ Edward Gibbon

I am the first male member of my family for about three generations who can have reasonable confidence in expecting that I will leave this earth with more or less the same number of fingers, hands, legs, toes and eyes as I had when I was born. ~ Neil Kinnock

Now, Bella suspected by this time that Mr. Rokesmith admired her. Whether the knowledge (for it was rather that than suspicion) caused her to incline to him a little more, or a little less, than she had done at first; whether it rendered her eager to find out more about him, because she sought to establish reason for her distrust, or because she sought to free him from it; was as yet dark to her own heart. But at most times he occupied a great amount of her attention. ~ Charles Dickens

I'm the first one in line to go watch 'Spider-Man', but there's definitely something in me that makes me want to go to a movie and see something that makes me feel good about life. ~ America Ferrera

My philosophy is that once you get people compelled enough to sit down and play the game, the whole way you make the game successful is by giving them enough unique ways to do things. First, let them deal with pulling levers and things like that for a while. Then after they've mastered that, you give them something else to do, like getting through doorways by blasting them down with a cannon Next, you give them a monster-finding quest, followed by logic problems to figure out. You pace it that way. Assorted activities and the diversity of activities are what makes a game rich in my mind. ~ Richard Garriott

Were I Diogenes, I would not move out of a kilderkin into a hogshead, though the first had had nothing but small beer in it, and the second reeked claret. ~ Charles Lamb

Well, I don't know what to do first. I mean, should I take the piss out of you" - he points at me - "for the TV interview? Or you" - he points at James - "for the fan mail? ~ Sarah Mason

To be the first Puerto Rican to win a world title in four divisions would be an achievement. Gomez, Benitez, there have been a lot of good fighters from Puerto Rico before me. When I started boxing, Tito Trinidad was our big star. ~ Miguel Cotto

Chess is the most intimate game in the world. It's like making love. By the time we finish our first slow game, I will know all his thoughts. ~ Eloisa James

Sea Hunt was the first time anyone tackled a show that took place underwater. The stories were sort of exciting for kids, like cops and robbers underwater. ~ Lloyd Bridges

You may claim no affiliation with them, but perhaps some have crossed your path.And perhaps you'd like to help us find them."
"Oh,sure.You killed my mother. You can imagine I'm dying to help you out."
Thomas manages to ignore me again. He glances at the first photo projected on the wall. "Know this person?"
I shake my head. "Never seen him before."
Thomas clicks the remote. Another photo pops up. "How about this one?"
"Nope."
Another photo. "How about this?"
"Nope."
Yet another stranger pops up on the wall. "Seen this girl before?"
"Never seen her in my life."
More unfamiliar faces. Thomas goes through them without blinking an eye or questioning my responses. What a stupid puppet of the state. I watch him as we continue, wishing I weren't chained so I could beat this man to the ground. ~ Marie Lu

I watched the young naive middle-class women and men of the twenty-first century learn the true nature of the world they live in. I watched all this happening, and I believe there is hope. I believe that if anything can save us in this fraught and dazzling future, it is the rage of women and girls, of queers and freaks and sinners. I believe that the revolution will be feminist, and that when it comes it will be more intimate and more shocking than we have dared to imagine. ~ Laurie Penny

Start with God - the first step in learning is bowing down to God; only fools thumb their noses at such wisdom and learning. ~ King Solomon

601If love is a precious resource, it is not one simply extracted from the Third World and implanted in the First; rather, it owes its very existence to a particular cultural alchemy that occurs in the land to which it is imported. ~ Arlie Russell Hochschild

My mother died of colon cancer one week after my eleventh birthday, and that fact has shaped my life. All that I have become and much that I have not become, I trace directly or indirectly to her death ... In my professional and personal life, I have lived with the awareness of death's imminence for more than half a century, and labored in its constant presence for all but the first decade of that time. ~ Sherwin B. Nuland

It was apparent that both the Wazirs and the Mahsuds were building up a large lashkar (a gathering of hostile forces); the numbers were reported as about 1,000 armed men. This was the first occasion that I heard the word 'Jihud' mentioned; there are a number of interpretations given to it; in its simplest form it could be a holy war declared by Muslims on the unbelievers of Islam. ~ Michael Lowry

Faith is first of all not attachment to a body of doctrines but a process of responding in obedience and trust to God's Word. God has given us the possibility of hearing the Word, since it was spoken in the humanity of Jesus, which we share, and since it continues to be spoken through the Holy Spirit, which dwells in us. So also theology is first of all not the study of doctrines, but a process of reflection on this response in faith. The classic definition of theology, "faith seeking understanding", remains always valid. Faith seeks to understand the one to whom it responds. It also, thereby, seeks to understand itself, and the implications of being so called and so gifted to respond. … Who, then, is qualified for theology? The theological task is implied by the very life of faith itself. Every Christian is therefore called to do theology in this sense. Every Christian must seek an understanding of his or her response to God and the implications of that response for the rest of life. ~ Luke Timothy Johnson

What if she were simply to open her bedroom window and throw herself out, head first? Would she really be able to come back and start again? Or was it, as everyone told her, and as she must believe, all in her head? And so what if it was - wasn't everything in her head real too? What if there was no demonstrable reality? What if there was nothing beyond the mind? Philosophers "came to grips" with this problem a long time ago, Dr. Kellet had told her, rather wearily, it was one of the very first questions they addressed, so there was really no point in her fretting over it. But surely, by its very nature, everyone wrestled with this dilemma anew every time? ~ Kate Atkinson

I did not intend to be a writer. I first wanted to be a lawyer, like my father. Then I got bit by the bug of philosophy and wanted to be a philosophy professor. I went to graduate school and quickly discovered it was impossible for a woman in those days - this was the early fifties - to be a philosopher, so I gave that up. ~ Alix Kates Shulman

The website didn't say how much brains
or even how many
I should eat, only that I should eat them in 48 hours OR ELSE. Why doesn't anyone pay attention to details anymore? Would it be so hard to add a simple line like, BTW, Maddy, 3 pounds of brains per week is plenty?
Seriously, am I the first new zombie ever to ask? ~ Rusty Fischer

Bacon first taught the world the true method of the study of nature, and rescued science from that barbarism in which the followers of Aristotle, by a too servile imitation of their master. ~ Thomas Young

Life is fragile, like the dew hanging delicately on the grass, crystal drops that will be carried away on the first morning breeze. ~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Etta saw the way Sophia took a deep breathe, set her shoulders back, and moved with practiced grace on her way out - and she understood something about the other girl, truly understood for the first time. Sophia wanted it, when she was only ever sent out. ~ Alexandra Bracken

We know from astronomy that the universe had a beginning, from physics that the future is both open and unpredictable, from geology and paleontology that the whole of life has been a process of change and transformation. From biology we know that our tissues are not impenetrable reservoirs of vital magic, but a stunning matrix of complex wonders, ultimately explicable in terms of biochemistry and molecular biology. With such knowledge we can see, perhaps for the first time, why a Creator would have allowed our species to be fashioned by the process of evolution. ~ Kenneth R. Miller

My biggest hope for this work is that it will help others to remember the sacrifices made for our freedom, and even more so to remember that the men, women, and children all involved in and affected by this era were not just statistics: they were people just like we are, with the same hopes, dreams, and very imminent fears. ~ J. Neven-Pugh

My first-ever concert was the Barney concert when I was, like, six. My mum took me because I was obsessed with Barney. Barney was actually my first crush ... He's, like, literally better than all the guys in the whole world. ~ Gigi Hadid

Religions all have the same timeline ... First the people feel the need to worship something. The sun or the giant corn of ear. That's the first thing. Then the guys say okay, now that we've got the giant corn thing going, how can we use it to oppress women? ~ Carol Anshaw

Every man is scared in his first battle. If he says he s not he s a liar. Some men are cowards but they fight the same as the brave men or they get the hell slammed out of them watching men fight who are just as scared as they are. The real hero is the man who fights even though he is scared.
Some men get over their fright in a minute under fire. For some it takes an hour. For some it takes days. But a real man will never let his fear of death overpower his honor his sense of duty to his country and his innate manhood.
Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best and it removes all that is base. ~ George S. Patton Jr.

I am, first of all, a Christian and, secondly, a person with very very serious personal opinion, so I'm motivated by many many things and, certainly, not by the need or desire to satisfy other people's ideas of who I am. ~ Ken Hensley

If a government commission had worked on the horse, you would have the first horse that could operate its knee joint in both directions. The trouble is it couldn't have stood up. ~ Peter Drucker

This is the first time I have heard 'ethics' in the mouth of a man. You and I are the only men on this ship that know its meaning. At one time in my life, I dreamed that I might someday talk with men who used such language, that I might lift myself out of the place in life in which I had been born, and hold conversation and mingle with men who talked about just such things as ethics. ~ Jack London

For the first few years I wrote jokes and performed them word for word and then wrote tags for them and did that word for word and that worked pretty well. Now, I do almost all of my writing on stage and then record and listen for any new things and then I write those down. ~ Gary Gulman

I felt I hadn't breathed since early morning, that my heart had not beat-and only now for the first time I took a breath, only now the floodgates in my chest opened... ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

I could take back those moments that snatched you away from me or maybe just wipe away those ten minutes when you came to me for the first time and I looked into your eyes to realise what love is. ~ Faraaz Kazi

Eighty years ago, Woodrow Wilson took America into the twentieth century with a challenge to make the world safe for democracy. As we enter the twenty-first century, our task is to make democracy safe for the world. ~ Fareed Zakaria

NEWT shuffles over awkwardly to the bereft THESEUS. NEWT hesitates, struggling to find words of comfort. Then for the first time in his life, he puts his arms around his brother. They hug.

NEWT: I've chosen my side. ~ J.K. Rowling

Each song had a different way of coming about. In some, the music was written first while others it was the lyrics. We didn't want to overthink anything too much - we just wanted to, writing-wise, chuck out as many ideas as possible. ~ Elena Tonra

The first thing apparent was that this world and its people were often quite wrong. To conclude that others were wrong was as far as most of us ever got. The usual outcome was that people continued to wrong us and we stayed sore. Sometimes it was remorse and then we were sore at ourselves. But the more we fought and tried to have our own way, the worse matters got. As in war, the victor only seemed to win. Our moments of triumph were short-lived. ~ Alcoholics Anonymous

The church's approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him to not be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours and to come to church on Sundays. What the church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables. ~ Timothy Keller