Literary notes about Liability (AI summary)
The word "liability" in literature spans a broad spectrum of meanings, ranging from precise legal accountability to more abstract notions of susceptibility and burden. In legal texts and discussions, it is rigorously defined—addressing issues such as unintentional wrongs, contractual responsibilities, and even the historical evolution of law ([1], [2], [3], [4])—while also highlighting its role as a tool for articulating exclusion or transfer of responsibility ([5], [6]). Simultaneously, literary narratives employ the term metaphorically to express personal, moral, or emotional burdens, as seen in depictions of haunting responsibilities or inherited predispositions ([7], [8], [9], [10]). Even in works concerned with physical attributes or more abstract conditions of existence, "liability" is used to evoke the inherent risk or exposure that accompanies a state of being ([11], [12], [13]).
- It therefore affords a fair field for a discussion of the general principles of liability for unintentional wrongs at common law.
— from The Common Law by Oliver Wendell Holmes - The earlier liability for slaves and animals was mainly confined to surrender; the later became personal, as at Rome.
— from The Common Law by Oliver Wendell Holmes - My aim and purpose have been to show that the various forms of liability known to modern law spring from the common ground of revenge.
— from The Common Law by Oliver Wendell Holmes - The common-law liability for the truth of statements is, therefore, more extensive than the sphere of actual moral fraud.
— from The Common Law by Oliver Wendell Holmes - By the Salic law a man who could not pay the wergeld was allowed to transfer formally his house-lot, and with it the liability.
— from The Common Law by Oliver Wendell Holmes - So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement disclaims most of our liability to you.
— from Relativity : the Special and General Theory by Albert Einstein - The liability to be separated from my grandmother, seldom or never to see her again, haunted me.
— from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass - How this liability was dispelled, will be related, with other incidents, in the next chapter.
— from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass - I recognise that youthfulness, that liability to violent, tempestuous impulses.
— from The possessed : by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - She was getting away from Tipton and Freshitt, and her own sad liability to tread in the wrong places on her way to the New Jerusalem.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot - N. liability, liableness[obs3]; possibility, contingency; susceptivity[obs3], susceptibility, exposure.
— from Roget's Thesaurus by Peter Mark Roget - 6 Complexion, and liability to certain diseases, are believed to run together in man and the lower animals.
— from Aesop's Fables by Aesop - The liability of a thing to abuse is in proportion to the value of its right use.
— from How We Think by John Dewey
