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Literary notes about Need (AI summary)

Across literary works, the word "need" serves as a flexible vehicle for expressing both tangible requirements and abstract longings. In some narratives it embodies an almost mystical quality, as when an artist describes a vision achievable only through dreams [1], while in other texts it highlights a more pragmatic or emotional necessity, such as the need for guidance or companionship [2, 3]. At times, its use underscores sufficiency or redundancy—a state where nothing more is required, as noted in dismissive statements of completion or minimal explanation [4, 5]. In philosophical or political texts, the term is deployed to discuss conditions essential for reason or societal order [6, 7]. Even in poetic or dramatic expressions, "need" can denote an inherent human vulnerability, illustrating how characters confront their inner or social deficits [8, 9]. This multifaceted deployment of "need" not only enriches the narrative texture but also mirrors the wide range of human experience captured in literature [10, 11].
  1. I could only paint her with closed eyes, for in dreams alone can such colours as I need be found.
    — from The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers
  2. " He was touched, as he had been the evening before when she spoke of her need of guidance.
    — from The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
  3. In need of some brightening from without, was Mr Alfred Lammle, for he had the air of being dull enough within, and looked grievously discontented.
    — from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
  4. "It is my friend Professor Challenger," and amid laughter he renewed his lecture as if this was a final explanation and no more need be said.
    — from The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle
  5. “There is no need to excite yourself. . . .
    — from Project Gutenberg Compilation of Short Stories by Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
  6. It is only the changes which seem to him to need a reason.
    — from Know the Truth: A Critique on the Hamiltonian Theory of Limitation by Jesse Henry Jones
  7. H2 anchor All Lawes Need Interpretation All Laws, written, and unwritten, have need of Interpretation.
    — from Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
  8. Shake, quoth the dovehouse: ’twas no need, I trow, To bid me trudge.
    — from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
  9. But he swiftly dismissed the kaleidoscope of memory, oppressed by the urgent need of the present.
    — from Martin Eden by Jack London
  10. (Showing the buffet): See, all you need.
    — from Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand
  11. God is an hypothesis, and, as such, stands in need of proof: the onus probandi rests on the theist.
    — from The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Volume 3 by Percy Bysshe Shelley

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