Literary notes about impunity (AI summary)
The term "impunity" in literature often serves as a potent marker of power, privilege, or the absence of consequence, reflecting deep concerns about justice and morality. Philosophers and political theorists like Rousseau and Locke use it to question how eminent figures might escape accountability for their misdeeds ([1], [2], [3], [4]), while novelists explore its implications in both physical and metaphorical realms. In adventure novels, for example, characters defy natural dangers with assured confidence ([5], [6], [7]), and in social narratives, the freedom to insult or transgress is depicted as both a dangerous and corrupting privilege ([8], [9], [10]). Across genres—from the legal and ethical debates in Rousseau’s discourses to the vivid adventures of Jules Verne and the moral quandaries posed by Poe—impunity remains a versatile motif that interrogates the balance between power and responsibility.
- If a man of eminence robs his creditors, or is guilty of other knaveries, is he not always assured of impunity?
— from The Social Contract & Discourses by Jean-Jacques Rousseau - You are still at an age when all is forgiven, but when we cannot go on sinning with impunity.
— from Emile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Nothing is required but to know how to act with impunity; and to this end the powerful employ all their strength, and the weak all their cunning.
— from The Social Contract & Discourses by Jean-Jacques Rousseau - And as to the punishments due from the laws of the commonwealth, they frequently flatter themselves with the hopes of impunity.
— from An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1 by John Locke - Divided into seven compartments by watertight bulkheads, the Scotia could brave any leak with impunity.
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: An Underwater Tour of the World by Jules Verne - The Scotia, divided into seven compartments by strong partitions, could brave with impunity any leak.
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne - An order was given; the Nautilus tacked about and left the furnace it could not brave with impunity.
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne - ‘His lady will not hear him censured with impunity,’ replied Mr. Hargrave, coming forward; ‘but I must say, I thank God I am not such another.’
— from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë - Such is the privilege which you have assumed of talking nonsense with impunity.
— from Cicero's Tusculan Disputations by Marcus Tullius Cicero - WE are not to be insulted with impunity.”
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition by Edgar Allan Poe
