I give once more laws which no libertine is so hardy not to feel exalted in adopting; I hold my court, and issue my FIATS; I am like the madman, and out of the very straws of my cell, I make my subjects and my realm; and when I wake from these bright visions, and see myself an old, deserted man, forgotten, and decaying inch by inch in a foreign village, I can at least summon sufficient of my ancient regality of spirit not to sink beneath the reverse.
"Pelham, Complete"
Edward Bulwer-Lytton Last Updated: March 16, 2009
Edward Moulton Barrett was a man of integrity in business, of fortitude in adversity, of a certain stern piety, and from the superior position of a domestic autocrat he could even indulge himself in occasional FIATS of affection.
"Robert Browning"
Edward Dowden
Beneath all of them there was the dubious principle-the very determining principle, indeed, of Puritanism-that it is competent for the community to limit and condition the private acts of its members, and with it the inevitable corollary that there are some members of the community who have a special talent for such legislation, and that their arbitrary FIATS are, and of a right ought to be, binding upon all.
"A Book of Prefaces"
H. L. Mencken