Buridan's Ass

   ''I am coming to believe that laws are the prime cause of unhappiness. It is not merely a case of born under one law, required another to obey...No sir, it is born under half a dozen, required another fifty to obey. There are parallel sets of laws in different keys that have nothing to do with one another and that are even downright contradictory. You, now - you wish to do something that the Articles of War and (as you explained to me) the rules of generosity forbid, but that your present notion of the moral law and your present notion of the point of honour require...Buridan's ass died of misery between equidistant mangers, drawn first by one then by the other...
   
   ''So much pain; and the more honest the man the worse the pain. But there at least the conflict is direct; it seems to me that the greater mass of confusion and distress must arise from these less evident divergencies -- the moral law, the civil, military, common laws, the code of honour, custom, the rules of practical life, of civility, of amorous conversation, gallantry, to say nothing of Christianity for those that practise it. All sometimes, indeed generally, at variance...It is as though our strings were each tuned according to a completely separate system - it is as though the poor ass were surrounded by four and twenty mangers.''
   
   ''You are an antinomian,'' said Jack.

   ''I am a pragmatist,'' said Stephen. ''Come, let us drink up our wine.''

(Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian, 1970, pp.354-6.)