Quotes about power

Quotes

1. The contemporaries of Severus, in the enjoyment of the peace and glory of his reign, forgave the cruelties by which it had been introduced. Posterity, who experienced the fatal effects of his maxims and example, justly considered him as the principal author of the decline of the Roman Empire.

   • Power
   • History

2. 

   A weak prince will always be governed by his domestics.

   • Power

3. 

   It was dangerous to trust the sincerity of Augustus; to seem to distrust it was still more dangerous.

   • Politics
   • Power

4. 

   When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people.

   • Politics
   • Power

5. 

   Where popular authority is absolute and unrestrained, the people have an infinitely greater, because a far better founded, confidence in their own power. They are themselves, in a great measure, their own instruments. They are nearer to their objects. Besides, they are less under responsibility to one of the greatest controlling powers on the earth, the sense of fame and estimation. The share of infamy that is likely to fall to the lot of each individual in public acts is small indeed; the operation of opinion being in the inverse ratio to the number of those who abuse power. Their own approbation of their own acts has to them the appearance of a public judgment in their favor. A perfect democracy is, therefore, the most shameless thing in the world. As it is the most shameless, it is also the most fearless. No man apprehends in his person that he can be made subject to punishment.

   • Politics
   • Power

6. 

   Whatever is supreme in a state, ought to have, as much as possible, its judicial authority so constituted as not only not to depend upon it, but in some sort to balance it. It ought to give a security to its justice against its power. It ought to make its judicature, as it were, something exterior to the state.

   • Politics
   • Power
   • Justice

7. 

   The wise will determine from the gravity of the case; the irritable from sensibility to oppression; the high-minded from disdain and indignation at abusive power in unworthy hands.

   • Power

8. 

   Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle.

   • Politics
   • Power

   p. 334

9. 

   Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. Men have a right that these wants should be provided for by this wisdom.

   • Politics
   • Power

10. 

    In their nomination to office they will not appoint to the exercise of authority as to a pitiful job, but as to a holy function.

    • Politics
    • Power

    p. 356

11. 

    All persons possessing any portion of power ought to be strongly and awfully impressed with an idea that they act in trust and that they are to account for their conduct in that trust to the one great Master, Author, and Founder of society.

    • Power
    • Responsibility

12. 

    To execute laws is a royal office; to execute orders is not to be a king. However, a political executive magistracy, though merely such, is a great trust.

    • Politics
    • Power

    p. 497