Quotes About Power

Freedom is living without government coercion. So when a politician talks about freedom for this group or that, ask yourself whether he is advocating more government action or less.

A wise prince will seek means by which his subjects will always and in every possible condition of things have need of his government, and then they will always be faithful to him.

In recent years... forces have developed in our government over which we have no control, and these forces have an authoritarian approach to justice - meaning, they tell you what justice is.

The federal government is our servant, not our master.

I call the present system 'Post-Constitutional America.' As I sometimes put it, the U.S. Constitution poses no serious threat to our form of government.

The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything which would be unlawful for them to do themselves.

A just government maintains a healthy tension between the claims of authority and the claims of liberty.

The Bill of Rights was not written to protect governments from trouble. It was written precisely to give the people the constitutional means to cause trouble for governments they no longer trusted.

Most people seem unaware that corporate influence and wealth has taken over public policy, such that government policy now favors the wealthy few at the expense of the people.

Governments without separation of powers commit the worst crimes.

The Roman government appeared every day less formidable to its enemies, more odious and oppressive to its subjects.

For government to give, it must first take away.

Democracy is only an experiment in government, and it has the obvious disadvantage of merely counting votes instead of weighing them.

The early American knew that freedom was nothing more than the absence of external restraint on behavior; the government could not give you freedom, it could only take it away.

Government seems to operate on the principle that if even one individual is incapable of using his freedom competently, no one can be allowed to be free.

The essential feature of government is the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisoning.

Liberalism, austere in political trifles, has learned ever more artfully to unite a constant protest against the government with a constant submission to it.

The object and practice of liberty lies in the limitation of government power.

The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.

What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?

Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.

It is easier to seize wealth than to produce it, and as long as the State makes the seizure of wealth a matter of legalized privilege, so long will the squabble for that privilege go on.

The Latin motto over Poindexter's new Pentagon office reads Scientia Est Potentia - "knowledge is power." Exactly: the government's infinite knowledge about you is its power over you.

All government is an ugly necessity.