Quotes About Authority

In the end, leaders don't decide who leads. Followers do.

All he wanted or had ever wanted was someone who would take the responsibility and act." Grant, of course, was that someone. "He did not want to know what I proposed to do."7 Grant's account does not ring quite true. After all, the president had vetoed three of his suggestions several weeks earlier.

The payment of taxes gives a right to protection.

God owns the truth. The issue is our ability to derive truth apart from God's sufficient Word.

And call no man your father on earth …" No religious leader is to be called father. How clear is that? Don't call people "father" for "… you have one Father who is in heaven" (v. 9).

The power holder may be the person whose "private motives are displaced onto public objects and rationalized in terms of public interest

A leader and a tyrant are polar opposites.

Above all, how did liberty relate to other great aims? Some Americans felt that the pursuit of liberty ultimately would safeguard other values, such as order and equality; others saw order and authority as prior goals in protecting liberty.

above all, Locke's transforming idea that government was established and maintained by the consent of the governed, in which all men had an equal voice. "Who shall be Judge whether the Prince or Legislative act contrary to their Trust?" he had asked

War should only be declared by the authority of the people, whose toils and treasures are to support its burdens, instead of the government which is to reap its fruits.

Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.

Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own

The essence of Government is power and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.

The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived.

The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted.

The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men you must first enable the government to control the governed and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties or his possessions.

As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.

In framing a government, which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty is this: You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.

If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.

Those who are to conduct a war cannot in the nature of things, be proper or safe judges, whether a war ought to be commenced, continued, or concluded. Thy are barred from the latter functions by a great principle in free government, analogous to that which separates the sword from the purse, or the power of executing from the power of enacting laws.

The censorial power is in the people over the government, and not in the government over the people.

What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.