Quotes About Constraint

Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint.

Power controlled or abridged is almost always the rival and enemy of that power by which it is controlled or abridged.

The river flows at its own sweet will, but the flood is bound in the two banks. If it were not thus bound, its freedom would be wasted.

There's a bunch of places in the world I haven't been to, 'cause I can only be on a plane for a little bit. I'm like, 'How long is it to get there? Two days on a plane? What? No.'

The rigid cause themselves to be broken; the pliable cause themselves to be bound.

The chains that bind us the most closely are the ones we have broken.

A law is not a law without coercion behind it.

Any colour - so long as it's black.

Like any art, what is the most imprisoning thing is also the most delivering thing. If an actor knows he only has 12 syllables in a line, the challenge is, 'How can I interpret the meaning and contain it without going one syllable over?'

The creeping optimism that there might be a route to peace in Syria remains constrained by the elephant in the room - Bashar al-Assad.

The promise of anyone seeking to be on the federal bench, the Supreme Court in particular, must again be—not to serve as Chief Justice Roberts's "referee" but to do what is necessary to serve that one great overarching value of American democracy: to serve as a constraint on the otherwise overarching tyranny of the majority (and their political allies) for us and future generations.

but as any poet can testify, limits encourage both inspiration and decisiveness.

Freedom is a man's natural power of doing what he pleases, so far as he is not prevented by force or law.

A bureaucrat is one who has the power to say "no" but none to say "yes."

The world we are is a secret prison and the secret prison is power.

Ungarter'd, and down-gyved to his ankle.

Do not give dallianceToo much the rein.

And so no force however great can stretch a cord however fine into a horizontal line that shall be absolutely straight.

Such seem'd this Man, not all alive nor dead,   Nor all asleep; in his extreme old age:   His body was bent double, feet and head   Coming together in their pilgrimage;   As if some dire constraint of pain, or rage   Of sickness felt by him in times long past,   A more than human weight upon his frame had cast.

The power of any art is limited

that she wasn't 'allowed', which

No matter how safe and beautiful it is, a cage is still a cage.

With enough 'ifs' we could put Paris in a bottle.

There is no subjugation so perfect as that which keeps the appearance of freedom for in that way one captures volition itself.