Quotes about Power

Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry.

When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.

An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.

The dead should not rule the living.

In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution.

Our properties within our own territories [should not] be taxed or regulated by any power on earth but our own.

Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Slavery] will yield in time to temperate & steady pursuit, to the enlargement of the human mind, and its advancement in science. We are not in a world ungoverned by the laws and the power of a superior agent, our efforts are in his hand, and directed by it; and he will give them their effect in his own time.

Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

All men who live only according to their five senses, and seek nothing beyond the gratification of their natural appetites for pleasure and reputation and power, cut themselves off from that charity which is the principle of all spiritual vitality and happiness because it alone saves us from the barren wilderness of our own abominable selfishness.

Perhaps I am stronger than I think.