The quote database

One person with a belief is a social power equal to ninety-nine who have only interests.

Only an unmitigated despotism demands that the individual citizen shall obey unconditionally every mandate of persons in authority.

A good despotism is an altogether false ideal, which practically (except as a means to some temporary purpose) becomes the most senseless and dangerous of chimeras.

There is no act which more imperatively requires to be performed under a strong sense of individual responsibility than the nomination to employments.

Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.

Her power often gives her what she has no right to, but does not enable her to assert her own rights.

A Sultan's favourite slave has slaves under her, over whom she tyrannizes; but the desirable thing would be that she should neither have slaves nor be a slave.

A man who is morose or violent to his equals, is sure to be one who has lived among inferiors, whom he could frighten or worry into submission.

Even the commonest men reserve the violent, the sulky, the undisguisedly selfish side of their character for those who have no power to withstand it.

If ever any system of privilege and enforced subjection had its yoke tightly riveted on the necks of those who are kept down by it, this has.

The spectacle is exhibited to the world of a government deriving its powers from the consent of the governed and having imparted to it only so much power as is necessary for its successful operation.

For the first time in our history the person elected to the Vice-Presidency of the United States, by the happening of a contingency provided for in the Constitution, has had devolved upon him the Presidential office.

Such increase is destined to keep pace with the growth of our population, until, without a figure of speech, an army of officeholders may be spread over the land.

In this the Endowments of Men are so employed, that the Friend and the Governor are united in one, and oppressive Customs come to an End.

How mighty, as to the outward, is that Power by which they are borne down, and oppressed!

Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul.

The concepts of "majority" and "minority" necessarily reflect temporary arrangements and political judgments.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority, still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.

it is hazardous to discourage thought, hope and imagination; that fear breeds repression; that repression breeds hate; that hate menaces stable government

If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.

Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent.

The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.

Decency, security, and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen.

Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers.

Denial of the right to experiment may be fraught with serious consequences to the nation.