The quote database

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

The interest of the people is that there should be full liberty of censure on every public officer, and on every public act or measure.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

in the exercise of this high power, we must be ever on our guard, lest we erect our prejudices into legal principles

The thoughtful framers of our Constitution legislated for our country as they found it.

The law is the only sure protection of the weak and the only efficient restraint upon the strong.

The beauty of our system of government consists, and its safety and durability must consist, in avoiding mutual collisions and encroachments and in the regular separate action of all, while each is revolving in its own distinct orbit.

there is no surer or more necessary restraint on the violence of an unruly multitude, than the presence of some one whose character and bearing command respect

princes ought to leave affairs of reproach to the management of others, and keep those of grace in their own hands

It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, it is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with.

injuries ought to be done all at one time, so that, being tasted less, they offend less; benefits ought to be given little by little, so that the flavour of them may last longer

Great cases, like hard cases, make bad law. For great cases are called great, not by reason of their real importance in shaping the law of the future, but because of some accident of immediate overwhelming interest which appeals to the feelings and distorts the judgment.

a Constitution is not intended to embody a particular economic theory, whether of paternalism and the organic relation of the citizen to the state or of laissez faire

This case is decided upon an economic theory which a large part of the country does not entertain.

A man's power is hooped in by a necessity, which, by many experiments, he touches on every side, until he learns its arc.

With all its defects, delays and inconveniences, men have discovered no technique for long preserving free government except that the Executive be under the law, and that the law be made by parliamentary deliberations.