Magistrates Quotes - Page 4

• But who is to decide who truly fears the Lord? The magistrate has no power to enforce religious demands. The laws of the First Table of the Ten Commandments are not regulations for a civil society or a political order. They belong to the realm of religion, not politics.

  Roger Williams

  Religious, Order, Law

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• Baptists are very strong believers that the civil magistrate is ordained by God to punish those who do evil.

  Richard Land

  Strong, Umpires, Evil

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• Remember that you are an actor in a play, and that the Playwright chooses the manner of it: If he wants you to act a poor man you must act the part with all your powers; and so if your part be a cripple or a magistrate or a plain man. For your business is to act the character that is given you and act it well. The choice of the cast is Another's.

  Epictetus

  Business, Character, Men

  Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Lucius Annaeus Seneca (2015). “Stoic Six Pack: Meditations of Marcus Aurelius The Golden Sayings Fragments and Discourses of Epictetus Letters from a Stoic and The Enchiridion”, p.502, Lulu.com

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• The perfect life: to live in a world of peace in a lake district where the magistrate is good and honest, and to have an understanding wife and bright children.

  Zhang Zhao

  Children, Lakes, Perfect

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• The laws are the sole guardians of right, and when the magistrate dares not act, every person is insecure.

  Noah Webster

  Insecure, Law, Guardian

  Noah Webster (1787). “An Examination Into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution Proposed by the Late Convention Held at Philadelphia: With Answers to the Principal Objections that Have Been Raised Against the System”, p.16

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• Any institution which does not suppose the people good, and the magistrate corruptible, is evil.

  Maximilien Robespierre

  Umpires, People, Evil

  'Dèclaration des droits de l'homme' 24 April 1793, article 25

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• When the magistrate says 'That's not a good enough reason my man.' He said 'Excuse me, could I ask you? Have you taken an oath of allegiance to the Monarch?'

  Anthony Holden

  Taken, Men, Umpires

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• Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs protection against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them.

  John Stuart Mill

  Mean, Practice, Ideas

  John Stuart Mill (1864). “On Liberty”, p.13

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• This magistrate is not the king. The people are the king.

  Gouverneur Morris

  Kings, Umpires, People

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• Custom is the principle magistrate of man's life.

  Francis Bacon

  Men, Principles, Customs

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• As the magistrate has no power to impose by his laws the use of any rites and ceremonies in any church, so neither has he any power to forbid the use of such rites and ceremonies as are already received, approved, and practised by any church; because if he did so, he would destroy the church itself; the end of whose institution is only to worship God with freedom, after its own manner.

  John Locke

  Law, Atheism, Church

  John Locke (2012). “A Letter Concerning Toleration: Latin and English Texts Revised and Edited with Variants and an Introduction”, p.65, Springer Science & Business Media

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• We cannot distinguish truth from falsehood, right from wrong, or know what obedience we owe to the magistrate, or what we may justly expect from him, unless we know what he is, why he is, and by whom he is made to be what he is.... I cannot know how to obey unless I know in what, and to whom; nor in what unless I know what ought to be commanded; nor what ought to be commanded unless I understand the original right of the commander, which is the great arcanum.

  Algernon Sidney

  May, Obedience, Made

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• I am again called upon by the voice of my country to execute the functions of its Chief Magistrate.

  George Washington

  Country, Voice, Function

  George Washington, Jared Sparks (1839). “The Writings of George Washington: pt. IV. Letters official and private, from the beginning of his presidency to the end of his life: (v. 10) May, 1789-November, 1794. (v. 11) November, 1794-December, 1799”, p.323

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• We do not accost a physician as we do any mere nobody; nor a magistrate as we do a private individual. We try to get some advantage from the skill of the one and the position of the other. Walk in the sun, and your shadow will follow you, whether you will or not.

  Saint Basil

  Skills, Shadow, Trying

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• In cities men cannot be prevented from concerting together, and from awakening a mutual excitement which prompts sudden and passionate resolutions. Cities may be looked upon as large assemblies, of which all the inhabitants are members; their populace exercises a prodigious influence upon the magistrates, and frequently executes its own wishes without their intervention.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Exercise, Men, Cities

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1839). “Democracy in America”, p.289

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• If the bookseller happens to desire a privilege for his merchandise, whether he is selling Rabelais or the Fathers of the Church, the magistrate grants the privilege without answering for the contents of the book. - Voltaire (Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire

  Voltaire

  Father, Book, Desire

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• Men are apt to mistake, or at least to seem to mistake, their own talents, in hopes, perhaps, of misleading others to allow them that which they are conscious they do not possess. Thus lord Hardwicke valued himself more upon being a great minister of state, which he certainly was not, than upon being a great magistrate, which he certainly was.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Mistake, Pride, Men

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• No gilded dome swells from the lowly roof to catch the morning or evening beam; but the love and gratitude of united America settle upon it in one eternal sunshine. From beneath that humble roof went forth the intrepid and unselfish warrior, the magistrate who knew no glory but his country's good; to that he returned, happiest when his work was done. There he lived in noble simplicity, there he died in glory and peace.

  Edward Everett Hale

  Country, Gratitude, Peace

  "A Library of American Literature from the Earliest Settlement to the Present Time Vol. V". Book by Edmund Clarence Stedman and Ellen Mackay Hutchinson, 1888.

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• A king is the first servant and first magistrate of the state.

  Frederick The Great

  Kings, Firsts, States

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• An annual or frequent choice of Magistrates, who in a year, or in a few years, are again left upon a level with their neighbors, is most likely to prevent usurpation and tyranny ... If rulers know that they shall in short period of time, be again out of power, and ... may be liable to be called to account for misconduct, it will guard them against maladministration.

  Clinton Rossiter

  Years, Choices, Political

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• Wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties; and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in various parts of the country, and among the different orders of the people, it shall be the duty of legislators and magistrates in all future periods of this commonwealth to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences.

  John Adams

  Graduation, Country, Opportunity

  John Adams (1851). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.259

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• Any single man must judge for himself whether circumstances warrant obedience or resistance to the commands of the civil magistrate; we are all qualified, entitled, and morally obliged to evaluate the conduct of our rulers. This political judgment, moreover, is not simply or primarily a right, but like self-preservation, a duty to God. As such it is a judgment that men cannot part with according to the God of Nature. It is the first and foremost of our inalienable rights without which we can preserve no other.

  John Locke

  Wisdom, Gun, Men

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• Corruption of morals is rapid enough in any country without a bounty from government. And...the Chief Magistrate of the United States should be the last man to accelerate its progress.

  Daniel Webster

  Country, Men, Progress

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• One may live as a conqueror, a king, or a magistrate; but he must die a man. The bed of death brings every human being to his pure individuality, to the intense contemplation of that deepest and most solemn of all relations - the relations between the creature and his Creator.

  Daniel Webster

  Kings, Men, Individuality

  DANIEL WEBSTER (1853). “THE WORKS OF DANIEL WEBSTER; VOLUME II”, p.301

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• The care of souls cannot belong to the civil magistrate.

  John Locke

  Soul, Atheism, Care

  John Locke, John W. Yolton (1977). “The Locke Reader: Selections from the Works of John Locke with a General Introduction and Commentary”, p.246, CUP Archive

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