Unlimited Power Quotes - Page 3

• Every one is degraded, whether aware of it or not, when other people, without consulting him, take upon themselves unlimited power to regulate his destiny.

  John Stuart Mill

  Destiny, People, Democracy

  John Stuart Mill (2015). “On Liberty, Utilitarianism and Other Essays”, p.287, Oxford University Press, USA

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• The construction applied . . . to those parts of the Constitution of the United States which delegate Congress a power . . . ought not to be construed as themselves to give unlimited powers, nor a part to be so taken as to destroy the whole residue of that instrument.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Taken, Giving, United States

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Miscellaneous: 4. Parliamentary manual; 5. The anas; 6. Miscellaneous papers”, p.468

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• The possession of unlimited power will make a despot of almost any man. There is a possible Nero in the gentlest human creature that walks.

  Thomas Bailey Aldrich

  Power, Men, Nero

  Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1907). “The Writings of Thomas Bailey Aldrich”

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• The chief evil is unlimited government, and nobody is qualified to wield unlimited power.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Government, Evil, Unlimited

  "The Constitution of Liberty". Book by Friedrich Hayek, Postscript: Why I Am Not a Conservative, 1960.

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• Unlimited power may be available when two or more people coordinate their thoughts and actions in a spirit of perfect harmony for the attainment of a definite purpose.

  Napoleon Hill

  Two, People, Perfect

  Napoleon Hill (1997). “Napoleon Hill's Positive Action Plan: 365 Meditations For Making Each Day a Success”, p.85, Penguin

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• We shall never want to serve God in our real and secret hearts if He looms in our subconscious mind as an arbitrary Dictator or a Spoil-sport, or as one who takes advantage of His position to make us poor mortals feel guilty and afraid. We have not only to be impressed by the "size" and unlimited power of God, we have to be moved to genuine admiration, respect, and affection, if we are ever to worship Him.

  John Bertram Phillips

  Sports, Real, Heart

  John Bertram Phillips (1964). “Your God is too small”, Scribner Paper Fiction

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• It is not because a part of the government is elective, that makes it less a despotism, if the persons so elected, possess afterwards, as a parliament, unlimited powers. Election, in this case, becomes separated from representation, and the candidates are candidates for despotism.

  Thomas Paine

  Government, Political, Politics

  Thomas Paine (1824). “The Political Writings of Thomas Paine: Secretary to the Committee of Foreign Affairs in the American Revolution : to which is Prefixed a Brief Sketch of the Author's Life”, p.186

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• Faust was this mythical figure who sold his soul to the devil for unlimited power. The Japanese have made that Faustian bargain because they don't have coal, oil or hydro power.

  Michio Kaku

  Oil, Soul, Devil

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could... That your Sex are Naturally Tyrannical is a Truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute, but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of Master for the more tender and endearing one of Friend.

  Abigail Adams

  Sex, Husband, Giving Up

  "Familiar Letters of John Adams and his wife Abigail Adams" edited by Charles Francis Adams, (p. 147), 1875.

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• I believe in the unlimited power of women in the context of science and engineering.

  Elizabeth Holmes

  Believe, Engineering, Unlimited

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• Free institutions are not the property of any majority. They do not confer upon majorities unlimited powers. The rights of the majority are limited rights. They are limited not only by the constitutional guarantees but by the moral principle implied in those guarantees. That principle is that men may not use the facilities of liberty to impair them. No man may invoke a right in order to destroy it.

  Walter Lippmann

  Men, Rights, Order

  Walter Lippmann, Clinton Rossiter, James Lare (1982). “The Essential Lippmann: A Political Philosophy for Liberal Democracy”, p.57, Harvard University Press

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• A Heavenly Master governs all the world as Sovereign of the universe. We are astonished at Him by reason of His perfection, we honor Him and fall down before Him because of His unlimited power. From blind physical necessity, which is always and everywhere the same, no variety adhering to time and place could evolve, and all variety of created objects which represent order and life in the universe could happen only by the willful reasoning of its original Creator, Whom I call the Lord God.

  Isaac Newton

  Fall, Order, Perfection

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• To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical...A wise and frugal government...shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned...Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare but only those specifically enumerated...Would it not be better to simplify the system of taxation rather than to spread it over such a variety of subjects and pass through so many new hands?

  Thomas Jefferson

  Wise, Men, Hands

  A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, Chapter 82, 1779.

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• It is weakness rather than wickedness which renders men unfit to be trusted with unlimited power.

  John Adams

  Men, Presidential, Weakness

  John Adams (2004). “The Portable John Adams”, p.36, Penguin

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• Whoever has had the experience of the moral sentiment cannot choose but believe in unlimited power. Each pulse from that heart isan oath from the Most High. I know not what the word sublime means, if it be not the intimations, in this infant, of a terrific force.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  God, Believe, Heart

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald A. Bosco, Joel Myerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.416, Harvard University Press

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• The predominant teachings of this age are that there are no limits to man's capacity to govern others and that, therefore, no limitations ought to be imposed upon government. The older faith, born of long ages of suffering under man's dominion over man, was that the exercise of unlimited power by men with limited minds and self-regarding prejudices is soon oppressive, reactionary, and corrupt. The older faith taught that the very condition of progress was the limitation of power to the capacity and the virtue of rulers.

  Walter Lippmann

  Teaching, Exercise, Men

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• Unlimited power is worse for the average person than unlimited alcohol; and the resulting intoxication is more damaging for others. Very few have not deteriorated when given absolute dominion. It is worse for the governor than for the governed.

  William Lyon Phelps

  Power, Average, Alcohol

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• Trees have from time immemorial been closely associated with magic. These stout members of the vegetable kingdom may stand for as long as a thousand years, and tower far above our mortal heads. As such they are symbols and keepers of unlimited power, longevity, and timelessness. An untouched forest, studded with trees of all ages, sizes and types, is more than a mysterious, magical place - it is one of the energy reservoirs of nature. Within its boundaries stand ancient and new sentinels, guardians of the universal force which has manifested on the the Earth. . . .

  Scott Cunningham

  Vegetables, Years, Long

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• Thomas Jefferson explained, Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated. .. If Congress can determine what constitutes the general welfare and can appropriate money for its advancement, where is the limitation to carrying into execution whatever can be effected by money?.

  Bill Drayton

  Advancement, Execution, Welfare

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• For the sake of my children and grandchildren, I hope that the human talent for self-destruction can be successfully controlled, or at least channelled into productive forms, but I doubt it. I think we are moving into extremely volatile and dangerous times, as modern electronic technologies give mankind almost unlimited powers to play with its own psychopathology as a game.

  J. G. Ballard

  Children, Moving, Technology

  "JG Ballard: Theatre of Cruelty". Interview with Jean-Paul Coillard, 1998.

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• It cannot be denied that for a society which has to create scarcity to save its members from starvation, to whom abundance spells disaster, and to whom unlimited energy means unlimited power for war and destruction, there is an ominous cloud in the distance though at present it be no bigger than a man's hand.

  Arthur Eddington

  War, Distance, Mean

  Arthur Eddington (2012). “New Pathways in Science: Messenger Lectures (1934)”, p.163, Cambridge University Press

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• Brutal men with unlimited power are the same all over the world

  Mary Boykin Chesnut

  Men, World, Unlimited

  Mary Boykin Chesnut (2011). “Mary Chesnut's Diary”, p.187, Penguin

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• An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation.

  John Marshall

  Law, Taxation, Limits

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• The confidence in the unlimited power of science is only too often based on a false belief that the scientific method consists in the application of a ready-made technique, or in imitating the form rather than the substance of scientific procedure, as if one needed only to follow some cooking recipes to solve all social problems. It sometimes almost seems as if the techniques of science were more easily learnt than the thinking that shows us what the problems are and how to approach them.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Thinking, Cooking, Substance

  Friedrich August von Hayek's Prize Lecture, www.nobelprize.org. December 11, 1974.

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• Unlimited power corrupts the possessor; and this I know, that, where law ends, there tyranny begins.

  William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham

  Law, Power Corrupts, Ends

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