government Quotes

In effect, to follow, not to force the public inclination; to give a direction, a form, a technical dress, and a specific sanction, to the general sense of the community, is the true end of legislature.

The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.

Power ought to serve as a check to power.

Slavery, properly so called, is the establishment of a right which gives to one man such a power over another as renders him absolute master of his life and fortune.

When the body of the people is possessed of the supreme power, it is called a democracy.

The deterioration of a government begins almost always by the decay of its principles.

There are three species of government: republican, monarchical, and despotic.

The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.

When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.

In the infancy of societies, the chiefs of state shape its institutions; later the institutions shape the chiefs of state.