Force does not constitute right… obedience is due only to legitimate powers.

Power is a complicated word and can take many forms.

And they that rule in England, in stately conclaves met, alas, alas for England they have no graves as yet.

The totalitarian, to me, is the enemy – the one that’s absolute, the one that wants control over the inside of your head, not just your actions and your taxes.

Odd how the creative power at once brings the whole universe to order.

It’s so easy to settle for less than God’s best for us because we don’t always feel like taking responsibility for our behavior or putting forth some effort to do what we need to do so we can accomplish great things for God and help people. But the cost of settling for less is actually harder than being completely obedient to God’s will.

Good men must not obey the laws too well.

Authority poisons everybody who takes authority on himself.

Since God had commanded it, it was necessary that I do it. Since God commanded it, even if I had a hundred fathers and mothers, even if I had been a King’s daughter, I would have gone nevertheless.

Music has the power to inspire the world.

One thing I hope I’ll never be is drunk with my own power. And anybody who says I am will never work in this town again.

Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.

If the United States loses the economic weapons of control, it is very much weakened.

Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.

What this power is I cannot say; all I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man is in that state of mind in which he knows exactly what he wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it.

The tragedy of America is that it entered all the wars with a consensus in favor of them, but within a defined period, the legitimacy of the war became a major domestic issue, with some people arguing that withdrawal was the only legitimate objective.

One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship.

It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own.

Fame and power are the objects of all men. Even their partial fruition is gained by very few; and that, too, at the expense of social pleasure, health, conscience, life.

If God can’t get you to obey Him concerning your money, he won’t get to anything else you got.

The faith that stands on authority is not faith.

Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just.

Woe to him that claims obedience when it is not due; woe to him that refuses it when it is.

He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.

It vexes me when they would constrain science by the authority of the Scriptures, and yet do not consider themselves bound to answer reason and experiment.

Electricity is really just organized lightning.

Ambition is the immoderate desire for power.

The less effort, the faster and more powerful you will be.

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.

Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.

Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius.

The authority of those who teach is often an obstacle to those who want to learn.

The desire of excessive power caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge caused men to fall.

Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power.

Nothing is so strongly fortified that it cannot be taken by money.

The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that… it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.

Lord sanctify us. Oh! That Thy spirit might come and saturate every faculty, subdue every passion, and use every power of our nature for obedience to God.

It’s a mystery. That’s the first thing that interests me about the idea of God. If there is one, it’s mysterious and powerful and awesome to even consider the concept, and you have to take it seriously.

Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.

To understand the power of the priesthood, we must know its limitations.

Pessimism leads to weakness, optimism to power.

Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.

Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.

The reason why men do not obey us, is because they see the mud at the bottom of our eye.

Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.

We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.

The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world’s definitions.

The last thing the devil wants you to do is be an obedient Christian.

Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.

The devil ain’t got no power over me. The devil come, and me shake hands with the devil. Devil have his part to play. Devil’s a good friend, too… because when you don’t know him, that’s the time he can mosh you down.

Power is competence.

In Europe first and now in America, elected men have taken it upon themselves to indebt their people to create an atmosphere of dependency. And why? For their own selfish need to increase their own personal power.

War should only be declared by the authority of the people, whose toils and treasures are to support its burdens, instead of the government which is to reap its fruits.

Not brute force but only persuasion and faith are the kings of this world.

All gods are homemade, and it is we who pull their strings, and so, give them the power to pull ours.

Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them.

Laws too gentle are seldom obeyed; too severe, seldom executed.

Thaw with her gentle persuasion is more powerful than Thor with his hammer. The one melts, the other breaks into pieces.

Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.

Human greatness does not lie in wealth or power, but in character and goodness. People are just people, and all people have faults and shortcomings, but all of us are born with a basic goodness.

I repeat… that all power is a trust; that we are accountable for its exercise; that from the people and for the people all springs, and all must exist.