Quotes about Authority
Does the government fear us? Or do we fear the government? When the people fear the government, tyranny has found victory. The federal government is our servant, not our master!
— Thomas Jefferson
The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived.
— James Madison
No man is good enough to govern another man without the other's consent.
— Abraham Lincoln
It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.
— CS Lewis
The trouble with government as it is, is that it doesn't represent the people. It controls them.
— John Lennon
No government, any more than an individual, will long be respected without being truly respectable; nor be truly respectable, without possessing a certain portion of order and stability.
— James Madison
No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.
— Thomas Jefferson
Individual liberty depends upon keeping government under control.
— Ronald Reagan
And having looked to Government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite the hand that fed them.
— Edmund Burke
To prevent evil is the great end of government, the end for which vigilance and severity are properly employed.
— Samuel Johnson
If there is no final place for civil disobedience, then the government has been made autonomous, and as such, it has been put in the place of the living God.
— Francis Schaeffer
It's important to make sure that governments have some checks on what they do, that people can oversee what's being done so the government doesn't abuse it.
— Barack Obama