Samuel Johnson Quotes

Our rulers can have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them.

Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Vadim was both my teacher and my husband. I placed myself entirely in his hands.

The Law is one aspect of a much more concrete and encompassing relation than the relation between commanding and obeying that characterizes the imperative.

I've been reading this little book. It's called the Russian constitution. And it says that the only source of power in Russia is the people. So I don't want to hear those who say we're appealing to the authorities. Who's the power here?

Most men, after a little freedom, have preferred authority with the consoling assurances and the economy of effort it brings.

I'll answer to none but the King himself.

That, sir, depends on whether I embrace your mistress or your politics.

Patriotism ... for rulers is nothing else than a tool for achieving their power-hungry and money-hungry goals, and for the ruled it means renouncing their human dignity, reason, conscience, and slavish submission to those in power. ... Patriotism is slavery.

Inhale to the Chief

Whose bread I eat, his song I sing.

King's entreaties are commands.

He who is the most strenuous for the rights of the people, when vested with power is as eager after for the prerogatives of government.

I have no power, no independence.

A government is said to preserve order if it succeeds in getting itself obeyed. But there are different degrees of obedience, and it is not every degree that is commendable. Only an unmitigated despotism demands that the individual citizen shall obey unconditionally every mandate of persons in authority.

Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor

A right not accompanied by the sword is a lost right.

No man ruleth safely but that he is willingly ruled.

No one is able to rule unless he is also able to be ruled.

Those who fear men like laws.

Laws are not masters but servants, and he rules them who obeys them.

We submit ourselves to rulers only if under rules.

Justice remains the greatest power on earth. To that tremendous power alone will we submit.

The principle, on which the war was waged by the North, was simply this: That men may rightfully be compelled to submit to, and support, a government that they do not want; and that resistance, on their part, makes them traitors and criminals.

In order that a people may be free, it is necessary that the governed be sages, and those who govern, gods.