Irresponsible Power Quotes

Power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.

There are two opposite reasons for being a democrat. You may think all men so good that they deserve a share in the government of the commonwealth, and so wise that the commonwealth needs their advice. That is, in my opinion, the false, romantic doctrine of democracy. On the other hand, you may believe fallen men to be so wicked that not one of them can be trusted with any irresponsible power over his fellows.

What the proprietorship of these papers is aiming at is power, and power without responsibility—the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.

Power without responsibility - the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.

Gentlemen, all power is, or ought to be, accomplished by responsibility. Tyranny is irresponsible power. This definition is equally true, whether the power be lodged in one or many; — whether in a despot, exempted by the form of government from the control of the law; or in a mob, whose numbers put them beyond the reach of the law. Idle, therefore, and absurd, to talk of freedom where a mob domineers!

We should submit to careful examination and review a system which places such vast powers for evil in the hands of irresponsible individuals and which makes the possession of land not a trust but a means of extortion and exaction.

In the modern corporation the decisive power, that of the managers , is derived from no one but the managers themselves controlled by nobody and nothing and responsible to no one. It is in the most literal sense unfounded, unjustified, uncontrolled and irresponsible power.

Man armed with science is like a baby with a box of matches.

Russia's leaders, rich with oil wealth and corrupt with power, have rejected democratic ideals and the obligations of a responsible power.

We are, in effect, being led from disaster to disaster by a headless horseman run amok with stuffed pockets and an empty conscience.

I start every book with something that outrages me. I'm outraged by the FBI, the CIA, and computers that seem to have catalogued our lives. Power too often is accompanied by irresponsibility.

Oppression is but another name for irresponsible power, if history is to be trusted.

The stupidity of the average man will permit the oligarch, whether economic or political, to hide his real purposes from the scrutiny of his fellows and to withdraw his activities from effective control. Since it is impossible to count on enough moral goodwill among those who possess irresponsible power to sacrifice it for the good of the whole, it must be destroyed by coercive methods and these will always run the peril of introducing new forms of injustice in place of those abolished.

Irresponsible power is inconsistent with liberty, and must corrupt those who exercise it.

The greatest menace to the world today is the growing, exploiting, irresponsible imperialism.

In a culture that gives men irresponsible power and women powerless responsibility, the advancement of civilization cannot be a serious goal.

The number of those men who know how to use wholly irresponsible power humanely and generously is small. Everybody knows this, and the slave knows it best of all.

Fearful and unprepared, we have assumed lordship over the life or death of the whole world, of all living things.