Limitations of Power Quotes

It must never be forgotten ... that the liberties of the people are not so safe under the gracious manner of government as by the limitation of power.

I would sue any president that exceeds his or her powers.

If men should read these words, let them know that power is a heavy burden. Seek not to be bound by its chains.

Americans have not yet learned the tragic lesson that the most powerful cannot be loved—hated, envied, feared, obeyed, respected, even honored perhaps, but not loved.

Our legislators are not sufficiently apprized of the rightful limits of their power; that their true office is to declare and enforce only our natural rights and duties, and to take none of them from us.

More fundamentally, however, the answer to petitioners' objection is that there can be no impairment of executive power, whether on the state or federal level, where actions pursuant to that power are impermissible under the Constitution. Where there is no power, there can be no impairment of power.

The word “must” may not be used to princes.

Take subject matter equal to your powers, and ponder long, what your shoulders cannot bear, and what they can.

The United States was famously founded as a government of limited powers; suspicion of concentrated private power has surged in periodic waves throughout its history.

The legislator is like the navigator of a ship on the high seas. He can steer the vessel on which he sails, but he cannot alter its construction, raise the wind, or stop the waves from swelling beneath his feet.

The king ought not to be under any man, but under God and under the law, for the law makes the king. Rex non debet esse sub homine sed sub Deo et lege, quia lex facit regem.

The Autocrat of Russia possesses more power than any other man in the earth; but he cannot stop a sneeze.

The predominant teachings of this age are that there are no limits to man's capacity to govern others and that, therefore, no limitations ought to be imposed upon government. The older faith, born of long ages of suffering under man's dominion over man, was that the exercise of unlimited power by men with limited minds and self-regarding prejudices is soon oppressive, reactionary, and corrupt. The older faith taught that the very condition of progress was the limitation of power to the capacity and the virtue of rulers.

I surpassed all others in authority, but I had no more power than the others who were also my colleagues in office.

Americans like to think of their country as the most powerful in the world, and so it has been for three-quarters of a century. But being the most powerful is a far cry from being omnipotent.

Section 7 of the Constitution doesn't grant a power for the king to do whatever he wishes.

Power can do everything but the most important thing: it cannot control love.