Public Power Quotes

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

The government was set to protect man from criminals-and the constitution was written to protect man from the government. The Bill of Rights was not directed at private citizens, but against the government-as an explicit declaration that individual rights supersede any public or social power.

Overly concentrated power, whether in public, private or even in civic hands is an invitation to abuse.

Mass opinion has acquired mounting power in this century. It has shown itself to be a dangerous master of decisions when the stakes are life and death.

This may be news to Big Money politicians, but they actually don't own our votes.

You know, I think we ought to sell TVA.

... the negation of the ideals upon which our civilization has been based.

Our government is for the people, by the people - and no one can orchestrate a hostile takeover. We, the people, control our destiny.

We have … a clear mandate from the people, that Americans must forswear that conception of the acquisition of wealth which, through excessive profits, creates undue private power over private affairs and, to our misfortune, over public affairs as well.

Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community? Realize that the doctor's fight against socialized medicine is your fight. We can't socialize the doctors without socializing the patients. Recognize that government invasion of public power is eventually an assault upon your own business.

If elected president, I shall shrink from no danger, from no sacrifice, in the defense of society, which has been so outrageously assailed. I shall devote myself wholly and without reservation to the consolidation of the republic, so that it may be wise in its laws, honest in its aims, great and strong in its deeds. My greatest honor would be to hand on to my successor, after four years of office, the public power consolidated, its liberties intact, and a genuine progress assured...

Public sentiment is to public officers what water is to the wheel of the mill.

Parenting, as an unpaid occupation outside the world of public power, entails lower status, less power, and less control of resources than paid work.

We, as citizens, are the true owners of government.

Jefferson, though the secret vote was still unknown at the time had at least a foreboding of how dangerous it might be to allow the people to share a public power without providing them at the same time with more public space than the ballot box and with more opportunity to make their voices heard in public than on election day. What he perceived to be the mortal danger to the republic was that the Constitution had given all power to the citizens, without giving them the opportunity of being citizens and of acting as citizens.

If I had to say who is the number-one most powerful figure is in reality TV, it's very easy. It is the general public. They're the only people who have power now.

We believe that the people are the source of all governmental power; that the authority of the people is to be extended, not restricted.

This persistence as private firms continued because it ensured the maximum of anonymity and secrecy to persons of tremendous public power who dreaded public knowledge of their activities as an evil almost as great as inflation.

So let me be clear, Collective bargaining isn't a right, it is an expensive entitlement. Once and for all, we are giving the taxpayers a voice in this debate. We put the power back in the hands of the people.

The functionaries of public power rarely strengthen in their dispositions to abridge it, and an unorganized call for timely amendment is not likely to prevail against an organized opposition to it

You know the voice of the people is a very, very powerful tool.

[Guarantees of freedom] will be found to consist in the highest protection of the individual and of society, chiefly against public power, because it is necessarily from this power that the greatest danger threatens the citizen, or that the most serious infringement of untrammeled action is to be feared.

There is a power in public opinion in this country - and I thank God for it: for it is the most honest and best of all powers - which will not tolerate an incompetent or unworthy man to hold in his weak or wicked hands the lives and fortunes of his fellow-citizens.

This year, we are going to take our government out of the hands of corporate special interests and put it back into the hands of Ohio families - where it belongs.

The very existence of the Nation was threatened. Threatened on all sides, from the interior and exterior. From the interior, by the sterile conflicts of politicians who sacrificed the country and their compatriots to their own interests. Nothing counted for them but power...and what the exercise of power could bring them. Fill their own pockets, exploit the Congo and the Congolese, this was their trademark. Given such examples, both national and provincial administrations were mired in inertia, inefficiency, and worse yet, corruption. At all levels, many of those in our country who held a morsel of public power allowed themselves to be corrupted, served individuals and companies who paid bribes and neglected the others... ...certain politicians, to maintain themselves in power or to regain it, did not hesitate to seek help from foreign powers... ...the social, economic and financial situation of the country is catastrophic