Arab Proverb Quotes

Law … is but words and paper without the hands and swords of men

Force does not constitute right... obedience is due only to legitimate powers.

Even when the State does good things, it finally rests on a club, a gun, or a prison, for its power to carry them through.

Force in today's world, just as in the past, is what determines rights.

It is to secure our rights that we resort to government at all.

The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man's self-defense, and, as such, may only resort to force only against those who start the use of force.

It is right that what is just should be obeyed; it is necessary that what is strongest should be obeyed. Justice without might is helpless; might without justice is tyrannical.

Sovereignty resides originally in the people, and in each individual with regard to himself; and that it is the transferring and uniting the several rights of individuals in the person of the sovereign, that constitutes him such, and really produces sovereignty.

The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms, like law, discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property.

The object of government is the protection of person, property, and reputation from the foes which assail them. Government may do other things: it may carry the mails, run the express, own and operate the railroads; but its fundamental function is to furnish protection from open violence or secret fraud. If it adequately protects person, property, and reputation, it is a just government, though it do nothing else; if it fails to protect these primary rights, if the person is left to defend himself, his property, his reputation by his own strong arm, there is no government.

I know no human being exempt from the law. The law is the security of the people of England; it is the security of every person that is governed, and of every person that governs.

There never was a government without force.... A governement leaving it to a man to do his duty, or not, as he pleases, would be a new species of government, or rather no government at all.

The law is an opinion with a gun.

People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.

With the people, especially a people seized of property, resides the aggregate of original power.

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?

The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant.

Those who 'abjure' violence can do so only because others are committing violence on their behalf.

Men speak of natural rights, but I challenge any one to show where in nature any rights existed or were recognized until there was established for their declaration and protection a duly promulgated body of corresponding laws.

Arabs respect only the language of force.

And government's only role is to secure our rights for us.

The Sword and its law have existed from the beginning of the world. The use of force can never prevent heresy.

The tongue is more to be feared than the sword.

It was once a fundamental maxim that every subject had the same right to his life, liberty, property, and the law that the King had to his crown; and 'tis yet, I venture to say, as much as a crown is worth, to deny the subject his law, which is his birthright.

The end of all political associations is, the preservation of the rights of man, which rights are liberty, property, and security; that the nation is the source of all sovereignty derived from it...