Michael Moore Quotes

Power is always a corrupting influence.

Government by blackmail is incompatible with democracy.

Power is always dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best.

Power over men is itself a satisfaction, besides providing opportunity to better one's circumstances with a minimum of exertion. Hence, the lust for power increases with its enjoyment and restraint is added to restraint. The government instituted to prevent men from transgressing one another's equal rights thus tends to become a transgressor of the rights of all. The injustice is far more oppressive than anyone man can do unto another, and the interests of freedom can be served only by restraint of government.

Experience constantly proves that every man who has power is impelled to abuse it.

We don’t trust the U. S. government.

People who are in a position of power like to throw their weight around, and that becomes abuse.

The harshest tyranny is that which acts under the protection of legality and the banner of justice.

You can't trust anybody with power.

Any excuse will serve a tyrant.

Our authorities leave us no doubt that the trust lodged with the oligarchy was sometimes abused, but it certainly ought not to be regarded as a mere usurpation or engine of tyranny.

A strength to harm is perilous in the hand of an ambitious head.

Authority poisons everybody who takes authority on himself.

A good deal of tyranny goes by the name of protection.

I have always been fascinated by the corruption of power.

Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts... perhaps the fear of a loss of power.

Well, when you look at a lot of science fiction novels they're asking questions about power. There are questions about what it means to have power and what are the long-term consequences of power.

Of course, a law that is selectively used is in one aspect even worse than a law that is generally used because it puts a lot of power in individuals' hands and makes government a rule, not of laws, but of people.

Arbitrary power is like most other things which are very hard, very liable to be broken.

Tyrants seldom want pretexts.

Till people find themselves greatly abused and oppressed by their governors, they are not apt to complain; and whenever they do, in fact, find themselves thus abused and oppressed, they must be stupid not to complain.

But constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go.

He was always testing you. He was always testing his power.

We are a government of laws. Any laws some government hack can find to louse up a man who's down.

Power is what men seek and any group that gets it will abuse it.