Breyten Breytenbach Quotes

The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.

People abusing their power makes me see red.

This administration, this agency, the very agency charged with enforcing Obamacare, systematically targeted groups that came into existence because they opposed Obamacare - and they started the targeting the very month, March 2010, that Obamacare came into law - expects us to believe it is the work of two rogue agents in Cincinnati.

This memorandum addresses the matter of how we can maximize the fact of our incumbency in dealing with persons known to be active in their opposition to our Administration. Stated a bit more bluntly—how we can use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies?

There are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.

The prison officials practiced such excessive cruelty that they were jeopardizing the entire system

I believe that every leader has a right to implement his own policy. But when I see things that are done that are not right - abuse of power, wrong approaches, wrong strategies, making use of foreign consultants, including those discarded by other countries - I feel that I have to have my say.

The IRS, now known for abusing its power by targeting groups for their political beliefs, is a prime example of an overgrown federal agency that doles out enormous bonuses to senior employees.

Frankly, it's a bit shocking to me the lengths government will go to to let little Rappler feel its power.

I'm not going to be bullied by an overzealous agency of the United States government.

We are way overstepping bounds as federal legislators.

These last few years we've seen an unacceptable abuse of power, having a president whose priority is expanding his own power.

I know what it means to be stopped by police. I've been stopped by police a lot.

Here's the crazy thing: if I was guilty I would be entitled to job training, housing, medical treatment. But I have nothing. I was released with five dollars and 37 cents of my own money.

Some of the occurrences leading up to and immediately following the Berlin World Championships have infringed not only my rights as an athlete but also my fundamental and human rights, including my rights to dignity and privacy.

Arbitrary government power is being multiplied daily by the now practically unchallenged assumption that wherever there is any problem of any kind to be solved, government is the agency to step in and solve it.

The accretion of dangerous power does not come in a day. It does come, however slowly, from the generative force of unchecked disregard of the restrictions that fence in even the most disinterested assertion of authority.

Who breaks a butterfly on a wheel?

Government today is growing too strong to be safe. There are no longer any citizens in the world there are only subjects. They work day in and day out for their masters they are bound to die for their masters at call. Out of this working and dying they tend to get less and less.

The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

It is in vain to oppose constitutional barriers to the impulse of self-preservation. It is worse than in vain; because it plants in the Constitution itself necessary usurpations of power, every precedent of which is a germ of unnecessary and multiplied repetitions.

Death - by hanging! - that, at least, I did not deserve. The death part - all right, somebody has to stand for the responsibility. But that - that I did not deserve!

A democratic government that respects no limits on its power is a ticking time bomb, waiting to destroy the rights it was created to protect.

A fondness for power is implanted in most men, and it is natural to abuse it when acquired. This maxim, drawn from the experience of all ages, makes it the height of folly to intrust any set of men with power which is not under every possible control; perpetual strides are made after more as long as there is any part withheld.

This bill would renounce the safe, proper, and acceptable role for Government as a referee of disputes between the governed. It would interpose the Government as a biased protagonist, armed with the awesome authority of the Federal Government, in addition to rulemaking and umpire powers. The broad grants of power to the Attorney General to initiate and intervene in civil actions would go far toward transforming him into George Orwell's 'Big Brother' of '1984,' in the year 1964.