Rebecca MacKinnon Quotes

In no form of government is there an absolute identity of interest between the people and their rulers

All dictators, the rich and famous, to the lowest security guard who holds a gun, easily forget that power is transitory.

The scum of the People are most Tyrannical when they get the Power, and treat their Betters with the greatest Insolence.

It is weakness rather than wickedness which renders men unfit to be trusted with unlimited power.

You are afraid of the one, I, of the few.... You are apprehensive of monarchy, I, of aristocracy.

There is no more contemptible poison than power over one's fellow men.

Power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will be ever liable to abuse.

The good government of one man is the bad government of another

You can't trust anybody with power.

If absolute power corrupts absolutely, does absolute powerlessness make you pure?

Authority poisons everybody who takes authority on himself.

Whoever is new to power is always harsh.

All men would be tyrants if they could.

To assume all the powers is not good for anybody. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. All those experiments have a bad ending.

I think that many people in history who had power were bumped off because they had power.

It is a clear truth that those who every day barter away other men's liberty will soon care little for their own.

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

Democracy don't rule the world, You'd better get that in your head; This world is ruled by violence, But I guess that's better left unsaid.

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

Tyrants have always some slight shade of virtue; they support the laws before destroying them.

Power has long been regarded as morally corrosive, and we often suspect the intentions of those who seek it.

Shakespeare reveals human nature brilliantly: he shines a light on our instinctive desire to dominate each other.

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.

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

What I fear most is power with impunity. I fear abuse of power, and the power to abuse.