Thomas Jefferson Quotes

Dependence begets subservience and venality.

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

The British minister mistakes the Irish character. Had he intended to make Ireland a slave, he should have kept her a beggar. There is no middle policy … greatly emancipate or fundamentally destroy.

Authority has always attracted the lowest elements in the human race. All through history mankind has been bullied by scum.

A slave has but one master; an ambitious man has as many masters as there are people who may be useful in bettering his position.

You can be a control freak only when you have weak people around you.

There is nothing more corrupting, nothing more destructive of the noblest and finest feelings of our nature, than the exercise of unlimited power.

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

Fear is the foundation of most governments.

The sovereign being is burdened with a servitude that crushes him, and the condition of free men is deliberate servility.

There are people in this servile world who will endure any trampling, and at the first beck rush delightedly to proffer their assistance.

Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear.

Power over others is weakness disguised as strength.

Corrupted freemen are the worst of slaves.

The bulk of mankind have indeed, in all countries in their turn, been made the prey of ambition.

Powerlessness corrupts: absolute powerlessness corrupts absolutely

It is bad to have a servant, but worse to have a master.

I always remember I'm the monkey and he's the organ-grinder.

Powerlessness also corrupts.

Watch out for the man who talks of putting things in order. Putting things in order always means getting other people under your control.

The natural course of power is to make the many slaves to the few.

I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.

Power corrupts; but absolute power is really neat.

Don’t you shit me George. You and I know who has the power in Alabama.

Power, like a desolating pestilence, Pollutes whate'er it touches