Percy Bysshe Shelley Quotes

Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.

Powerlessness corrupts: absolute powerlessness corrupts absolutely

Government is a necessary evil

... the keynote of government is injustice.

Government has within it a tendency to abuse its powers.

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

Many laws as certainly make bad men, as bad men make many laws.

I believe the root of all evil is abuse of power.

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

Government is an evil; it is only the thoughtlessness and vices of men that make it a necessary evil. When all men are good and wise, government will of itself decay.

Power intoxicates men. It is never voluntarily surrendered. It must be taken from them.

When man lives under government, he is fallen, his worth is gone, and his nature tarnished.

I am more and more convinced that man is a dangerous creature, and that power whether vested in many or few is ever grasping, and like the grave, cries, 'Give, give.'

The passion and will for freedom is always contradicted by the necessity of the state.

Suspect power more than vice.

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

Every kind and degree of evil of which mankind are susceptible may be inflicted on them by their government.

Power tends to corrupt if you're there too long.

All Western governments are just thieves. Nothing but evil comes from them.

… the tools of despotism and corruption

Nature rejects the monarch, not the man; The subject, not the citizen; for kings And subjects, mutual foes, forever play A losing game into each other's hands, Whose stakes are vice and misery. The man Of virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys.

The monarchy and aristocracy have all possible motives for endeavoring to obtain unlimited power over the persons and property of the community. The consequence is inevitable: they have all possible motives for combining to obtain that power.

Those who have no sense of right, reason or religion, have a natural propensity to make use of their strength to the destruction of such as are weaker than they.

Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us.

What is new in our time is the increased power of the authorities to enforce their prejudices.