Adin Ballou Quotes

The most arbitrary powers in history always hid under the claim of some impersonal logic—God, the laws of nature, the laws of the market—and they always overlooked the backlash when morally intolerable discrepancies became glaringly visible.

As men could not make might obey right, they have made right obey might.

It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.

Force always attracts men of low morality ... tyrants of genius are succeeded by scoundrels.

Popery and Slavery, like two sisters, go hand in hand, sometimes one goes first. Sometimes the other, in a door, but the other is always following close at hand.

Those who have by an unrighteous power made merchandise of the earth, giving all to some, & none to others, declare themselves tyranicall & usurping.

Those who exercise power always arrange matters so as to give their tyranny the appearance of justice.

Voting is merely a labor-saving device for ascertaining on which side force lies and bowing to the inevitable... It is neither more nor less than a paper representative of the bayonet, the bully, and the bullet.

Military dictatorship is born from the power of the gun, and so it undermines the concept of the rule of law and gives birth to a culture of might, a culture of weapons, violence and intolerance.

Politicians as a class are dangerous, that people who are seeking power over us are not, by definition, our friends.

One hopes that they'll never be able to use mind control weapons, because we're all done for if that happens. I don't want military people, or political people, to have that type of power over those of us who just get by from day to day.

Every man is dishonest who lives upon the labor of others, no matter if he occupies a throne.

I think that children are acutely sensitive to injustice because they live in a world that is absolutely filled with injustice. They have very, very little power, and they are extremely aware of power relations.

Whoever is new to power is always harsh.

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

All oppression creates a state of war.

Might was the measure of right.

This nuclear option is ultimately an example of the arrogance 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.

Deny human rights, and however little you may wish to do so, you will find yourself abjectly kneeling at the feet of that old-world god, Force.

Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.

People crushed by laws, have no hope but to evade power. If the laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to the law; and those who have most to hope and nothing to lose will always be dangerous.

But love, like the sun that it is, sets afire and melts everything. what greed and privilege to build up over whole centuries the indignation of a pious spirit, with its natural following of oppressed souls, will cast down with a single shove.

But as well may you, when urging a man up-hill with a heavy load upon his back, and with your lash also upon his back, tell him, that be has nothing to do either with the load or the lash.

The possession of arbitrary power has always, the world over, tended irresistibly to destroy humane sensibility, magnanimity, and truth.