Henry James Sumner Maine Quotes

If monarchy is corrupting - and it is - wait till you see what overt empire does to us.

Unlimited power corrupts the possessor.

Power is always a corrupting influence.

That king who through folly rashly oppresses his kingdom, (will), together with his relatives, ere long be deprived of his life and of his kingdom. As the lives of living creatures are destroyed by tormenting their bodies, even so the lives of kings are destroyed by their oppressing their kingdoms

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

The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty.

Power is always dangerous. It attracts the worst and corrupts the best..

As usurpation is the exercise of power which another has a right to, so tyranny is the exercise of power beyond right, which nobody can have a right to.

If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual.

Any excuse will serve a tyrant.

An oppressive government is more to be feared than a tiger.

A strength to harm is perilous in the hand of an ambitious head.

It is not good to have a rule of many.

Whoever is new to power is always harsh.

The great men of power who seek to change the nations they belong to usually are pretty terrible people.

All men would be tyrants if they could.

Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who posses it; and this I know, my lords: that where law ends, tyranny begins.

Your empire is now like a tyranny: it may have been wrong to take it; it is certainly dangerous to let it go.

This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.

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

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

Any number of scoundrels, having money enough to start with, can establish themselves as a 'government'; because, with money, they can hire soldiers, and with soldiers extort more money; and also compel general obedience to their will.

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

A general presumption that Icings will govern well, is not a sufficient security to the People... those who subjected themselves to the will of a man were governed by a beast.

A slave government is an oligarchy; and one, too, of the most arbitrary and criminal character.