Ron Paul Quotes

The essence of government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse

By ensuring that no one in government has too much power, the Constitution helps protect ordinary Americans every day against abuse of power by those in authority.

Government has within it a tendency to abuse its powers.

The U.K. government has a responsibility to keep secrets in some circumstances. It also has a responsibility not to abuse that power for other purposes.

Of all the powers conferred upon government, that of taxation is most liable to abuse.

I learned a couple things. The government can do to you whatever they want. They can break the laws, federal laws, as they see fit... You can't turn laws on and off as you deem fit.

The more powerful government becomes, the more abuses it commits and the more lies it must tell.

When power is for sale, then government power should be severely limited. When power is abused, then the less power the better.

How can those who are invested with the power of government be prevented from the abuse of those powers as the means of aggrandizing themselves? ... Without a strong constitution to counteract the strong tendency of government to disorder and abuse there can be little progress or improvement.

There is always some plausible reason for the latitudinarian constructions which are resorted to for the purpose of acquiring power – some evil to be avoided, or some good to be attained by pushing the powers of the government beyond their legitimate boundary. It is by yielding to such influences that constitutions are gradually undermined, and finally overthrown.

Those who seek always to limit the power of government are of good heart and conscience. Those who seek to expand the power of government are base tyrants.

Human experience long ago taught us that if we allow a man or group of men autocratic powers in government or church, that they use the powers to oppress and defraud the public..

The whole Constitution has been erected upon the assumption that the King not only is capable of doing wrong but is more likely to do wrong than other men if he is given the chance.

These are issues we've been grappling with since the Constitution was written: how you hold your government to account for its words and deeds. It's all about power and the abuse of power.

Freedom rests on a rational distrust of government; government will always use its power to benefit the incumbent administration.

No government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it.

It's important to make sure that governments have some checks on what they do, that people can oversee what's being done so the government doesn't abuse it.

Government without a constitution, is a power without a right.

We can't have a decent government unless those in power exercise self restraint.

When government gets too big, freedom is lost. Government is supposed to be the servant. But when a government can tax the people with no limit or restraint on what the government can take, then the government has become the master.

Coercion by government, the main fear of our founding fathers, is now its most common attribute.

A democratic government that respects no limits on its power is a ticking time bomb, waiting to destroy the rights it was created to protect.

Altering the Constitution has become the daily business of the Federal Government which the document is supposed to guide and limit. Both Congress and the judiciary assume, and exercise, countless powers they aren't entitled to.

And yet even among the friends of liberty, many people are deceived into believing that government can make them safe from all harm, provide fairly distributed economic security, and improve individual moral behavior. If the government is granted a monopoly on the use of force to achieve these goals, history shows that power is always abused. Every single time.

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.