Harlan F. Stone Quotes
The only check upon our own exercise of power is our own sense of self-restraint.
Harlan Fiske Stone, 1872-1946, Chief Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court, U. S. Attorney General, Dissent, United States v. Butler, 1936
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By not always using its size and power in all international issues, the United States retains much admiration of people in other nations as often operating by humanistic and democratic principles, we also retain enough influence that we can influence many events and issues where very often, in a unipolar world, other countries would tend to stick together to thwart the one superpower and the US would have to use force more and more to get cooperation and often not be able to. However, although the US certainly acts in its vested interests, it restrains itself sufficiently to also be able to exercise soft power.
1st Baron Clive. Clive went to India as a military accountant and clerk of the British East India Company which had its own Army intended for protection of Company staff and property. Clive worked his way up the military and company ladder and then commanded all the British (company) troops. Under his command the Company, in the name of the British Government actually began to rule territory at first buying that right from the Indian ruler for English pounds of silver. Then Clive used the Army to deal with disorder and banditry and took over new territory where local leaders had aided those who were harassing the British. Soon, he had control of more land than the rest of Britain together with many more people. In the process, his accounting skills served him well and the British East India Company had made a fortune larger than anything in British history and Clive himself became the richest man in England. There was a famine in India and Clive and the Company did little to alleviate the suffering. They continued to make huge profits while many of the people were dying, hence the nickname. The inquiry was called to see of Clive and the Company had been escessive in their rule and had taken too much profit.
Harlan Fiske Stone was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1925 to 1941 and then as the Chief Justice of the United States from 1941 until his death in 1946. He also served as the U.S. Attorney General from 1924 to 1925 under President Calvin Coolidge, with whom he had attended Amherst College as a young man. His most famous dictum was: "Courts are not the only agency of government that must be assumed to have capacity to govern."
