Greene Bronson Quotes

The American people want a large government that can do all kinds of things ... that are not within the enumerated powers [of the Constitution.]

It must never be forgotten ... that the liberties of the people are not so safe under the gracious manner of government as by the limitation of power.

We can’t trust government to limit its powers to the Constitution.

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.

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.

The Framers (of the Constitution) were not concerned primarily with favoring one type of government over another, but with limiting the power of government, regardless of its source.

The greatest threat to our freedom is an all powerful federal government.

Every amendment which I am convinced will have the tendency to lesson the danger of civil liberty by the central government will receive my sincere approbation.

The great danger to our institutions does not appear to me to be in a usurpation by the Government of power not granted by the people, but by the accumulation in one of the departments of that which was assigned to others. Limited as are the powers which have been granted, still enough have been granted to constitute a despotism if concentrated in one of the departments.

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

Government has within it a tendency to abuse its powers.

The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people.

The most cogent reason for restricting the interference of government is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its power.

You can't give the government the power to do good without also giving it the power to do bad - in fact, to do anything it wants.

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.

Because government has tremendous power, it attracts people who are eager to game the system, obtaining by force of law what they could never achieve through consensus.

If they are really persuaded that the army is annually established by me, that I have the sole disposal of posts and honours, that I employ this power in the destruction of liberty and the diminution of commerce, let me awaken them from their delusion.

The tenth amendment said the federal government is supposed to only have powers that were explicitly given in the Constitution. I think the federal government's gone way beyond that. The Constitution never said that you could have a Federal Reserve that would have $2.8 trillion in assets. We've gotten out of control.

We want our government to protect us, to make sure something like 9/11 never happens again. We quickly moved to give law enforcement more power to do this. But that now begs the question, did we move to fast? Did we give too much power away? I don't have the answer.

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

I don't want to hear again from the attorney general or anyone on this floor that this government has shown it can be trusted to use the power we give it with restraint and care.

Nothing for the Left, nothing the government does is ever about its superficial reason; it's only and always about expanding government power and control over you.

The English king's power was curbed by Parliament, though that wasn't always a good thing, as politicians often behave no better than monarchs - there are just more of them.

The Democrats have come right out and said it: the power of the central government shall have no limits at all.

All, or nearly all, the advantage there is in fixing any constitutional limits to the power of a government, is simply to give notice to the government of the point at which it will meet with resistance.