Tim Berners-Lee Quotes

Sovereignty means that you’ve been given sovereignty

Freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority.

I own 100% of everything because I like to control what I do.

We don't really like rules. We think, in some way, they are an infringement of liberty.

You have to protect it too, you can't let just any stupid person take it and do something demoralizing with it. At the same time, I don't believe in being so rigid about controlling what happens either.

I have no power, no independence.

Now the power is in your hands!

The word to regulate implies in its nature full power over the thing to be regulated, it excludes, necessarily, the action of all others that would perform the same operation on the same thing.

There is a distinction between total control and enjoying total freedom.

Thus, dear friends, I have said it clearly enough, and I believe you ought to understand it and not make liberty a law.

What is politics, after all, but the compulsion to preside over property and make others people's decisions for them? Liberty, the very opposite of ownership and control, cannot, then, result from political action, either at the polls or at the barricades, but rather evolves out of attitude. If it results from anything, it must be levity.

I have very little experience of self-government. In fact, I am one of the most governed people in the world.

There is no more independence in politics than there is in jail.

Professional sports are something they can't control.

It ain't nothin' till I call it.

You can't always let people do their own thing.

I can't imagine people telling me what to do - I just can't imagine it.

And I would argue the second greatest force in the universe is ownership.

You know, how much order is good? And when does order become too restrictive? Is a little bit of chaos okay, or is chaos always an evil force? I mean, these are questions that any kid who's ever been in a school cafeteria can relate to.

The first is the law, the last prerogative.

We use the same possessive pronouns for everything, but do we own our lives or sisters or husbands in the same way we own our shoes? Do we own any of them at all?

I like control.

I can never consent to being dictated to.

Empire and liberty.

Every law is an infraction of liberty.