One cannot hold power and not use it.
Just as an athlete must exercise his body to be a winner, a leader must exercise his position of authority. If he doesn't, he loses that authority.
In their nomination to office they will not appoint to the exercise of authority as to a pitiful job, but as to a holy function.
Offices are not powerful because they exist; men make them so. Rights are not honored because they exist; men compel their recognition.
The single definition of government I've ever seen that makes sense is that it's the organization which claims the right to kill people who won't do what it wants.
Nothing discloses real character like the use of power.
Power ... is not an end in itself, but is an instrument that must be used toward an end.
The space you occupy and the authority you exercise may be measured with mathematical exactness by the service you render.
To take a single step beyond the boundaries specially drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible to definition.
Every power vested in a government is in its nature sovereign, and includes by force of the term a right to employ all the means requisite . . . to the attainment of the ends of such power.
The exercise of power in this century has meant for all of us in the United States not arrogance, but agony.
