Official Power Quotes

In a country where offices are created solely for the benefit of the people no one man has any more intrinsic right to official station than another.

A bureaucracy is sure to think that its duty is to augment official power, official business, or official members, rather than to leave free the energies of mankind; it overdoes the quantity of government, as well as impairs its quality. The truth is, that a skilled bureaucracy is, though it boasts of an appearance of science, quite inconsistent with the true principles of the art of business.

People always say it is carefree leaving officialdom, but actually they do want to keep the position.

It is one of the misfortunes of life that a public figure can forever be associated with one inaccurate remark, taken out of context, and never intended to carry an immortal interpretation. For half a century Douglas Jay suffered as the originator of the sinister aphorism “the man in Whitehall knows best” ... “the Gentleman in Whitehall is usually right”.

A bureaucrat is an official who is clothed with power and whom it doesn't fit.

If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion.

I have several times suggested that what I call the “Establishment” in this country is today more powerful than ever before. By “Establishment” I do not mean only the centers of official power – though they are certainly part of it – but rather the whole matrix of official and social relations within which power is exercised ... the “Establishment” can be seen at work in the activities of, not only the Prime Minister, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Earl Marshal, but of such lesser mortals as the Chairman of the Arts Council, the Director-General of the BBC, and even the editor of the Times Literary Supplement, not to mention dignitaries like Lady Violet Bonham Carter.

Law is any application for the official use of coercion that succeeds.

The Official Secrets Act is not to protect secrets. It’s to protected officials.

Colin Powell speaks regularly to high-ranking U.S. officials, he knows a lot about what's going on in the government. And so he's a powerful person who merits transparency, just like any other powerful people do.

It is not to be expected of men who live for the sole purpose of enjoying official station, that they shall ever be manly, noble or independent. They slavishly cower before every storm that threatens their opinions with popular condemnation, and make haste to trim their sails to catch the passing breeze of public favor.

The . . . increase in the power of officials is a constant source of irritation to everybody else.

In the due exercise of your official power, in strictest accordance with law and the Constitution, you can deprive the enemy of that which, above all else, has given, and still gives him, aid and comfort.

Every Government official dreams of going directly to the people with arguments framed by that official.

I’m an elected official so I can talk at any time or any place, light or dark.

I don't think we can let such an outlandish result stand. I think to do so is to leave every civil official in the land open for somebody to say, "Well I don't like him.