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Rulers Quotes

Browse 711 quotes about Rulers.

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Rulers Quotes

“Because the results are expressed in numbers, it is easy to make the mistake of thinking that the intelligence test is a measure like a foot ruler or a pair of scales. It is, of course, a quite different sort of measure. Intelligence is not an abstraction like length and weight; it is an exceedingly complicated notion - which nobody has yet succeeded in defining.”

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Author:Walter Lippmann
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“Under theocracies and other authoritarian regimes, the rulers are the moral authorities. Under genuine democracy some basic values are entrenched in the legal system, which is expected to be under democratic vigilance, and others are left to the person or the group, which ideally debate moral problems in a rational, free and cooperative manner.”

PersonsProblemValuesLeftMoralDemocracyGroupsAuthorityDemocraticExpectedDebateGenuineRationalRegimesRulersVigilanceCooperativesLegal SystemTheocracyMoral Authority
Author:Mario Bunge
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“An annual or frequent choice of Magistrates, who in a year, or in a few years, are again left upon a level with their neighbors, is most likely to prevent usurpation and tyranny ... If rulers know that they shall in short period of time, be again out of power, and ... may be liable to be called to account for misconduct, it will guard them against maladministration.”

IfsKnowsYearsMayPoliticalChoicesPoliticsLeftLevelsPeriodsAccountsNeighborTyrannyRulersLiableAnnualsMagistratesUsurpationMisconduct
Author:Clinton Rossiter
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“The house of representatives ... can make no law, which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as the great mass of society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communion of interest, and sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny.”

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Author:James Madison
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“After many unhappy experiments in the direction of an ideal Republic, it was found that what may be described as a Despotism tempered by Dynamite provides, on the whole, the most satisfactory description of ruler - an autocrat who dares not abuse his autocratic power.”

MayWholeFoundDemocracyIdealsAbuseDareExperimentsUnhappyDescriptionRepublicRulersDespotismDynamite
Book:The Complete Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan
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“The only foundation of a free Constitution, is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People, in a great Measure, than they have it now. They may change their Rulers, and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty.”

PeopleIfsMayGovernmentFormLibertyVirtuePureConstitutionFoundationInspiredLastingRulersFoundingForms Of GovernmentOur Founding FathersAmerican RevolutionUs Founding FathersBe InspiredAmerican GovernmentFree GovernmentFounding AmericaAmerican Founding FathersMorality And ReligionMoral Virtues
Author:John Adams
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“Any single man must judge for himself whether circumstances warrant obedience or resistance to the commands of the civil magistrate; we are all qualified, entitled, and morally obliged to evaluate the conduct of our rulers. This political judgment, moreover, is not simply or primarily a right, but like self-preservation, a duty to God. As such it is a judgment that men cannot part with according to the God of Nature. It is the first and foremost of our inalienable rights without which we can preserve no other.”

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Author:John Locke
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“The most sensible and jealous people are so little attentive to government that there are no instances of resistance until repeated, multiplied oppressions have placed it beyond a doubt that their rulers had formed settled plans to deprive them of their liberties; not to oppress an individual or a few, but to break down the fences of a free constitution, and deprive the people at large of all share in the government, and all the checks by which it is limited.”

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Author:John Adams
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“Rulers are no more than attorneys, agents, and trustees, for the people; and if the cause, the interest and trust, is insidiously betrayed, or wantonly trifled away, the people have a right to revoke the authority that they themselves have deputed, and to constitute abler and better agents, attorneys, and trustees.”

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Book:The Political Writings of John Adams: Representative Selections
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“The cry has been that when war is declared, all opposition should therefore be hushed. A sentiment more unworthy of a free country could hardly be propagated. If the doctrine be admitted, rulers have only to declare war and they are screened at once from scrutiny. . . . In war, then, as in peace, assert the freedom of speech and of the press. Cling to this as the bulwark of all our rights and privileges.”

IfsShouldHas BeensWarCountryPeaceRightsCrySpeechPressesPrivilegeLibertarianDoctrineOppositionSentimentsRulersFreedom Of SpeechUnworthyScrutinyFree CountryRights And Privileges
Author:William Ellery Channing
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“Whatever its future success as a historical movement, anarchism will remain a fundamental part of human experience, for the drive for freedom is one of our deepest needs and the vision of a free society is one of our oldest dreams. Neither can ever be fully repressed; both will outlive all rulers and their States.”

NeedsHumansStatesDreamVisionMovementFundamentalsHistoricalAnarchyRulersHuman ExperienceAnarchismFree SocietyRepressedFuture Success
Book:Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism
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“Depression isn't the almighty ruler of your destiny. Even its familiar traits - grief, anger, despair - you find that you can use in other ways. I can create with them in my writing and my life, mix them up with excitement and pleasure. I can name that terrible, numbing paralysis and know it will pass.”

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Author:Margo Jefferson
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“The very idea of freedom presupposes some objective moral law which overarches rulers and ruled alike. Subjectivism about moral values is eternally incompatible with democracy. We and our rulers are of one kind only so long as we are subject to one law. But if there is no Law of Nature, the ethos of any society is the creation of its rulers, educators and conditioners; and every creator stands above and outside his own creation.”

IfsKindLongIdeasLawValuesMoralDemocracySubjectsCreationCreatorObjectivesRulersLaws Of NatureEducatorEthosMoral ValuesMoral LawSubjectivism
Book:Christian Reflections
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“They [rulers] must act like a good physician who, when gangrene has set in proceeds without mercy to cut, saw, and burn flesh, veins, bone, and marrow. Such a procedure must also be followed in this instance. Burn down their synagogues, forbid all that I enumerated earlier, force them to work, and deal harshly with them, as Moses did... If this does not help we must drive them out like mad dogs.”

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Author:Martin Luther
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“The modern State exists not to protect our rights but to do us good or make us good - anyway, to do something to us or to make us something. Hence the new name 'leaders' for those who were once 'rulers'. We are less their subjects than their wards, pupils, or domestic animals. There is nothing left of which we can say to them, 'Mind your own business.' Our whole lives are their business.”

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Author:C. S. Lewis
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“All is made clear,regarding Abraham and Sarah's traversal into Egypt, when we realize what biblicists meant by the term "Egypt." As Ralph Ellis so brilliantly points out, the name Egypt was employed by the composers of the Old Testament to denote Thebes in Lower Egypt. This was the city and region controlled by the adversaries of the Hyksos. It was considered a separate region, with different rulers, gods, customs, and politics. So, it was not the country of Egypt that Abraham visited, but Thebes within Egypt.”

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Author:Michael Tsarion
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“The experience of past ages may inform us, that when the circumstances of a people render them distressed, their rulers generally recur to severe, cruel, and oppressive measures. Instead of endeavoring to establish their authority in the affection of their subjects, they think they have no security but in their fear.”

PeopleThinkingMayAgePastSubjectsSecurityCircumstancesAuthorityAffectionRulersSevere
Book:The Works of Alexander Hamilton: Miscellanies, 1774-1789: A full vindication; The farmer refuted; Quebec bill; Resolutions in Congress; Letters from Phocion; New-York Legislature, etc
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“Human memory awakens and extinguishes at will. It dulls and sharpens actions, enlarges and shrinks those who perform them. It humbles and exalts as it desires. When summoned, it slips away, and when it returns, it will do so at the time and place that suits it. It recognizes no chief, no overseer, no classifier, no ruler. Stories mix and mingle, facts sprout new shoots. The situations and words and scents-oh, the scents!-encrusted there are stored in the most disorganized and wonderful manner, not chronologically, not according to size or importance or even the alphabet.”

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Book:My Russian Grandmother and Her American Vacuum Cleaner: A Family Memoir
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“I think you have to repudiate torture and I think you have to end what's going on at Guantanamo and you have to live up to American values. Basically you restore - what the American dream brought to the world stage was respect for the individual and the idea that people aren't pawns that rulers can push around but they have rights.”

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Author:Wesley Clark
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“The administration of government lies in getting proper men. Such men are to be got by means of the ruler's own character. That character is to be cultivated by his treading in the ways of duty. And the treading those ways of duty is to be cultivated by the cherishing of benevolence.”

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Book:Confucian Analects, The Great Learning & The Doctrine of the Mean
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“The origin of all civil government, justly established, must be a voluntary compact, between the rulers and the ruled; and must be liable to such limitations, as are necessary for the security of the absolute rights of the latter; for what original title can any man or set of men have, to govern others, except their own consent?”

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Book:The Works of Alexander Hamilton: Miscellanies, 1774-1789: A full vindication; The farmer refuted; Quebec bill; Resolutions in Congress; Letters from Phocion; New-York Legislature, etc
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“Dictatorship nations are outlaws. Any free nation had the right to invade Nazi Germany and, today, has the right to invade Soviet Russia, Cuba, or any other slave pen. Whether a free nation chooses to do so or not is a matter of its own self-interest, not of respect for the nonexistent 'rights' of gang rulers. It is not a free nation's duty to liberate other nations at the price of self-sacrifice, but a free nation has the right to do it, when and if it so chooses.”

IfsSelfMatterTodayNationsInterestRightsSacrificeDutySlaveRussiaGermanyPensSovietRulersDictatorshipNaziGangSelf InterestCubaSelf SacrificeOutlawNazi GermanySoviet Russia
Author:Ayn Rand
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