"It is the old practice of despots..." - Quote by Thomas Jefferson

“How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened.”

“The chief purpose of government is to protect life. Abandon that and you have abandoned all.”

“Knowing that religion does not furnish grosser bigots than law, I expect little from old judges.”

“Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.”

“Democracy is necessarily despotism, as it establishes an executive power contrary to the general will; all being able to decide against one whose opinion may differ, the will of all is therefore not that of all: which is contradictory and opposite to liberty.”

“The concentrating of powers in the same hands is precisely the definition of despotic government. It will be no alleviation that these powers will be exercised by a plurality of hands, and not by a single one.”

“Most of the great results of history are brought about by discreditable means.”

“What I find powerful is a person with the confidence to be her own self.”

“The enjoyment of power inevitably corrupts the judgment of reason, and perverts its liberty.”