Other related topics at:
Authority/Government/State
27. Authority
"Sir, I am a friend to subordination, as most conducive to the
happiness of society. There is a reciprocal pleasure in
governing and being governed."
Link
Boswell: Life
31. Authority; Corruption;
Monarchy
"Sir, you are to consider, that in our constitution, according to
its true principles, the King is the head, he is supreme: he is
above everything, and there is no power by which he can be
tried.
Therefore, it is, Sir, that we hold
the King can do no
wrong; that whatever may happen to be wrong in government may
not be above our reach, by being ascribed to Majesty. Redress is
always to be had against oppression, by punishing the immediate
agents. The King, though he should command, cannot force a Judge
to condemn a man unjustly; therefore it is the Judge whom we
prosecute and punish. Political institutions are formed upon the
consideration of what will frequently tend to the good of the
whole, although now and then exceptions may occur. Thus it is
better in general that a nation should have a supreme legislative
power, although it may at times be abused. And then, Sir, there
is this consideration, that if the abuse be numerous, Nature
will rise up, and claiming her original rights, overturn a
corrupt political system."
Boswell: Life
Link
42. Authority; Class
"Were all distinctions abolished, the strongest would not long
acquiesce, but would endeavour to obtain a superiority by their
bodily strength. But, Sir, as subordination is very necessary
for society, and contentions for superiority very dangerous,
mankind, that is to say, all civilized nations, have settled it
upon a plan invariable in principle. A man is born to hereditary
rank; or his being appointed to certain offices, gives him a
certain rank. Subordination tends greatly to human happiness.
Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment
than mere animal pleasure."
Boswell: Life
Link
85. Authority; Factions
"Providence has wisely ordered that the more numerous men are,
the more difficult it is for them to agree in any thing, and so
they are governed. There is no doubt, that if the poor should
reason, 'We'll be poor no longer, we'll make the rich take their
turn,' they could easily do it, were it not that they can't
agree. So the common soldiers, though so much more numerous than
their officers, are governed by them for the same reason."
Boswell: Life
Link
345. Authority; Government
"A country is in a bad state, which is governed only by laws;
because a thousand things occur for which laws cannot provide,
and where authority ought to interpose."
Boswell: Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
Link
375. Authority; Power; Wealth
"When the power of birth and station ceases, no hope remains but
from the relevence of money. Power and wealth supply the place
of each other. Power confers the ability of gratifying our
desire without the consent of others. Wealth enables us to
obtain the consent of others to our gratification. Power, simply
considered, whatever it confers on one, must take from another.
Wealth enables its owner to give to others, by taking only from
himself. Power pleases the violent and proud: wealth delights
the placid and the timorous. Youth therefore flies at power, and
age grovels after riches."
Johnson: Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland
Link
377. Authority; Wealth
"Money confounds subordination, by overpowering the distinctions
of rank and birth, and weakens authority by supplying power of
resistance, or expedients for escape. The feudal system is
formed for a nation employed in agriculture, and has never long
kept its hold where gold and silver have become common."
Johnson: Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland
Link
386. Authority; Government
"All government supposes subjects; all authority implies
obedience: to suppose in one the right to command what another
has the right to refuse, is absurd and contradictory; a state,
so constituted, must rest for ever in motionless equipoise, with
equal attractions of contrary tendency, with equal weights of
power balancing each other."
Johnson: The False Alarm
Link
396. America/Americans; Authority;
Government
"We have now, for more than two centuries, ruled large tracts of
the American continent, by a claim which, perhaps, is valid only
upon this consideration, that no power can produce a better; by
the right of discovery, and prior settlement. And by such titles
almost all the dominions of the earth are holden, except that
their original is beyond memory, and greater obscurity gives them
greater veneration."
Johnson: Thoughts on the Late
Transactions Respecting Falkland's Islands
Link
414. Authority; Government; Justice;
Rebellion
"But there are some who lament the state of the poor Bostonians,
because they cannot all be supposed to have committed acts of
rebellion, yet all are involved in the penalty imposed. [...]
That the innocent should be confounded with the guilty, is,
undoubtedly, an evil; but it is an evil which no care or caution
can prevent. National crimes require national punishments, of
which many must necessarily have their part, who have not
incurred them by personal guilt. If rebels should fortify a
town, the cannon of lawful authority will endanger, equally, the
harmless burghers and the criminal garrison. [...] This
infliction of promiscuous evil may, therefore, be lamented, but
cannot be blamed. The power of lawful government must be
maintained; and the miseries which rebellion produces, can be
charged only on the rebels."
Johnson: The Patriot
Link
420. Authority; Government
"In sovereignty there are no gradations. There may be limited royalty, there may be limited consulship; but there can be no limited government. There must, in every society, be some power or other, from which there is no appeal, which admits no restrictions, which pervades the whole mass of the community, regulates and adjusts all subordination, enacts laws or repeals them, erects or annuls judicatures, extends or contracts privileges, exempt itself from question or control, and bounded only by physical necessity.
By this power, wherever it subsists, all legislation and jurisdiction is animated and maintained. From this all legal rights are emanations, which, whether equitably or not, may be legally recalled. It is not infallible, for it may do wrong; but it is irresistible, for it can be resisted only by rebellion, by an act which makes it questionable, what shall be thenceforward the supreme power."
Johnson: Taxation No Tyranny
Link
422. Authority; Government
"How any man can have consented to institutions established in
distant ages, it will be difficult to explain. In the most
favourite residence of liberty, the consent of individuals is
merely passive; a tacit admission, in every community, of the
terms which that community grants and requires. As all are born
the subjects of some state or other, we may be said to have been
all born consenting to some system of government. Other consent
than this the condition of civil life does not allow. It is the
unmeaning clamour of the pedants of policy, the delirious dream
of republican fanaticism."
Johnson: Taxation No Tyranny
Link
426. Authority; Government
"Government is necessary to man, and where obedience is not
compelled, there is no government. If the subject refuses to
obey, it is the duty of authority to use compulsion. Society
cannot subsist but by the power, first of making laws, and then
of enforcing them."
Johnson: Taxation No Tyranny
Link
435. Abuse of Power; Authority;
Government
"...No form of government has yet been discovered by which
cruelty can be wholly prevented. Subordination supposes power on
the one part, and subjection on the other, and if power be in the
hands of men, it will sometimes be abused. The vigilance of the
supreme magistrate may do much, but much will still remain
undone. He can never know all the crimes that are committed, and
can seldom punish all that he knows."
Johnson: Rasselas [Imlac]
Note: If you haven't read it yet, please read this note of caution regarding quotes from
Rasselas.
Link
463. Authority; Government;
Politics
"It is evident, that as any man acts in a wider compass, he must
be more exposed to opposition from enmity, or miscarriage from
chance; whoever has many to please or to govern must use the
ministry of many agents, some of whom will be wicked, and some
ignorant; by some he will be misled, and by others betrayed. If
he gratifies one, he will offend another: those that are not
favored will think themselves injured: and, since favors can be
conferred but upon few, the greater number will always be
discontented."
Johnson: Rasselas [Rasselas]
Note: If you haven't read it yet, please read this note of caution regarding quotes from
Rasselas.
Link
1,026. Authority; Censorship;
Freedom
Regarding Arepagitica, a Speech of Mr. John Milton for the
Liberty of unlicensed Printing: "The danger of such
unbounded liberty and the danger of bounding it have produced a
problem in the science of Government, which human understanding
seems hitherto unable to solve. If nothing may be published but
what civil authority shall have previously approved, power must
always be the standard of truth; if every dreamer of innovations
may propagate his projects, there can be no settlement; if every
murmurer at government may diffuse discontent, there can be no
peace; and if every skeptick in theology may teach his follies,
there can be no religion. The remedy against these evils is to
punish the authours; for it is yet allowed that every society
may punish, though not prevent, the publication of opinions,
which that society shall think pernicious: but this punishment,
though it may crush the authour, promotes the book; and it seems
not more reasonable to leave the right of printing unrestrained,
because writers may be afterwards censured, than it would be to
sleep with doors unbolted, because by our laws we can hang a
thief."
Johnson: Milton (Lives of the Poets)
Link
1,719. Leisure; Subordination
"Why, Sir, I reconcile my principles very well, because mankind
are happier in a state of inequality and subordination. Were they
to be in this pretty state of equality, they would soon
degenerate into brutes;--they would become Monboddo's
nation;—their tails would grow. Sir, all would be losers,
were all to work for all:—they would have no intellectual
improvement; All intellectual improvement arises from leisure:
all leisure arises from one working for another."
Johnson (Boswell: Life of Johnson)
Link
