Other related topics at:
Authority/Government/State
96. Abuse of Power; Government
"I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of
Government rather than another. It is of no moment to the
happiness of an individual. Sir, the danger of the abuse of
power is nothing to a private man."
Boswell: Life
Link
121. Factions; Government
Johnson: "If Charles the Second had bent all his mind to
it, had made it his sole object, he might have been as absolute
as Louis the Fourteenth." A gentleman observed he would have
done no harm if he had. Johnson: "Why, Sir, absolute
princes seldom do any harm. But they who are governed by them
are governed by chance. There is no security for good
government." Cambridge: "There have been many sad
victims to absolute government." Johnson: "So, Sir, have
there been to popular factions."
Boswell: Life
Link
270. Government
"The more contracted that power is, the more easily it is
destroyed. A country governed by a despot is an inverted cone.
Government there cannot be so firm, as when it rests upon a broad
basis gradually contracted, as the government of Great Britain,
which is founded on the parliament, then is in the privy council,
then in the King."
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
384. Government
"Causeless discontent, and seditious violence, will grow less
frequent and less formidable, as the science of government is
better ascertained, by a diligent study of the theory of
man."
Johnson: The False Alarm
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
387. Government
"Governments formed by chance, and gradually improved by such
expedients, as the successive discovery of their defects happened
to suggest, are never to be tried by a regular theory. They are
fabricks of dissimilar materials, raised by different architects,
upon different plans. We must be content with them, as they are;
should we attempt to mend their disproportions, we might easily
demolish, and difficultly rebuild them.
"Laws are now made, and customs are established; these are our
rules, and by them we must be guided."
Johnson: The False Alarm
Link
388. Fear; Government
"But quiet and security are now at an end. Our vigilance is
quickened, and our comprehension is enlarged. We not only see
events in their causes, but before their causes; we hear the
thunder while the sky is clear, and see the mine sprung before it
is dug. Political wisdom has, by the force of English genius,
been improved, at last, not only to political intuition, but to
political prescience.
"But it cannot, I am afraid, be said, that as we are grown wise,
we are made happy. It is said of those who have the wonderful
power called second sight, that they seldom see any thing but
evil: political second sight has the same effect; we hear of
nothing but an alarming crisis, of violated rights, and expiring
liberties. The morning rises upon new wrongs, and the dreamer
passes the night in imaginary shackles."
Johnson: The False Alarm
Link
393. Government; Virtue
"Whatever profit [from colonies] is obtained must be
gained by the violence of rapine, or dexterity of fraud.
Government will not, perhaps, soon arrive at such purity and
excellence, but that some connivance, at least, will be indulged
to the triumphant robber and successful cheat. He that brings
wealth home is seldom interrogated by what means it was obtained.
This, however, is one of those modes of corruption with which
mankind ought always to struggle, and which they may, in time,
hope to overcome. There is reason to expect, that, as the world
is more enlightened, policy and morality will, at last, be
reconciled, and that nations will learn not to do what they will
not suffer."
Johnson: Thoughts on the Late
Transactions Respecting Falkland's Islands
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
481. Government; Impotence; Negligence;
Resignation
"Governors being accustomed to hear of more crimes than they can
punish, and more wrongs than they can redress, set themselves at
ease by indiscriminate negligence, and presently forget the
request when they lose sight of the petitioner."
Johnson: Rasselas [Narrator]
Note: If you haven't read it yet, please read this note of caution regarding quotes from
Rasselas.
Link
665. Government; Politics
"Forms of government are seldom the result of much deliberation;
they are framed by chance in popular assemblies, or in conquered
countries by despotick authority. Laws are often occasional,
often capricious, made always by a few, and sometimes by a single
voice. Nations have changes their characters; slavery is now no
where more patiently endured, than in countries once inhabited by
the zealots of liberty."
Johnson: Idler #11 (June 24, 1758)
Link
1,096. Government
"To prevent evil is the great end of government, the end for
which vigilance and severity are properly employed."
Johnson: Rambler #107 (March 26, 1751)
Link
1,505. Government; Power
Power is always gradually stealing away from the many to the
few, because the few are more vigilant and consistent; it still
contracts to a smaller number, till in time it centers in a
single person.
Thus all the forms of governments
instituted among mankind, perpetually tend towards monarchy; and
power, however diffused through the whole community, is by
negligence or corruption, commotion or distress, reposed at last
in the chief magistrate.
Johnson: Adventurer #45 (March 27, 1753)
Link
1,862. Government; Justice; Law
"To embarrass justice by multiplicity of laws, or to hazard it by
confidence in judges, seem to be the opposite rocks on which all
civil institutions have been wrecked, and between which
legislative wisdom has never yet found an open passage."
Johnson: The King of Prussia (1756)
Link
