Free institutions are not the property of any majority. They do not confer upon majorities unlimited powers. The rights of the majority are limited rights. They are limited not only by the constitutional guarantees but by the moral principle implied in those guarantees. That principle is that men may not use the facilities of liberty to impair them. No man may invoke a right in order to destroy it.

Source: Walter Lippmann

Topics: Rights

Wherever the real power in a government lies, there is the danger of oppression. In our Government the real power lies in the majority of the community...

Source: James Madison

Topics: Government, Oppression

Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).

Source: Ayn Rand

Topics: Rights

Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors.

Source: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Topics: Democracy

It is the invariable habit of bureaucracies, at all times and everywhere, to assume...that every citizen is a criminal. Their one apparent purpose, pursued with a relentless and furious diligence, is to convert the assumption into a fact. They hunt endlessly for proofs, and, when proofs are lacking, for mere suspicions. The moment they become aware of a definite citizen, John Doe, seeking what is his right under the law, they begin searching feverishly for an excuse for withholding it from him.

Source: H. L. Mencken

Topics: Government, Loss of Freedom; Government, Power; Government, Tyranny

Fifty-one percent of a nation can establish a totalitarian regime, suppress minorities and still remain democratic.

Source: Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

Topics: Democracy

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.

Source: Thomas Jefferson

Topics: Government, Loss of Freedom; Government, Power; Government, Tyranny

Whether we recognize it or not, it is beliefs—the beliefs that get themselves accepted—that rule the world. Those beliefs may exalt a nation or drag it down to degeneracy and degradation depending upon their inherent quality. Ships and tanks and airplanes and guns, while necessary implements for waging physical warfare, are not the real source of a nation’s strength. Its strength lies in the basic integrity of its people and that depends upon the beliefs they cherish which fashion their lives.

Source: Albert E. Bowen
General Conference, October 1945

Topics: Morality

I reaffirm before you here today of my faith that the Lord God continues to govern the affairs of his children. His law must be the foundation on which all law is based. We must be willing to support, defend, and live in harmony with his divine law.

Source: L. Tom Perry
General Conference, October 1975

Topics: Heavenly Interest in Human Events

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