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“The first principle of a civilised state,” said Walter Lippmann, “is that power is legitimate only when it is under contract.”

— A. C. Grayling Life, Sex, and Ideas: The Good Life Without God (2002)

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Power

More quotes by A. C. Grayling

It is the technique of the baboon to try to get its way by violence.

Life, Sex, and Ideas: The Good Life Without God (2002)

Power’s tendency to corrupt is a function of the work it does in liberating man’s worse characteristics.

Life, Sex, and Ideas: The Good Life Without God (2002)

There is no greater social evil than religion. It is the cancer in the body of humanity.

Life, Sex, and Ideas: The Good Life Without God (2002)

“Evil” is first and foremost a religious notion. It means whatever a religion dislikes.

Life, Sex, and Ideas: The Good Life Without God (2002)

People not only live by symbols, but die by them, as wars of religion and nationalism attest.

Life, Sex, and Ideas: The Good Life Without God (2002)

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The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.

John Adams A Defence of the Constitutions of Government (1787)

There is no governor anywhere; you are all absolutely free. There is no restraint that cannot be escaped.

Robert Anton Wilson

When we see a great man desiring power instead of his real goal we soon recognize that he is sick, or more precisely that his attitude to his work is sick.

Martin Buber What is Man? (1938)

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

C. S. Lewis God in the Dock (1970)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: A. C. Grayling (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.