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The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything which would be unlawful for them to do themselves.

— John Locke Misattributed

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Source, in full

This might be a paraphrase of some of Locke's expressions or ideas, but the earliest publication of the statement in this form seems to be one made in Oversight Hearing on the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Act (1997).

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Government

More quotes by John Locke

There cannot any one moral Rule be propos'd, whereof a Man may not justly demand a Reason.

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689)

New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689)

Freedom of Nature is, to be under no other restraint but the Law of Nature.

Two Treatises of Government (1689)

To love truth for truth's sake is the principal part of human perfection in this world, and the seed-plot of all other virtues.

It is one thing to show a man that he is in error, and another to put him in possession of the truth.

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689)

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The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.

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Bureaucracy and social harmony are inversely proportional to each other.

Leon Trotsky The Revolution Betrayed (1936)

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

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Attribution

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