A Quote by Jonathan Swift

Power is no blessing in itself, except when it is used to protect the innocent.

Jonathan Swift

Quote Topics

Power Blessing Except Innocent Itself Protect Used

Quote Author

Jonathan Swift
Irish - Writer
November 30, 1667 - October 19, 1745

As in my other works of fiction: All persons living and dead are purely coincidental, and should not be construed. No names have been changed to protect the innocent. Angels protect the innocent as a matter of Heavenly routine.

Kurt Vonnegut

To make a division of power effectual, a veto in one form or another is indispensable. The right of each to judge for itself of the extent of the power allotted to its share, and to protect itself in its exercise, is what, in reality, is meant by a division of power.

John C. Calhoun

Once you've created an intelligence so smart, the real job of that intelligence is to protect itself from other intelligences becoming more intelligent than it. It's just kind of like human beings. The way you look at money or the way you look at the success of your child, you always want to make sure that as far as it gets, it can protect itself and continue forward. So I think any type of intelligence, no matter what it is, is going to have this very basic principle to protect the power that it has gained.

Zoltan Istvan

Modern authoritarianism, as it's growing inside Europe and now coming to the United States, rests much more on the use of power to protect the guilty than to persecute the innocent. And its motive is not crazy totalitarian utopianism, it's motive is repressive kleptocracy. To steal and to use the powers of the state to protect theft.

David Frum

Power tends to protect itself merely to maintain its own status and control. Principle gives up power for the sake of creating the best public policy.

Dan Webster

Israel has the power to protect itself and its citizens.

Ehud Olmert

Nothing in life possesses value except the degree of power--assuming that life itself is the will to power.

Friedrich Nietzsche

People don't seem to understand that the separation of powers is not about the power of these branches; it's there to protect individual liberty - it's there to protect us from the concentration of power.

Jonathan Turley

To be able to thank Allah for a blessing is a blessing within itself.

Al-Shafi‘i

America must be the moral leader. It is not enough to have power. Power must be used to protect freedom and give all people hope for the opportunity to see the fruit of their own labor.

Jesse Helms

The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses.

Malcolm X

Judges are the people who have to protect the rights of individuals, have to protect the rights of minorities, have to protect the rights in the Constitution, have to protect the requirement that the executive and the legislature not simply exercise raw power but adhere to standards of reasonableness and constitutionality.

Jed S. Rakoff

We are at war to liberate Iraq, to protect the people of the United States and other countries from the devastating impact of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction being used by terrorists or the Iraqi government to kill thousands of innocent civilians.

Paul Cellucci

A great nation assailed by war has not only its frontiers to protect: it must also protect its good sense. It must protect itself from the hallucinations, injustices, and follies which the plague lets loose.

Romain Rolland

God, the source of our knowledge, has been expelled from the classroom. He gives us His greatest blessing, life, and yet many would condone the taking of innocent life. We expect Him to protect us in a crisis, but turn away from Him too often in our day-to-day living. I wonder if He isn't waiting for us to wake up.