Encroachment Quotes

• Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Freedom, Independent, Men

  Olmstead v. United States (dissenting opinion) (1928)

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• I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.

  James Madison

  Freedom, Believe, Power

  Speech at Virginia Convention, 5 June 1788

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• How necessary it is at all times to watch against the attempted encroachment of power, and to prevent its running to excess.

  Thomas Paine

  Running, Power, Watches

  Thomas Paine (1791). “Rights of Man: Being an Answer to Mr. Burke's Attack on the French Revolution”, p.14

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• To write or even speak English is not a science but an art. There are no reliable words. Whoever writes English is involved in a struggle that never lets up even for a sentence. He is struggling against vagueness, against obscurity, against the lure of the decorative adjective, against the encroachment of Latin and Greek, and, above all, against the worn-out phrases and dead metaphors with which the language is cluttered up.

  George Orwell

  Art, Latin, Struggle

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• Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion and Government in the Constitution of the United States, the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history.

  James Madison

  Government, Religion, Atheism

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• The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position.

  George Washington

  Real, Heart, Government

  George Washington, Andrew Jackson (1862). “Washington's Farewell Address: The Proclamation of Jackson Against Nullification, and the Declaration of Independence”, p.8

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  But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.

  John Adams

  Government, Presidential, Forever

  John Adams (2012). “The Letters of John and Abigail Adams”, p.76, Simon and Schuster

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• Truth is sensitive and jealous of the least encroachment upon its sacredness.

  Amos Bronson Alcott

  Truth, Jealous, Sensitive

  Amos Bronson Alcott (1877). “Table-talk”

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• People are not usually deprived of their liberties all at once, but gradually, by one encroachment after another, as it is found they are disposed to bear them.

  Jonathan Mayhew

  People, Liberty, Bears

  Jonathan Mayhew (1764). “Remarks on an Anonymous Tract, Entitled An Answer to Dr. Mayhew's Observations on the Charter and Conduct of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts: Being a Second Defence of the Said Observations. By Jonathan Mayhew, D.D. Pastor of the West-Church in Boston”, p.62

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• I am a mortal enemy to arbitrary government and unlimited power.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Government, Enemy, Arbitrary

  Benjamin Franklin (2007). “The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin: 1706-1757”, p.80, Regnery Publishing

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• The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Life, Time, Godly

  Thomas Jefferson (1774). “A Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774)”, p.31, Academic Resources Corp

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• The humanities need to be defended today against the encroachments of physical science, as they once needed to be against the encroachment of theology.

  Irving Babbitt

  Humanity, Needs, Today

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• Learned Institutions ought to be favorite objects with every free people. They throw that light over the public mind which is the best security against crafty and dangerous encroachments on the public liberty.

  James Madison

  Education, Light, People

  James Madison, David B. Mattern (1997). “James Madison's "Advice to My Country"”, p.41, University of Virginia Press

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• Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.

  John Adams

  Freedom, Government, Forever

  Abigail Adams, John Adams, L. H. Butterfield, Marc Friedlaender, Mary-Jo Kline (1975). “The Book of Abigail and John: Selected Letters of the Adams Family, 1762-1784”, p.95, UPNE

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• The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Peace, Freedom, War

  Olmstead v. United States (dissenting opinion) (1928)

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• I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas.

  John Maynard Keynes

  Ideas, Interest, Exaggerated

  1936 The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money.

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• There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence: and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs, as protection against political despotism.

  John Stuart Mill

  Political, Independence, Limits

  John Stuart Mill (1864). “On Liberty”, p.14

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• Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Law Courts, Government, Libertarian Party

  Olmstead v. United States (dissenting opinion) (1928)

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• You cannot, for instance, sustainably protect the environment if the majority of the people are still in primitive agriculture leading to the encroachment of forest reserves.

  Yoweri Museveni

  Agriculture, People, Majority

  "Listen to the Young, Says Queen". news.bbc.co.uk. November 23, 2007.

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• The danger of silent accumulations & encroachments by Ecclesiastical Bodies have not sufficiently engaged attention in the U.S. [...] Besides the danger of a direct mixture of Religion & civil Government, there is an evil which ought to be guarded against in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by ecclesiastical Corporations. [...] The establishment of the chaplainship to Congs. is a palpable violation of equal rights, as well as of Constitutional principles.

  James Madison

  Rights, Government, Evil

  "Monopolies. Perpetuities. Corporations. Ecclesiastical Endowments". Essay by James Madison, founders.archives.gov. Circa January 31, 1820.

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• Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people. When the people give way, their deceivers, betrayers and destroyers press upon them so fast that there is no resisting afterwards. The nature of the encroachments is to, grow every day more encroaching; like a cancer, it eats faster and faster every hour.

  John Adams

  Cancer, People, Giving

  John Adams (1851). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.43

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• Man's chief goal in life is still to become and stay human, and defend his achievements against the encroachment of nature.

  Eric Hoffer

  Nature, Men, Goal

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• If, then, the courts of justice are to be considered as the bulwarks of a limited Constitution against legislative encroachments, this consideration will afford a strong argument for the permanent tenure of judicial offices, since nothing will contribute so much as this to that independent spirit in the judges which must be essential to the faithful performance of so arduous a duty.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Strong, Independent, Justice

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay, Henry Barton Dawson (1864). “The Fœderalist: A Collection of Essays, Written in Favor of the New Constitution, as Agreed Upon by the Fœderal Convention, September 17, 1787. Reprinted from the Original Text. With an Historical Introduction and Notes”, p.544, New York : C. Scribner ; London : Sampson Low

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• To write or even speak English is not a science but an art. There are no reliable words.... Whoever writes English is involved in a struggle that never lets up even for a sentence.

  George Orwell

  Art, Struggle, Writing

  George Orwell (1968). “The Collected Essays, Journalism, and Letters of George Orwell: As I please, 1943-1945”

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• It's death, that's what I'm suffering from. The systematic encroachment of the big D.

  John le Carre

  Death, Suffering, Systematic

  John le Carre (2002). “Smiley's People”, p.191, Simon and Schuster

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