Usurpers Quotes

• What is to be the consequence, in case the Congress shall misconstrue this part [the necessary and proper clause] of the Constitution and exercise powers not warranted by its true meaning, I answer the same as if they should misconstrue or enlarge any other power vested in them . . . the success of the usurpation will depend on the executive and judiciary departments, which are to expound and give effect to the legislative acts; and in a last resort a remedy must be obtained from the people, who can by the elections of more faithful representatives, annul the acts of the usurpers.

  James Madison

  Exercise, People, Giving

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• Traitors who prevail are patriots; usurpers who succeed are divine emperors.

  Gore Vidal

  Succeed, Patriot, Divine

  FaceBook post by Gore Vidal from Jul 21, 2016

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• Whoever lays his hand on me to govern me is a usurper and tyrant, and I declare him my enemy.

  Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

  Hands, Tyrants, Enemy

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• Lost rights are never regained by appeals to the conscience of the usurpers, but by relentless struggle....goa ts are used for sacrificial offerings and not lions.

  B. R. Ambedkar

  Struggle, Rights, Offering

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• One cannot reign innocently: the insanity of doing so is evident. Every king is a rebel and a usurper.

  Louis Antoine de Saint-Just

  Kings, Insanity, Rebel

  Louis Antoine de Saint-Just's speech to the National Convention, November 13, 1792.

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• A usurper always distrusts the whole world.

  Vittorio Alfieri

  Trust, World, Whole

  "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations" by Jehiel Keeler Hoyt, (p. 197), 1922.

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• It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising the sovereignty. Usurpation is then an easy attainment, and a usurper soon found. The people themselves become the willing instruments of their own debasement and ruin. Let us, then, look to the great cause, and endeavor to preserve it in full force. Let us by all wise and constitutional measures promote intelligence among the people as the best means of preserving our liberties.

  James Monroe

  Wise, Mean, Exercise

  George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, James Knox Polk, Zachary Taylor, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Richard Milhous Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama (2017). “Inaugural Speeches from the Presidents of the United States - Complete Edition”, p.35, e-artnow sro

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• Effective resistance to usurpers is possible only provided the citizens understand their rights and are disposed to defend them.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Rights, Citizens, Resistance

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• Monarchy is an outrage which even the blind of an entire people cannot justify... all men hold from nature the secret mission to destroy wherever it my be found. No man can reign innocently. The folly is too evident. Every king is a rebel and a usurper. Do kings themselves treat otherwise those who seek to usurp their authority?

  Louis Antoine de Saint-Just

  Kings, Men, People

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• Storytellers are a threat. They threaten all champions of control, they frighten usurpers of the right-to-freedom of the human spirit -- in state, in church or mosque, in party congress, in the university or wherever.

  Chinua Achebe

  Party, Champion, Church

  FaceBook post by Chinua Achebe from Jul 20, 2015

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• But the wise know that foolish legislation is a rope of sand, which perishes in the twisting; that the State must follow, and notlead the character and progress of the citizen; the strongest usurper is quickly got rid of; and they only who build on Ideas, build for eternity; and that the form of government which prevails, is the expression of what cultivation exists in the population which permits it.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wise, Character, Government

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.250, Harvard University Press

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• A cold-blooded, calculation, unprincipled, usurper, without a virtue, no statesman, knowing nothing of commerce, political economy, or civil government, and supplying ignorance by bold presumption.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Ignorance, Knowing Nothing, Government

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1859). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence”, p.352

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• Usurpers always bring about or select troublous times to get passed, under cover of the public terror, destructive laws, which the people would never adopt in cold blood. The moment chosen is one of the surest means of distinguishing the work of the legislator from that of the tyrant.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Mean, Tyrants, Blood

  Jean Jacques Rousseau (2015). “The Social Contract”, p.173, Jean Jacques Rousseau

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• Set before us the conduct of our own British ancestors, who defended for us the inherent rights of mankind against foreign and domestic tyrants and usurpers, against arbitrary kings and cruel priests; in short against the gates of earth and hell.

  John Adams

  Kings, Rights, Tyrants

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1851). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.462

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• Opinion is called the queen of the world; it is so, for when reason opposes it, it is condemned to death. It must rise twenty times from its ashes to gradually drive away the usurper.

  Voltaire

  Queens, World, Twenties

  Voltaire (1824). “A Philosophical Dictionary”, p.135

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• The novelist, quite rightly, fears the psychoanalyst as both an enemy and a usurper.

  Will Self

  Enemy, Novelists

  "Incidents along the road" by Will Self, www.theguardian.com. February 06, 2009.

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• If all power is in the people, if there is no higher law than their will, and if by counting their votes, their will may be ascertained - then the people may entrust all their power to anyone, and the power of the pretender and the usurper is then legitimate. It is not to be challenged since it came originally from the sovereign people.

  Walter Lippmann

  Power, Law, People

  Walter Lippmann, Clinton Rossiter, James Lare (1982). “The Essential Lippmann: A Political Philosophy for Liberal Democracy”, p.5, Harvard University Press

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• The experience of the United States is a happy disproof of the error so long rooted in the unenlightened minds of well meaning Christians, as well as in the corrupt hearts of persecuting Usurpers, that without a legal incorporation of religious and civil polity, neither could be supported. A mutual independence is found most friendly to practical Religion, to social harmony, and to political prosperity.

  James Madison

  Christian, Religious, Heart

  James Madison (1965). “The forging of American federalism: selected writings of James Madison”

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• The United States is an illegitimate country, just like Israel. It has no right to exist. That country belongs to the Red man, the American Indian... It's actually a shame to be a so-called American, because everybody living there is a usurper, an invader taking part in this crime, which is to rob the land, rob the country and kill all the American Indians.

  Bobby Fischer

  Country, Men, Israel

  YouTube Chanel "Peter Wolf"/ "Bobby Fischer tells the truth and nothing but the truth", www.youtube.com. September 19, 2007.

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• By Oppression's woes and pains! By your sons in servile chains! We will drain our dearest veins, But they shall be free! Lay the proud usurpers low! Tyrants fall in every foe! Liberty's in every blow! Let us do or die!

  Robert Burns

  Pain, Fall, Son

  'Robert Bruce's March to Bannockburn' (1799)

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• Tolerance is a one-way street in the Age of Obama. 'Choice' is in the eye (and iron fist) of the First Amendment usurper.

  Michelle Malkin

  Eye, Iron, Choices

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• Liberty's in every blow! Let us do or die.

  Robert Burns

  Blow, Liberty, Dies

  'Robert Bruce's March to Bannockburn' (1799)

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• All men are equal and free: society by nature, and destination, is therefore autonomous and ungovernable. If the sphere of activity of each citizen is determined by the natural division of work and by the choice he makes of a profession, if the social functions are combined in such a way as to produce a harmonious effect, order results from the free activity of all men; there is no government. Whoever puts a hand on me to govern me is an usurper and a tyrant; I declare him my enemy.

  Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

  Men, Hands, Order

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• I am regarded as a usurper, as an imposter and dilettante, because I do technically come from the wrong side of the tracks in musical terms.

  Rufus Wainwright

  Track, Musical, Sides

  "Rufus Wainwright: 'I am somewhat imprisoned by my fabulous career'". Interview with Fiona Sturges, www.independent.co.uk. April 14, 2012.

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• We must frankly confess, then, using our empirical common sense and ordinary practical prejudices, that in the world that actually is, the virtues of sympathy, charity, and non-resistance may be, and often have been, manifested in excess. ... You will agree to this in general, for in spite of the Gospel, in spite of Quakerism, in spite of Tolstoi, you believe in fighting fire with fire, in shooting down usurpers, locking up thieves, and freezing out vagabonds and swindlers.

  William James

  Believe, Fighting, Fire

  William James (1985). “The Varieties of Religious Experience”, p.284, Harvard University Press

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