Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Unlimited power leads to oppression and is a greater threat to liberty than other human creations.
In plain terms
Having too much control hurts freedom more than anything else people make.
What can you take from it?
Limit power to protect freedom.

Where it applies

  • political systems
  • corporate leadership
  • judicial reviews

Putting it to work

  • implement checks and balances
  • audit decision rights
  • delegate authority

Questions to consider

  • Where should power be limited?
  • What safeguards protect freedom?

Another view

Some situations require concentrated power to act quickly during crises.

More from William O. Douglas

  1. We have here the problem of bigness. Its lesson should by now have been burned into our memory by Brandeis. The Curse of Bigness shows how size can become a me…

    Permalink to quote #3
  2. These days I see America identified more and more with material things, less and less with spiritual standards. These days I see America acting abroad as an ar…

    Permalink to quote #5
  3. The law is not a series of calculating machines where answers come tumbling out when the right levers are pushed.

    Permalink to quote #2

Related quotes

  1. We may appeal to every page of history we have hitherto turned over, for proofs irrefragable, that the people, when they have been unchecked, have been as unju…

    John AdamsJohn Adams quote #41
  2. Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.

    George WashingtonGeorge Washington quote #1
  3. During the last 100 years, the House of Lords has never contributed one iota to popular liberties or popular freedom, or done anything to advance the common we…

    Joseph ChamberlainJoseph Chamberlain quote #1