Example, whether it be good or bad, has a powerful influence
Source: Letter to Major General Stirling (Mar. 5, 1780)
Topic
Adams's observation that power is poison opens the hard strand; Kierkegaard counters with the surprise of discovering what you are actually capable of doing. Diderot distinguishes power earned from power seized by violence; Blake finds it in love rather than force. Darwin and Bagehot treat it structurally — as selection pressure, as the gravitational force of institutions. The collection contains both the warning (it corrupts, it isolates, it reveals the worst) and the argument that the absence of power has its own costs. These writers collectively suggest that the only interesting question about power is not how to get it but what kind of person you become while holding it.
Example, whether it be good or bad, has a powerful influence
Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth
A little rebellion now and then is a good thing
Vote: The instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country
All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.
Man is made or unmade by himself; in the armoury of thought he forges the weapons by which he destroys himself; he also fashions the tools with which he builds for himself heavenly mansions of joy and strength and peace.
Law is common force organized to prevent injustice.
You have a thousand cavalry, and infantry as many as any one can desire, and three hundred ships.