“… I say, that Power must never be trusted without a check.”

— John Adams

Source: Adams-Jefferson Letters

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "… I say, that Power must never be trusted without a check." by John Adams?

John Adams 202

2nd President of the United States 1735–1826

Related quotes

“If a man has to say trust me it's a sure sign you cannot. Trust him, that is. Trust is a thing you do without words.”

Juliet Marillier book Wildwood Dancing

Variant: If a man has to say trust me, Gogu conveyed, it's a sure sign you cannot. Trust him, that is. Trust is a thing you know without words.
Source: Wildwood Dancing

“I often say to my assistants, "Never trust anybody," but what I mean is that you should never trust someone else to do a job exactly the way you would want it done.”

Akio Morita (1921–1999) Japanese businessman

Source: Made in Japan (1986), p. 175.

“A technical argument by a trusted author, which is hard to check and looks similar to arguments known to be correct, is hardly ever checked in detail”

Vladimir Voevodsky (1966–2017) Russian mathematician

Univalent Foundations, Vladimir Voevodsky, IAS, March 26, 2014 http://www.math.ias.edu/vladimir/files/2014_IAS.pdf p. 8

“If you can't trust a Methodist with absolute power to arrest people and not have to say why, then whom can you trust?”

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

"Congress's Shameful Retreat From American Values" in The Chicago Tribune (4 October 2006)

“She taught me that without trust, love could never exist.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1982

“Great powers agreeing among themselves may indeed hold small powers in check. But who will hold great powers in check when great powers disagree?”

Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948) American judge

The Pathway of Peace (1923)
Context: Time has shown how illusory are alliances of great powers so far as the maintenance of peace is concerned.
In considering the use of international force to secure peace, we are again brought to the fundamental necessity of common accord. If the feasibility of such a force be conceded for the purpose of maintaining adjudications of legal right, this is only because such an adjudication would proceed upon principles commonly accepted, and thus forming part of international law, and upon the common agreement to respect the decision of an impartial tribunal in the application of such principles. This is a limited field where force is rarely needed and where the sanctions of public opinion and the demands of national honor are generally quite sufficient to bring about acquiescence in judicial awards. But in the field of conflicting national policies, and what are deemed essential interests, when the smoldering fires of old grievances have been fanned into a flame by a passionate sense of immediate injury, or the imagination of peoples is dominated by apprehension of present danger to national safety, or by what is believed to be an assault upon national honor, what force is to control the outbreak? Great powers agreeing among themselves may indeed hold small powers in check. But who will hold great powers in check when great powers disagree?.