
“4702. The Passions are like Fire and Water; good Servants, but bad Masters.”
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
Attributed to "The First President of the United States" in "Liberty and Government" by W. M., in The Christian Science Journal, Vol. XX, No. 8 (November 1902) edited by Mary Baker Eddy, p. 465; no earlier or original source for this statement is cited; later quoted in The Cry for Justice : An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest (1915) edited by Upton Sinclair, p. 305, from which it became far more widely quoted and in Frank J. Wilstach, A Dictionary of Similes, 2d ed., p. 526 (1924). In The Great Thoughts (1985), George Seldes says, p. 441, col. 2, footnote, this paragraph “although credited to the ‘Farewell’ [address] cannot be found in it. Lawson Hamblin, who owns a facsimile, and Horace Peck, America’s foremost authority on quotations, informed me this paragraph is apocryphal.” It is listed as spurious at the Mount Vernon website http://www.mountvernon.org/research-collections/digital-encyclopedia/article/spurious-quotations/
Unsourced variant : Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.
Misattributed, Spurious attributions
Variant: Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.
“4702. The Passions are like Fire and Water; good Servants, but bad Masters.”
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
“Money is in some respects like fire; it is a very excellent servant but a terrible master.”
Ch. 3: "Avoid Debt" http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/barnum/moneygetting/moneygetting_chap4.html
Art of Money Getting (1880)
“Eloquence may set fire to reason.”
Gitlow v. People of New York, 268 U.S. 652 (1925) (dissenting).
1920s
Jeff Cooper's Commentaries, vol. 4, no. 16, December, 1996
“The Founders conceived government as the servant, not the master of the individual.”
Remarks to the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/education/bsa/citizenship_merit_badge/speeches/address_convention_hall.pdf (31 January 1962)
1960s
Small Houses: Their Economic Design and Construction (1922)
Source: Political Aphorisms, Moral and Philosophical Thoughts (1848), p. 246
Source: Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), Ch. 29 The Unprotected
Context: We hear often of the distress of the negro servants, on the loss of a kind master; and with good reason, for no creature on God's earth is left more utterly unprotected and desolate than the slave in these circumstances.
The child who has lost a father has still the protection of friends, and of the law; he is something, and can do something, — has acknowledged rights and position; the slave has none. The law regards him, in every respect, as devoid of rights as a bale of merchandise. The only possible acknowledgment of any of the longings and wants of a human and immortal creature, which are given to him, comes to him through the sovereign and irresponsible will of his master; and when that master is stricken down, nothing remains.
The number of those men who know how to use wholly irresponsible power humanely and generously is small. Everybody knows this, and the slave knows it best of all; so that he feels that there are ten chances of his finding an abusive and tyrannical master, to one of his finding a considerate and kind one. Therefore is it that the wail over a kind master is loud and long, as well it may be.
Source: No Treason (1867–1870), No. VI: The Constitution of No Authority, p. 24; the first sentence here is widely paraphrased as: A man is no less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years.
Context: A man is none the less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years. Neither are a people any the less slaves because permitted periodically to choose new masters. What makes them slaves is the fact that they now are, and are always hereafter to be, in the hands of men whose power over them is, and always is to be, absolute and irresponsible.
The right of absolute and irresponsible dominion is the right of property, and the right of property is the right of absolute, irresponsible dominion. The two are identical; the one necessarily implying the other. Neither can exist without the other. If, therefore, Congress have that absolute and irresponsible lawmaking power, which the Constitution — according to their interpretation of it — gives them, it can only be because they own us as property. If they own us as property, they are our masters, and their will is our law. If they do not own us as property, they are not our masters, and their will, as such, is of no authority over us.
But these men who claim and exercise this absolute and irresponsible dominion over us, dare not be consistent, and claim either to be our masters, or to own us as property. They say they are only our servants, agents, attorneys, and representatives. But this declaration involves an absurdity, a contradiction. No man can be my servant, agent, attorney, or representative, and be, at the same time, uncontrollable by me, and irresponsible to me for his acts. It is of no importance that I appointed him, and put all power in his hands. If I made him uncontrollable by me, and irresponsible to me, he is no longer my servant, agent, attorney, or representative. If I gave him absolute, irresponsible power over my property, I gave him the property. If I gave him absolute, irresponsible power over myself, I made him my master, and gave myself to him as a slave. And it is of no importance whether I called him master or servant, agent or owner. The only question is, what power did I put into his hands? Was it an absolute and irresponsible one? or a limited and responsible one?