Explore a collection of the most beloved and motivational quotes and sayings about Sovereignty. Share these powerful messages with your loved ones on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, or on your personal blog, and inspire the world with their wisdom. We've compiled the Top 100 Sovereignty Quotes and Sayings from 93 influential authors, including Josiah Warren,William Ernest Hocking,J. Reuben Clark,Claude Levi-Strauss,Alexander Hamilton, for you to enjoy and share.

Liberty is the sovereignty of the individual. By Josiah Warren Liberty Individual Sovereignty

For those who have only to obey, law is what the sovereign commands. For the sovereign, in the throes of deciding what he ought to command, this view of law is singularly empty of light and leading. In the dispersed sovereignty of modern states, and especially in times of rapid social change, law must look to the future as well as to history and precedent, and to what is possible and right as well as to what is actual. By William Ernest Hocking Law Sovereign Obey Commands Command

You have the highest of human trusts committed to your care. Providence has showered on this favored land blessings without number, and has chosen you as the guardians of freedom, to preserve it for the benefit of the human race. By J. Reuben Clark Care Human Highest Trusts Committed

Freedom is neither a legal invention nor a philosophical conquest, the cherished possession of civilizations more valid than others because they alone have been able to create or preserve it. It is the outcome of an objective relationship between the individual and the space he occupies, between the consumer and the resources at his disposal. By Claude Levi-Strauss Freedom Conquest Legal Invention Philosophical

Every power vested in a government is in its nature sovereign, and includes by force of the term a right to employ all the means requisite ... to the attainment of the ends of such power. By Alexander Hamilton Sovereign Requisite Power Vested Government

Sovereignty cannot be a shield for tyrants to commit wanton murder, or an excuse for the international community to turn a blind eye to slaughter. By Barrack Obama Sovereignty Murder Slaughter Shield Tyrants

To bear all naked truths, And to envisage circumstance, all calm, That is the top of sovereignty By John Keats Truths Circumstance Calm Sovereignty Bear

A republic properly understood is a sovereignty of justice, in contradistinction to a sovereignty of will. By Reinhold Niebuhr Sovereignty Justice Republic Properly Understood

Every people has a right to choose the sovereignty under which they shall live. By Woodrow Wilson Live People Choose Sovereignty

Sovereignty is not to be considered as an attribute of God-in the sense of being a quality which exists in God (such as omnipotence and omniscience)-rather it is the result of His attributes. By Iain H. Murray God Godin Sovereignty Omniscience Considered

Our identities have no bodies, so, unlike you, we cannot obtain order by physical coercion. We believe that from ethics, enlightened self-interest, and the commonweal, our governance will emerge. By John Perry Barlow Bodies Unlike Coercion Identities Obtain

Laws are the sovereigns of sovereigns. By Louis Xiv Laws Sovereigns

Power in politics, sovereignty in America is with we the people, and that is the path to turning this country around: empowering the people. By Ted Cruz People America Power Politics Sovereignty

Individual liberty is individual power. By John Quincy Adams Power Individual Liberty

[T]he people as ultimate sovereigns, retain the ultimate power - and even the duty - to overthrow any government that fails to respect their authority. By Glenn Reynolds Sovereigns Retain Power Duty Authority

In the model that we grew up with, governments rule physical territory in which national economies function, and strong economies support hegemonic military power. In the new model, already emerging under our noses, economic decisions don't pay much attention to national sovereignty in a world where more than half of the one hundred or two hundred largest economic entities are not countries but companies. By Amory Lovins Economies Governments Function Power Model

The authority of government, even such as I am willing to submit to - for I will cheerfully obey those who know and can do better than I, and in many things even those who neither know nor can do so well - is still an impure one: to be strictly just, it must have the sanction and consent of the governed. It can have no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to it. By Henry David Thoreau Government Governed Authority Submit Cheerfully

Freedom which in no other land will thrive, Freedom an English subject's sole prerogative. By John Dryden Freedom English Thrive Prerogative Land

Owning our power means claiming the credibility and uniqueness of our own humanity. By Debbie Ford Owning Humanity Power Claiming Credibility

Tribal sovereignty means that. It's sovereign. You're a ... you're a ... you've been given sovereignty and you're viewed as a sovereign entity. By George W. Bush Tribal Sovereignty Sovereign Entity Viewed

[You have Rights] antecedent to all earthly governments: Rights, that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; Rights, derived from the Great Legislator of the universe. By John Adams Great Legislator Antecedent Governments Laws

Freedom has become a commodity whose availability, paradoxically, keeps society in check. The threat of its loss seems to enable us to tolerate its imposition. By Andrzej Stasiuk Paradoxically Freedom Availability Check Commodity

Privative appropriation and domination are thus originally imposed and felt as a positive right, but in the form of a negative universality. Valid for everyone, justified in everyone's eyes by divine or natural law, the right of privative appropriation is objectified in a general illusion, in a universal transcendence, in an essential law under which everyone individually manages to tolerate the more or less narrow limits assigned to his right to live and to the conditions of life in general. By Raoul Vaneigem Privative Appropriation Universality Domination Originally

A government capable of controlling the whole, and bringing its force to a point, is one of the prerequisites for national liberty. We combine in society, with an expectation to have our persons and properties defended against unreasonable exactions either at home or abroad. By Oliver Ellsworth Point Liberty Government Capable Controlling

Nothing is more important in the preservation of peace than to secure among the great mass of the people living under constitutional government a just conception of the rights which their nation has against others and of the duties their nation owes to others. By Elihu Root Nation Important Preservation Peace Secure

What makes sovereign ugliness are our conventions. By Eugene Delacroix Conventions Makes Sovereign Ugliness

The sovereign way to personal freedom is to help determine the forces that determine you. By A. P. J. Abdul Kalam Determine Sovereign Personal Freedom Forces

Monopolizing the right to speak authoritatively about "security" in name of everyone - the ability to evoke the "national interest" or a universal "we" - is at the crux of the practice of power. By Gearoid O Tuathail Security Monopolizing National Interest Universal

The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to an uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. By James Madison Men Originate Interests Faculties Diversity

In England, the sovereignty resides exclusively in the person or individual who is king. All Englishmen are his subjects. And the highest peer in the realm ... has no share in the sovereignty. By Roger B. Taney England King Sovereignty Resides Exclusively

Yachts are the closest a commoner can get to sovereignty. By Charles Simonyi Yachts Sovereignty Closest Commoner

A human being is like a television set with millions of channels ... We cannot let just one channel dominate us. We have the seed of everything in us, and we have to recover our own sovereignty. By Thich Nhat Hanh Human Television Set Millions Channels

It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising their sovereignty. By James Monroe Corrupt Populace Sovereignty People Ignorant

It is sufficiently obvious, that persons and property are the two great subjects on which Governments are to act; and that the rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted. These rights cannot well be separated. By James Madison Governments Persons Property Obvious Act

[It] is the interest as well as duty of a sovereign to maintain the authority of the laws. By Edward Gibbon Laws Interest Duty Sovereign Maintain

I tell you the truth, a man may not make himself king; only the blessing of him who holds the kingship can elevate a man to that high place. For sovereignty is a sacred trust that may not be bartered or sold; still less may it be stolen or taken by force. By Stephen R. Lawhead Man Truth King Place Make

The people are the most important element in a nation; the spirits of the land and grain are the next; the sovereign is the least. By Mencius Nation People Important Element Spirits

There are nations in whom the passion for governing others is so much stronger than the desire of personal independence, that for the mere shadow of the one they are found ready to sacrifice the whole of the other. Each one of their number is willing, like the private soldier in an army, to abdicate his personal freedom of action into the hands of his general, provided the army is triumphant and victorious, and he is able to flatter himself that he is one of a conquering host, though the notion that he has himself any share in the domination exercised over the conquered is an illusion. A government strictly limited in its powers and attributions, required to hold its hands from overmeddling, and to let most things go on without its assuming the part of guardian or director, is not to the taste of such a people. By John Stuart Mill Personal Independence Nations Passion Governing

Liberty is the power that we have over ourselves. By Hugo Grotius Liberty Power

Liberty is a principle; its community is its security; exclusiveness is its doom. By Lajos Kossuth Liberty Principle Security Exclusiveness Doom

A share in the sovereignty of the state, which is exercised by the citizens at large, in voting at elections is one of the most important rights of the subject, and in a republic ought to stand foremost in the estimation of the law ... That portion of the sovereignty, to which each individual is entitled, can never be too highly prized. It is that for which we have fought and bled ... By Alexander Hamilton Sovereignty State Large Subject Law

From the equality of rights springs identity of our highest interests; you cannot subvert your neighbor's rights without striking a dangerous blow at your own. By Carl Schurz Interests Equality Springs Identity Highest

There are both things in international law: the principle of territorial integrity and right to self-determination. By Vladimir Putin Law Selfdetermination Things International Principle

The first duty of the sovereign [is] that of protecting the society from the violence and invasion of other independent societies, [which] can be performed only by means of a military force By Adam Smith Sovereign Societies Force Duty Protecting

The inhabitants of territories, often the theatre of war, are unavoidably subject to frequent infringements on their rights, which serve to weaken their sense of those rights; and by degrees, the people are brought to consider the soldiery not only as their protectors but as their superiors. By Alexander Hamilton Territories War Degrees Superiors Inhabitants

Rights are in the power of the people. By Ken Starr People Power

It is true, indeed, that the national domain is ours. It is true it was acquired by the valor and with the wealth of the whole nation. But we hold, nevertheless, no arbitrary power over it. By William H. Seward True National Domain Nation Acquired

It will be admitted on all hands, that with the exception of the powers surrendered by the Constitution of the United States, the people of the several States are absolutely and unconditionally sovereign within their respective territories. By Roger B. Taney States Constitution United Hands Territories

This spirit of freedom is expanding even where it must struggle against the external obstacles of governments that misunderstand their own function. Such governments are illuminated by the example that the existence of freedom need not give cause for the least concern regarding public order and harmony in the commonwealth. If only they refrain from inventing artifices to keep themselves in it, men will gradually raise themselves from barbarism. By Immanuel Kant Freedom Function Governments Spirit Expanding

The only sovereign we could allow to rule us is reason. By Terry Goodkind Reason Sovereign Rule

Freedom is but the possibility of a various and indefinite activity; while government, or the exercise of dominion, is a single, yet real activity. The longing for freedom, therefore, is at first only too frequently suggested by the deep-felt consciousness of its absence. By Wilhelm Von Humboldt Activity Government Dominion Single Freedom

Food sovereignty is an affirmation of who we are as indigenous peoples and a way, one of the most surefooted ways, to restore our relationship with the world around us. By Winona Laduke Food Sovereignty Affirmation Indigenous Peoples

Upon this dispute not alone our lands and goods are engaged, but all that we call ours. These rights, these privileges, which made our fathers freemen, are in question. By John Eliot Engaged Dispute Lands Goods Call

By nature, every individual has the right to govern himself; and governments, whether founded on majorities or minorities, must derive their right from the assent, expressed or implied, of the governed,, and be subject to such limitations as they may impose. By John C. Calhoun Nature Governments Minorities Assent Expressed

Every state begins in compulsion; but the habits of obedience become the content of conscience, and soon every citizen thrills with loyalty to the flag. The citizen is right; for however the state begins, it soon becomes an indispensable prop to order. By Will Durant State Begins Compulsion Conscience Flag

To usurp dominion over a people, in their own despite, or to grasp at a more extensive power than they are willing to entrust, is to violate that law of nature, which gives every man a right to his personal liberty; and can, therefore, confer no obligation to obedience. By Jonathan Emord People Entrust Nature Liberty Confer

Whilst the rights of all as persons are equal, in virtue of their access to reason, their rights in property are very unequal. Oneman owns his clothes, and another owns a country. By Ralph Waldo Emerson Whilst Equal Reason Unequal Persons

If there is a single trait in our character that has historically set us apart from other nations, it is our determination to limit the authority of those who rule over us. By Billy Bragg Nations Single Trait Character Historically

Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression. In our Governments, the real power lies in the majority of the Community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from the acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the constituents. By James Madison Government Real Power Lies Oppression

Individuals in Western states are sovereign over their own households; they enjoy consumer sovereignty through the market and political sovereignty through elections. By Roger Scruton Western Sovereignty Individuals Households Elections

Self-imposed limits on sovereign power can disarm mistrust, but provide no guarantee of liberty and property beyond those afforded by the balance between state and private force. By Anthony De Jasay Selfimposed Mistrust Force Limits Sovereign

Whose freedom, how exercised, how circumscribed and how defined? By Roger Scruton Freedom Exercised Defined Circumscribed

To be called a sovereign nation, a nation has to be able to control its own borders. It is controlling your own destiny in a way, and we don't control our own borders. By Tom Tancredo Borders Nation Control Called Sovereign

The core idea that underlies all of our democratic states, the core political idea, is this idea that it's not that one person is the sovereign; it's that all of the people are sovereign. By Noah Feldman Sovereign Idea Core States Underlies

Every State has a natural right in cases not within the compact (casus non faederis) to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits. Without this right, they would be under the dominion, absolute and unlimited, of whosoever might exercise this right of judgment for them. By Thomas Jefferson State Compact Casus Faederis Limits

Liberty is the possibility of isolation. By Fernando Pessoa Liberty Isolation Possibility

Nothing is more precious than independence and liberty. By Ho Chi Minh Liberty Precious Independence

Liberty, not government, is the world's most powerful By Michelle Malkin Liberty Government Powerful World

sovereignty let loose through Jesus and the Spirit and aimed at the healing and renewal of all creation. By N. T. Wright Jesus Spirit Sovereignty Creation Loose

If there is anything which it is the duty of the whole people to never entrust to any hands but their own, that thing is the preservation and perpetuity of their own liberties and institutions. By Abraham Lincoln Institutions Duty People Entrust Hands

Every device employed to bolster individual freedom must have as its chief purpose the impairment of the absoluteness of power. The indications are that such an impairment is brought about not by strengthening the individual and pitting him against the possessors of power, but by distributing and diversifying power and pitting one category or unit of power against the other. Where power is one, the defeated individual, however strong and resourceful, can have no refuge and no recourse. By Eric Hoffer Power Individual Impairment Device Employed

Where there is authority, there is no freedom. By Peter Kropotkin Authority Freedom

Pride erects a little kingdom of its own, and acts as sovereign in it. By William Hazlitt Pride Erects Kingdom Acts Sovereign

Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions. By James Madison Prevails Property Respected Excess Power

Nations, like individuals in a state of nature, are equal and independent, possessing certain rights and owing certain duties to each other. By Millard Fillmore Nations Nature Independent Possessing Individuals

In giving rights to others which belong to them, we give rights to ourselves and to our country By John F. Kennedy Country Giving Belong Give

[T]he crucial question is not, as so many believe, whether property rights should be private or governmental, but rather whether the necessarily 'private' owners are legitimate owners or criminals. For ultimately, there is no entity called 'government'; there are only people forming themselves into groups called 'governments' and acting in a 'governmental' manner. All property is therefore always 'private'; the only and critical question is whether it should reside in the hands of criminals or of the proper and legitimate owners. By Murray Rothbard Governmental Owners Necessarily Private Called

There is no true sovereign except the nation; there can be no true legislator except the people. By Denis Diderot True Nation People Sovereign Legislator

To rail and rant against tyranny is to manifest inferiority, for there is no tyranny but ignorance; to be conscious of one's powers is to lose consciousness of tyranny. Self government is not a remote aim. It is an intimate and inescapable fact. To govern oneself is a natural imperative, and all tyranny is the miscarriage of self government. The first requisite of freedom is to accept responsibility for the lack of it. By E.c. Riegel Tyranny Inferiority Ignorance Rail Rant

The gift of independence once granted cannot be lightly taken away again. By Robert Graves Gift Independence Granted Lightly

Autonomous people, nations, and systems can promote each other's welfare; they do not have to fight each other like those whose inner insecurity and immaturity continually demand the demarcation of limits and postures of intimidation. By Christa Wolf Nations Autonomous People Welfare Intimidation

The life and liberty and property and happiness of the common man throughout the world are at the absolute mercy of a few persons whom he has never seen, involved in complicated quarrels that he has never heard of. By Gilbert Murray Involved Life Liberty Property Happiness

We have Independence, General, so now tell us what to do with it By Gabriel Garcia Marquez General Independence

Anarchy, the absence of a master, of a sovereign. By Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Anarchy Master Sovereign Absence

The idea that you surrender your identity when you relinquish national powers is unhelpful. No, indeed, precisely the opposite is the case: if done in an intelligent way, you attain the sovereignty to better solve national problems in cooperation with others. By Ulrich Beck Unhelpful National Idea Surrender Identity

The rights of the individual are greatly prized in the developed world, but in many other regions they are considered a luxury reserved for the impossibly wealthy. By Silvia Cartwright World Wealthy Individual Greatly Prized

Sovereignty inheres in the right to issue money. And the American sovereignty belongs by right to the people, and their representatives in Congress have the right to issue money and to determine the value thereof. And 120 million, 120 million suckers have lamentably failed to insist on the observation of this quite decided law ... Now the point at which embezzlement of the nation's funds on the part of her officers becomes treason can probably be decided only by jurists, and not by hand-picked judges who support illegality. By Ezra Pound Issue Money Sovereignty Inheres Million

Empire and liberty. By Marcus Tullius Cicero Empire Liberty

An Indian tribe is sovereign to the extent that the U.S. permits it to be sovereign. By Russell Smith Indian Permits Sovereign Tribe Extent

that power gives us the right to rule, By J.k. Rowling Rule Power

Every choice we make is a testament to our autonomy, to our sense of self-determination. Almost every social, moral, or political philosopher in the Western tradition since Plato has placed a premium on such autonomy. And each new expansion of choice gives us another opportunity to assert our autonomy, and this display our character. By Barry Schwartz Autonomy Selfdetermination Make Testament Sense

Whom hatred frights, let him not dream of sovereignty. By Ben Jonson Frights Sovereignty Hatred Dream

Liberty! Man has no liberty except the liberty to obey rules, but who makes the rules? With luck, Kate, it will be reasonable men making reasonable rules. By Bernard Cornwell Rules Liberty Kate Reasonable Man

But ultimately, sovereign power really is, still, the right to brush such legalities aside, or to make them up as one goes along.164 The United States might call itself "a country of laws, not men," but as we have learned in recent years, American presidents can order torture, assassinations, domestic surveillance programs, even set up extra-legal zones like Guantanamo where they can treat prisoners pretty much any way they choose to. Even on the lowest levels, those who enforce the law are not really subject to it. It's extraordinary difficult, for instance, for a police officer to do anything to an American citizen that would lead to that officer being convicted of a crime.165 By David Graeber United States Guantanamo Assassinations American

Modern sovereignty, whether expressed through killing in battle or the torture of suspects, brings together the desire to build up and the desire to destroy, to let Aid Agencies offer charity (in its original meaning of "love") while the military offers death. The two are intrinsically connected. By Talal Asad Desire Aid Agencies Love Modern

The modern state masks itself in moral ideologies which obscure its actual conduct. One of the most compelling and insidious of these ideologies is the doctrine of natural rights. It was to secure these rights that the modern state was invented in the first place, and it is impossible, especially for Americans, not to be seduced by the doctrine. But it is nonetheless a philosophical superstition. By Donald Livingston Modern Conduct Ideologies State Masks

Arbitrary rule has its basis, not in the strength of the state or the chief, but in the moral weakness of the individual, who submits almost without resistance to the domineering power. By Friedrich Ratzel Arbitrary Basis Chief Individual Power

A determinist perspective designed to ensure the people's docile acceptance of the circumstances of their existence: the king, the state, the land? By Simon Existence King State Land Determinist

This Government, the offspring of your own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support. By George Washington Government Choice Uninfluenced Unawed Adopted

Over 5,000 years, states have made surprisingly consistent claims about their duties. They have promised to protect people from threats; promote their welfare; deliver justice and also, perhaps less obviously, uphold truth - originally truths about the cosmos, and more recently truths drawn from reason and knowledge. By Geoff Mulgan Years States Duties Made Surprisingly