The Big List Of Quotes On Sovereignty

Today we consider the world of history’s great thinkers on sovereignty and the components of sovereignty, namely: territory, population, authority, and recognition. The Big List Of Quotes On Sovereignty is organized by the thinker’s year of birth. Let’s get to it!

1. Sun Tzu – born 6th century BCE

“… the highest form of generalship is to balk the enemy’s plans; the next best is to prevent the junction of the enemy’s forces; and the worst policy of all is to besiege walled cities.”
“He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.”
“All warfare is based on deception.”
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
“To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.”
“Making no mistakes is what establishes the certainty of victory, for it means conquering an enemy that is already defeated.”
“You can be sure of succeeding in your attacks if you only attack places which are undefended. You can ensure the safety of your defense if you only hold positions that cannot be attacked.”
“Rapidity is the essence of war: take advantage of the enemy’s unreadiness, make your way by unexpected routes, and attack unguarded spots.”
“Keep your army continually on the move, and devise unfathomable plans.”
“Confront your soldiers with the deed itself; never let them know your design.”
“But a kingdom that has once been destroyed can never come again into being; nor can the dead ever be brought back to life.”
“… what enables the wise sovereign and the good general to strike and conquer, and achieve things beyond the reach of ordinary men, is foreknowledge.”
“Knowledge of the enemy’s dispositions can only be obtained from other men.”
“Success in warfare is gained by carefully accommodating ourselves to the enemy’s purpose.”

2. Plato – born 428 BCE

“… justice, which is the subject of our inquiry, is, as you know, sometimes spoken of as the virtue of an individual, and sometimes as the virtue of s State.”
“… in all well-ordered States every individual has an occupation to which he must attend, and has therefore no leisure to spend in continually being ill.”
“… our aim in founding the State was not the disproportionate happiness of any one class, but the greatest happiness of the whole; we thought that in a State which is ordered with a view to the good of the whole we should be most likely to find justice…”
“For the State, as you will acknowledge, may be justly called master of itself, if the words ‘temperance’ and ‘self-mastery’ truly express the rule of the better part over the worse.”
“And in proportion as riches and rich men are honored in the State, virtue and the virtuous are dishonored.”

3. Aristotle – born 384 BCE

“… it is by proportionate requital that the city holds together…”
“… justice exists only between men whose mutual relations are governed by law; and law exists for men between whom there is injustice… This is why we do not allow a man to rule, but law…”
“In all well-balanced governments there is nothing which should be more jealously maintained than the spirit of obedience to law, more especially in small matters; for transgression creeps in unperceived and at last ruins the state, just as the constant recurrence of small expenses in time eats up a fortune.”

4. Niccolò Machiavelli – born 1469

“… memories fade and likewise motives for change; upheaval, on the contrary, always leaves the scaffolding for building further change.”
“… however strong your armies, you’ll always need local support to occupy a new territory… when a ruler occupies a state in an area that has a different language, different customs and different institutions… the most effective solution is for the new ruler to go and live there himself. This will improve security and make the territory more stable… Another advantage is that the new territory won’t be plundered by your officials.”
“… you must never fail to respond to trouble just to avoid war, because in the end you won’t avoid it, you’ll just be putting it off to your enemy’s advantage.”
“… to help another ruler to grow powerful is to prepare your own ruin.”
“If you conquer a city accustomed to self-government and opt not to destroy it you can expect it to destroy you… if the population hasn’t been routed and dispersed so that its freedoms and traditions are quite forgotten, they will rise up to fight for those principles at the first opportunity.”
“… nothing is harder to organize, more likely to fail, or more dangerous to see through, than the introduction of a new system of government.”
“… any new ruler bringing in changes will have to deal with huge obstacles and dangers, mostly in the early stages, and must overcome them with his own abilities. Once he’s done that and eliminated those who resented his achievements, so that people start to respect and admire him, then he can enjoy his power in safety and will live honoured and fulfilled.”
“A ruler must have the people on his side…the ruler must work out a situation where his citizens will always need both his government and him, however well or badly things are going. Then they will always be loyal.”
“If a ruler has built good fortifications and managed his relationship with his subjects… his enemies will always think twice before attacking him. People are always wary of projects that present obvious difficulties, and attacking a well-defended town and a ruler whose subjects don’t hate him is never an easy proposition.”
“… the main foundations of any state, whether it be new, or old, or a new territory acquired by an old regime, are good laws and good armed forces.”
“Mercenaries… are useless and dangerous… Courageous with friends and cowardly with enemies, they have no fear of God and keep no promises… in peacetime they plunder you and in wartime they let the enemy plunder you…”
“…a victory won with foreign forces is not a real victory at all.”
“… no state is secure without its own army… There is nothing so weak and unstable as a reputation for power that is not backed up by its own army.”
“A ruler, then, must have no other aim or consideration nor seek to develop any other vocation outside war, the organization of the army and military discipline… the thing most likely to bring about a ruler’s downfall is his neglect of the art of war, the thing most likely to win him power is becoming an expert in it.”
“… people look at the end result. So if a leader does what it takes to win power and keep it, his methods will always be reckoned honourable and widely praised. The crowd is won over by appearances and final results. And the world is all crowd: the dissenting few find no space so long as the majority have any grounds at all for their opinions.”
”… if you have a good army you’ll always have good allies.”
“… put the people before the army, because the people are more powerful.”
“… when the opportunity presents itself a smart ruler will shrewdly provoke hostility so that he can then increase his reputation by crushing it.”
“… a ruler must never ally himself with someone more powerful in order to attack his enemies… when you win you’ll be at your ally’s mercy…”

5. Jean Bodin – born 1530

“… contemplation is the end and form of the good to which the government of the commonwealth should be directed.”
“… it is certain that a commonwealth is not rightly ordered which neglects altogether, or even for any length of time, mundane activities such as the administration of justice, the defence of the subject, the provision of the necessary means of subsistence, any more than a man whose soul is so absorbed in contemplation that he forgets to eat and drink can hope to live long…”
“It is neither the town nor its inhabitants that make a city state, but their union under a sovereign ruler, even if they are only three households.”
“SOVEREIGNTY is that absolute and perpetual power vested in a commonwealth…”
“A law proceeds from him who has sovereign power, and by it he binds the subject to obedience, but cannot bind himself… Law is nothing else than the command of the sovereign in the exercise of his sovereign power.”
“The first attribute of the sovereign… is the power to make law binding on all… [The second attribute of sovereignty is] the making of war and peace… The third attribute of sovereignty is the power to institute the great officers of state… The fourth attribute of sovereignty… [is] the right of pardoning convicted persons… Faith and homage are also among the most important attributes of sovereignty…”
“… severity, though it is blameworthy, maintains the subject in obedience to the laws, and the sovereign who has instituted them.”
“The best means of preserving the authority of the monarchy is that the prince should be loved by all, without any alloy of contempt, and as far as possible hated by none. To achieve this two things are necessary. First, just punishments must be meted out to malefactors, and rewards to the worthy. But seeing that whereas the latter is a pleasing task, and the former is invidious, the prince who wishes to command the affection of his subjects should reserve to himself the distribution of rewards… And prudent prince should bestow such himself. But for condemnations, fines, confiscations, and all like penalties, let him delegate their infliction to his officers, for them to administer good and expeditious justice. If he manages his affairs in this way, those who have received benefits at his hands are constrained to love, respect, and honour their benefactor; those who have been punished will have no occasion to hate him, but will vent their anger to their judges. The prince, showering benefits on all, but injuries on none will be welcome to all and hated by none.”
“… it is better to prevent sedition than to try and cure it… There is no better means of appeasing discontent, and persuading subjects to obedience than to employ a good preacher, for he will find a way to soften and turn the hearts of the most obstinate rebels.”
“The commonest cause of disorder and revolutions in commonwealths has always been the too great wealth of a handful of citizens, and the too great poverty of the rest.”

6. Miyamoto Musashi – born 1584

“A general… must understand… and know the measure of his house’s influence. This is the Way of Leadership.”
“Since it is by virtue of the sword that the world is controlled, and that one controls oneself, the sword is the place from which strategy begins.”
“… as strategy on a large scale, one wins by retaining good people, and by using large numbers of them; one is victorious by way of comporting oneself correctly, by governing the country, by nurturing the people, and by carrying out the laws of the world. On any given day, knowing how not to lose out to others, how to help oneself, and to establish one’s reputation – this is the Way Of Strategy.”
“In large-scale strategy, surveying the enemy’s forces, attack the ‘corners’ of the sections that strike out strongly, and you will gain some advantage. As one corner falters, the whole will weaken as a result. It is essential that during this faltering you keep going after [the enemy’s] various ‘corners’, gaining the advantage that leads to victory… Also, in single-combat strategy, you should make injuries to the ‘corners’ of your opponent’s body; when his body becomes even a little weak, and takes on a collapsing form, it will be very easy to defeat him.”
“Grasp the rhythm of the adversary’s unsettled mind, and determine how to take certain victory… When you perceive the signs that the opponent has become unsettled, you can defeat him freely; this is of the essence in combat.”
“In large-scale strategy as well, understand the number of the enemy’s forces, perceive the nature of the battlefield, know the condition of your own numbers, grasp their virtues, assemble your people and begin the battle; these are the essentials of engaging in combat.”
“The gaze in strategy, broadly, is an eye that rests upon the other person’s mind. In strategy on the large scale as well, it is the eye that rests upon the condition of the enemy’s forces.”

7. Thomas Hobbes – born 1588

“The only way to erect… a common power… is to confer all… power and strength upon one man… or assembly of men, to bear their person… This done, the multitude so united in one person, is called a COMMONWEALTH. This is the generation of that great LEVIATHAN… For by this authority, given him by every particular man in the commonwealth, he hath the use of so much power and strength conferred on him, that by terror thereof, he is enabled to conform the wills of them all, to peace at home, and mutual aid against their enemies abroad… And he that carrieth this person, is called SOVEREIGN, and said to have sovereign power…”
“… it is annexed to the sovereignty, to be judge of what opinions and doctrines are averse… it is annexed to the sovereignty, the whole power of prescribing the rules… it is annexed to the sovereignty, the right of judicature… it is annexed to the sovereignty, the right of making war, and peace with other nations, and commonwealths… it is annexed to the sovereignty, the choosing of all counsellors, ministers, magistrates, and officers, both in peace, and war… to the sovereign is committed the power of rewarding with riches, or honour; and of punishing with corporal, or pecuniary punishment, or with ignominy every subject according to the law he hath formerly made… To the sovereign… it belongeth also to give titles of honour; and to appoint what order of place, and dignity, each man shall hold; and what signs of respect, in public or private meetings, they shall give to one another…”
“For in the differences of private men, to declare, what is equity, what is justice, and what is moral virtue, and to make them binding, there is need of the ordinances of sovereign power, and punishments to be ordained for such as shall break them…”
“The safety of the people, requireth… that justice be equally administered to all degrees of people… The inequality of subjects, proceedeth from the acts of sovereign power… Impunity maketh insolence; insolence, hatred; and hatred, an endeavor to pull down all oppressing and contumelious greatness, though with the ruin of the commonwealth.”
“To the care of the sovereign, belongeth the making of good laws… A good law is that, which is needful, for the good of the people, and withal perspicuous…Unnecessary laws are not good laws; but traps for money…”
“It is a weak sovereign, that has weak subjects; and a weak people, whose sovereign wanteth power to rule them at his will.”

8. Blaise Pascal – born 1623

“Nothing is faultier than laws which put right faults.”
“…being unable to ensure that force obeys justice, we have made it just to obey force. We cannot strengthen justice, so we justify strength, in order that from both together there could be peace, which is the sovereign good.”

9. John Locke – born 1632

“POLITICAL POWER, then, i take to be a RIGHT of making laws with penalties of death, and consequently all less penalties, for the regulating and preserving of property, and of employing the force of the community, in the execution of such laws, and in the defence of the common-wealth from foreign injury; and all this only for the public good.”
“… God hath certainly appointed government to restrain the partiality and violence of men… civil government is the proper remedy for the inconveniencies of the state of nature, which must certainly be great, where men may be judges in their own case, since it is easy to be imagined, that he who was so unjust as to do his brother an injury, will scarce be so just as to condemn himself for it…”
“… civil society; the chief end whereof is the preservation of property.”
“No man in civil society can be exempted from the laws of it…”
“… to live by one man’s will, became the cause of all men’s misery. This constrained them to come unto laws, wherein all men might see their duty beforehand, and know the penalties of transgressing them.”
”And so whoever has the legislative or supreme power of any common-wealth, is bound to govern by established standing laws, promulgated and known to the people… And all this to be directed to no other end, but the peace, safety, and public good of the people.”
“THE legislative power is that, which has a right to direct how the force of the common-wealth shall be employed for preserving the community and the members of it… And because it may be too great a temptation to human frailty, apt to grasp at power, for the same persons, who have the power of making laws, to have also in their hands the power to execute them, whereby they may exempt themselves from obedience to the laws they make… the legislative power is put into the hands of divers persons…”
“… conquerors’ swords often cut up governments by the roots, and mangle societies to pieces…”

10. Jean-Jacques Rousseau – born 1712

“… the more violent the passions, the more necessary the laws to contain them.”
“The first man, having fenced off a plot of land, thought of saying ‘This is mine’ and found people simple enough to believe him was the real founder of civil society.”
“The power of the laws depends even more on their own wisdom than on the severity of their ministers, and the public will draws its greatest weight from the reason which dictated it.”
“The more you multiply the laws, the more contemptible you make them, and all the supervisors you appoint are only new lawbreakers destined to share the plunder with the veterans or to do their own looting. Soon, the price of virtue becomes that of brigandage. The most vile men become the most reputable; the greater they are, the more contemptible they are; their infamy is manifest in their dignities, and they are dishonored by their honors.”
“Let the homeland… prove itself the common mother of its citizens; let the advantages they enjoy in their country endear it to them; let the government leave them a sufficient share in public administration so that they feel at home; and let the laws be, in their eyes, merely the guarantees of public liberty.”
“It is… one of the most important concerns of government to prevent extreme inequality of fortunes… by protecting citizens from becoming impoverished.”
“… the substitution of private interests for the public interest, the mutual hatred of citizens, their indifference to the common cause, the corruption of the people, and the weakening of all the workings of government. Such ills are consequently difficult to cure when they make themselves felt, but a wise administrator should prevent them in order to maintain, along with good moral habits, respect for the laws, love for the homeland, and the vigor of the general will.”
“… it can be said that a government has reached the final stage of corruption, when nothing is left of its sinews but money.”
“… all governments constantly tend to grow weaker…”
“Sometimes it is possible to kill the state without killing a single one of its members.”
“If the state or city is only an artificial body whose life consists in the union of its members, and if the most important of its concerns is its own preservation, it must have a universal and compelling force in order to move and dispose each part in the manner best suited to the whole. Just as nature gives each man absolute power over all his members, the social pact gives the body politic absolute power over all its own; and it is the same power, under the direction of the general will, which bears, as I have said, the name of sovereignty.”
“The body politic, as well as the body of a man, begins to die from the moment of its birth and bears within itself the causes of its destruction.”

11. Adam Smith – born 1723

“The common advantages which every empire derives from the provinces subject to its dominion consist, first, in the military force which they furnish for its defence; and, secondly, in the revenue which they furnish for the support of its civil government.”
“It is the interest of such a sovereign, therefore, to open the most extensive market for the produce of his country, to allow the most perfect freedom of commerce, in order to increase as much as possible the number and the competition of buyers, and upon this account to abolish, not only all monopolies, but all restraints upon the transportation of the home produce from one part of the country to another, upon its exportation to foreign countries, or upon the importation of goods of any kind for which it can be exchanged.”
“…every violation of that natural distribution, which the most perfect liberty would establish, must… necessarily occasion a gradual declension in the real wealth and revenue of the society.”
“According to the system of natural liberty, the sovereign has only three duties to attend to: first, the duty of protecting the society from the violence and invasion of other independent societies; secondly, the duty of protecting, as far as possible, every member of the society from the injustice or oppression of every other member of it, or the duty of establishing an exact administration of justice, and, thirdly, the duty of erecting and maintaining certain public works and certain public institutions, which it can never be for the interest of any individual, or small number of individuals, to erect and maintain.”
“The practice of funding has gradually enfeebled every state which has adopted it… When national debts have once been accumulated to a certain degree, there is scarce, I believe, a single instance of their having been fairly and completely paid.”

12. Immanuel Kant – born 1724

“A greater degree of civil freedom seems advantageous to a people’s freedom of spirit and nevertheless puts up insurmountable barriers to it; a lesser degree of the former, on the other hand, provides a space for the latter to expand to its full capacity. Thus when nature has unwrapped, from under this hard shell, the seed from which she cares most tenderly, namely the propensity and calling to think freely, the latter gradually works back upon the mentality of the people (which thereby gradually becomes capable of freedom in acting) and eventually even upon the principles of government, which finds it profitable to itself to treat the human being, who is now more than a machine, in keeping with his dignity.”
“… laws are possible only in relation to the freedom of the will; but on the presupposition of freedom they are necessary or, conversely, freedom is necessary because those laws are necessary, as practical postulates.”
“Nowhere does a practice that ignores all pure rational principles deny theory so arrogantly as in the question of what is required for a good constitution of a state.”
“… if there were no freedom and no moral law based upon it… then politics would be the whole of practical wisdom, and the concept of right would be an empty thought.”
“… let justice reign even if all the rogues in the world perish because of it…”
“A civil constitution, though its realization is subjectively contingent, is still objectively necessary, that is, necessary as a duty.”

13. Alexis de Tocqueville – born 1805

“To instruct democracy, to revive its beliefs if possible, to purify its mores, to regulate its movements, to substitute little by little the science of public affairs for its inexperience, knowledge of its true interests for its blind instincts; to adapt its government to times and places; to modify it according to circumstances and men; such is the first of duties imposed today on those who lead society.”
“Sovereignty of the people is always more or less a fiction wherever democracy is not established.”
“Laws act on mores; and more, on laws. Wherever these two things do not lend each other mutual support, there is unrest, revolution tearing apart the society.”
“… make authority great and the official small, so that society might continue to be well regulated and remain free.”
“Administrative centralization, it is true, succeeds in gathering at a given time and in a certain place all the available forces of a nation, but it is harmful to the multiplication of those forces… it can work admirably toward the passing greatness of a man, not toward the lasting prosperity of a people… like nearly all the harmful things of this world, administrative centralization is easily established and, once organized, can hardly ever be destroyed again except with the social body itself.”
“… it is during a war that the weakness of a government is revealed in a most visible and dangerous manner.”
“… the jury, which is the most energetic means to make the people rule, is also the most effective means to teach them to rule.”
“The principal aim of good government has always been to make the citizens more and more able to do without its help. That is more useful than the help can be.”

14. John Stuart Mill – born 1806

“The preventive function of government… is far more liable to be abused, to the prejudice of liberty, than the punitory function; for there is hardly any part of the legitimate freedom of action of a human being which would not admit of being represented, and frailty too, as increasing the facilities for some form or other of delinquency.”
“A government cannot have too much of the kind of activity which does not impede, but aids and stimulates, individual exertion and development.”
“The worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it… a State, which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes, will find that with small men no great things can really be accomplished…”

15. Karl Marx – born 1818

“The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.”
“The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation.”
“The working men have no country. We cannot take from them what they have not got. Since the proletariat must first of all acquire political supremacy, must rise to be the leasing class of the nation, must constitute itself the nation…”
“Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another.”

16. Ernest Renan – born 1823

“A nation is a body and soul at the same time.”
“A nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Two things which, properly speaking, are really one and the same constitute this soul, this spiritual principle. One is the past, the other is the present. One is the possession in common of a rich legacy of memories; the other is present consent, the desire to live together, the desire to continue to invest in the heritage that we have jointly received.”
“The nation, like the individual, is the outcome of a long past of efforts, sacrifices, and devotions.”
“A nation is… a great solidarity constituted by the feeling of sacrifices made and those that one is still disposed to make. It presupposes a past but is reiterated in the present by a tangible fact: consent, the clearly expressed desire to continue a common life.”
“A nation’s existence is (please excuse the metaphor) a daily plebiscite, just as an individual’s existence is a perpetual affirmation of life.”
“The secession and, in the long run, collapse of nations are the consequence of a system which placed these old organisms at the mercy of often poorly enlightened wills.”
“A great aggregation of men, in sane mind and warm heart, created a moral conscience that calls itself a nation. As long as this moral conscience proofs its strength by sacrifices that require the subordination of the individual to the communal good, it is legitimate and has the right to exist.”

17. Émile Durkheim – born 1858

“… the power to react, which is available to the functions of government, once these have emerged, is only an emanation of the power diffused throughout society, since it springs from it. The one power is no more than the reflection of the other; the extent of the one varies with the extent of the other. Moreover, we must add that the institution of this power serves to sustain the common consciousness itself.”
“Repressive law corresponds to what is the heart and center of the common consciousness.”
“… there is no society, whether present or past, which is not, or has not been, contractual, for there is not one that can continue to exist through constraint alone.”
“To seek to realize a higher civilization than that demanded by the nature of the prevailing conditions is to desire to let sickness loose upon the society of which one forms a part. It is not possible to stimulate collective activity excessively, beyond the level determined by the state of the social organism, without compromising its health.”

18. Friedrich A. Hayek – born 1899

“Even our tentative indication of what we shall mean by ‘freedom’ will have shown that it describes a state which man living among his fellows may hope to approach closely but can hardly expect to realize perfectly. The task of a policy of freedom must therefore be to minimize coercion or its harmful effects, even if it cannot eliminate it completely.”
“To turn the whole of society into a single organization built and directed according to a single plan would be to extinguish the very forces that shaped the individual human minds that planned it.”
“Perhaps one of the most important characteristics that distinguish a free from an unfree society is indeed that, in matters of conduct that do not directly affect the protected sphere of others, the rules which are in fact observed by most are of voluntary character and not enforced by coercion.”
“… it seems certain that we shall not stop the drift towards more and more state control unless we stop the inflationary trend… It is no accident that inflationary policies are generally advocated by those who want more government control – though, unfortunately, not by them alone. The increased dependence of the individual upon government which inflation produces and the demand for more government action to which this leads may for the socialist be an argument in its favor. Those who wish to preserve freedom should recognize, however, that inflation is probably the most important single factor in that vicious circle wherein one kind of government action makes more and more government control necessary.”
“There is perhaps nothing more disheartening than the fact that there are still so many intelligent and informed people who in most other respects will defend freedom and yet are induced by the immediate benefits of an expansionist policy to support what, in the long run, must destroy the foundations of a free society.”

19. Bertrand de Jouvenel – born 1903

“What I mean by ‘authority’ is the ability of a man to get his own proposals accepted… Authority of this kind is essential to the forward march of every society, for collective actions and stoppage of disputes cannot be dispensed with. It is certain that, were men deaf to all authority, they would have among them neither co-operative nor security – in short, no Society.”
“… authority can never be dispensed with if confidence is to be assured and quarrels overcome: it is in our view the original source of sovereignty.”
“… the first requirement in an authority is to be a manifest and immediate presence… The more distant that an authority is, the more it needs a halo, or, if no halo is available, the more policemen it will need.”
“The claim advanced three centuries ago (and admitted today) is that the will of the sovereign makes the law for the subject, whatever the will may be and subject only to the condition that it issues from the legitimate sovereign.”
“I regard it as the essential function of the sovereign to ensure the reliability of the individual’s environment… the social universe must be at the same time fluid, responsive to new initiatives, and a solid ground to which the individual may trust… this task of adjustment and stabilisation is the essential duty of the sovereign…”

20. Francis Fukuyama – born 1952

“We no longer have realistic hopes that we can create a ‘great society’ through large government programs.”
“A liberal state is ultimately a limited state, with government activity strictly bounded by a sphere of individual liberty. If such a society is not to become anarchic or otherwise ungovernable, then it must be capable of self-government at levels of social organization below the state.”
“… the reduction of trust in a society will require a more intrusive, rule-making government to regulate social relations.”

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