On any other hypothesis, the delegation of judicial power would annul the authority delegating it; and the concurrence of this department with the others in usurped powers, might subvert forever, and beyond the possible reach of any rightful remedy, the very Constitution which all were instituted to preserve.
We have usurped many of the powers we once ascribed to God.
The State, of course, is absolutely indispensable to the preservation of law and order, and the promotion of peace and social cooperation. What is unnecessary and evil, what abridges the liberty and threatens the true welfare of the individual, is the State that has usurped excessive powers and grown beyond its legitimate function - the super-State, the socialist State, the redistributive State, in brief, the ironically misnamed 'Welfare State. '
To an ever greater extent out experience is governed by pictures, pictures in newspapers and magazines, on television and in the cinema. Next to these pictures firsthand experience begins to retreat, to seem more and more trivial. While it once seemed that pictures had the function of interpreting reality, it now seems they have usurped it. It therefore becomes imperative to understand the picture itself, not in order to uncover a lost reality, but to determine how a picture becomes a signifying structure of its own accord.
It [Adam's act] cast off the authority of God, usurped his prerogative, and gave the mind up to the dominion of natural desire
For parents to restrain the inclinations of their children in marriage is an usurped power.
Whenever the pulpit is usurped by a formalist, then is the worshipper defrauded and disconsolate.
Make men wise, and by that very operation you make them free. Civil liberty follows as a consequence of this; no usurped power can stand against the artillery of opinion.
