Despotism Quotes - Page 4

• It is odd to consider the connection between despotism and barbarity, and how the making one person more than man makes the rest less.

  Joseph Addison

  Men, Connections, Odd

  Joseph Addison, Richard Steele (1854). “The Spectator”, p.407

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• 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.

  Eric Hoffer

  Strong, Power, Purpose

  Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• Slave power crushes freedom of speech and of opinion. Slave power degrades labor. Slave power is arrogant, is jealous and intrusive, is cruel, is despotic, not only over the slave but over the community, the state.

  Elizabeth Van Lew

  Crush, Freedom, Jealous

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• The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position.

  George Washington

  Real, Heart, Government

  George Washington, Andrew Jackson (1862). “Washington's Farewell Address: The Proclamation of Jackson Against Nullification, and the Declaration of Independence”, p.8

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• Two forms of government are favorable to the prevalence of falsehood and deceit. Under a Despotism, men are false, treacherous, and deceitful through fear, like slaves dreading the lash. Under a Democracy they are so as a means of attaining popularity and office, and because of the greed for wealth.

  Albert Pike

  Mean, Men, Two

  Albert Pike “Morals and Dogma : Scottish Rite in Freemasonry”, Lulu.com

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• Despotism and freedom of the press cannot exist together.

  Leon Gambetta

  Political, Together, Freedom Of The Press

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• Of the people, by the people, for the people.

  Sun Yat-sen

  4th Of July, Patriotic, Democracies Have

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• ‎A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another; and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the dominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, an aristocracy, or a majority of the existing generation; in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by a natural tendency to one over the body.

  John Stuart Mill

  Education, Successful, Government

  John Stuart Mill (1978). “On Liberty”, Penguin Books

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• In a government framed for durable liberty, not less regard must be paid to giving the magistrate a proper degree of authority, to make and execute the laws with rigour, than to guarding against encroachments upon the rights of the community. As too much power leads to despotism, too little leads to anarchy, and both eventually to the ruin of the people.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Law, Rights, Government

  Alexander Hamilton (1961). “1779-1781”

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• I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations; but, on a candid examination of history, we shall find that turbulence, violence, and abuse of power, by the majority trampling on the rights of the minority, have produced factions and commotions, which, in republics, have, more frequently than any other cause, produced despotism.

  James Madison

  Believe, Rights, Government

  James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

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• Absolute power turns its possessors not into a God but an anti-God. For God turned clay into men, while the absolute despot turns men into clay.

  Eric Hoffer

  Power, Men, Clay

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• Wherever despotism abounds, the sources of public information are the first to be brought under its control.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Information, Firsts, Source

  "The Press Under a Free Government". Address before the American Society of Newspaper Editors in Washington, January 17, 1925.

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• A great civilization is not conquered from without, until it has destroyed itself from within. The essential causes of Rome's decline lay in her people, her morals, her class struggle, her failing trade, her bureaucratic despotism, her stifling taxes, her consuming wars.

  Will Durant

  War, Struggle, Rome

  Will Durant, Ariel Durant (1944). “The Story of Civilization: Caesar and Christ, a history of Roman civilization and of Christianity from their beginnings to A.D. 325”

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• Nothing is more deceptive or more dangerous than the pretence of a desire to simplify government. The simplest governments are despotisms; the next simplest, limited monarchies; but all republics, all governments of law, must impose numerous limitations and qualifications of authority, and give many positive and many qualified rights.

  Daniel Webster

  Rights, Government, Law

  Daniel Webster, James Rees (1839). “The Beauties of the Hon. Daniel Webster: Selected and Arranged, with a Critical Essay on His Genius and Writings”, p.83

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• Against us are all timid men who prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty We are likely to preserve the liberty we have obtained only by unremitting labors and perils.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Men, Sea, Liberty

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.416, Cambridge University Press

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• Its authors meant it to be... a stumbling block to those who in after times might seek to turn a free people back into the hateful paths of despotism. They knew the proneness of prosperity to breed tyrants, and they meant when such should re-appear in this fair land and commence their vocation they should find left for them at least one hard nut to crack.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Block, Nuts, Land

  Abraham Lincoln (2008). “Speeches and Letters of Abraham Lincoln(1832-1865) (EasyRead Super Large 20pt Edition)”, p.139, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• Toleration is not the opposite of intoleration, but it is the counterfeit of it. Both are despotisms. The one assumes to itself the right of withholding liberty of conscience, and the other of granting it. The one is the pope, armed with fire and fagot, and the other is the pope selling or granting indulgences.

  Thomas Paine

  Fire, Opposites, Religion

  Thomas Paine (1859). “Complete Works”, p.89

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• A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations...is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy or to despotism.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Law, People, Majority

  First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861.

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• To begin with unlimited freedom is to end with unlimited despotism.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Ends, Unlimited

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• A democratic despotism is like a theocracy: it assumes its own correctness.

  Walter Bagehot

  Freedom, Government, Democracy

  Walter Bagehot (1951). “Literary Studies”

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• Moral decay first hampers and then strangles honest government, regular commerce, and even the ability to take genuine pleasure in the goods of this world. Compulsion is applied from above as self-discipline relaxes below, and the last liberties expire under the weight of a unitary state.... Since religion has lost its empire over the souls of men, the most prominent boundary that divided good from evil is overthrown; kings and nations are guided by chance and none can say where are the natural limits of despotism and the bound of license.

  Russell Kirk

  Kings, Men, Self

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• Despotism has forever had a powerful hold upon the world. Autocratic government, not self-government, has been the prevailing state of mankind. The record of past history is the record, not of the success of republics, but of their failure.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Powerful, Past, Government

  Calvin Coolidge (2001). “The Price of Freedom: Speeches and Addresses”, p.343, The Minerva Group, Inc.

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• If there is one fact we really can prove, from the history that we really do know, it is that despotism can be a development, often a late development and very often indeed the end of societies that have been highly democratic. A despotism may almost be defined as a tired democracy. As fatigue falls on a community, the citizens are less inclined for that eternal vigilance which has truly been called the price of liberty; and they prefer to arm only one single sentinel to watch the city while they sleep.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Fall, Tired, Sleep

  "The Everlasting Man". Book by G. K. Chesterton, 1925.

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• Liberty begets anarchy, anarchy leads to despotism, and despotism brings about liberty once again. Millions of human beings have perished without being able to make any of these systems triumph.

  Honore de Balzac

  Liberty, Triumph, Able

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• The source of the terror in Lebanon as in Iraq is to be found in the Koran and in the despotisms of the Arab Middle East.

  David Horowitz

  Iraq, Lebanon, Middle East

  "Jaws of Defeat". www.jewishworldreview.com. July 31, 2006.

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