Despotism Quotes - Page 10

• We are ruled by chance but never have enough patience to accept its despotism.

  Edward Dahlberg

  Chance, Enough, Accepting

  Edward Dahlberg (1965). “Reasons of the heart”

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• The free-trade idea, logically applied, will abolish usury; and with usury will disappear the chief bone of contention between labor and capital. But, just at this point, free-traders go over to the enemy; and many writers on political economy, in flat contradiction of the essential principles of that science, have made elaborate arguments to prove self-government in finance, impossible! What shall we think of men who, having dethroned kings, demolished popes, destroyed slave oligarchies and assailed tariff monopoly, advise submission to the most oppressive and dishonest of despotisms, Usury?

  Ezra Heywood

  Kings, Men, Thinking

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• Korell is that frequent phenomenon in history : the republic whose ruler has every attribute of the absolute monarch but the name. It therefore enjoyed the usual despotism unrestrained even by those two moderating influences in the legitimate monarchies: regal "honor" and court etiquette.

  Isaac Asimov

  Names, Two, Honor

  Isaac Asimov (1991). “Great Tales of the Golden Age of Science Fiction”, Bbs Publishing Corporation

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• A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible. The rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left.

  Abraham Lincoln

  People, Majority, Principles

  Abraham Lincoln (1989). “Abraham Lincoln: Speeches & Writings Part 2: 1859-1865: Library of America #46”, p.220, Library of America

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• A court which yields to the popular will thereby licenses itself to practice despotism, for there can be no assurance that it will not, on another occasion, indulge its own will.

  Felix Frankfurter

  Yield, Practice, Justice

  "American Federation of Labor (AFL) v. American Sash & Door Co., 335 U.S. 538". U.S. Supreme Court case, supreme.justia.com. January 3, 1949.

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• Perhaps a revolution can overthrow autocratic despotism and profiteering or power-grabbing oppression, but it can never truly reform a manner of thinking; instead, new prejudices, just like the old ones they replace, will serve as a leash for the great unthinking mass.

  Immanuel Kant

  Thinking, Revolution, Reform

  Immanuel Kant (1983). “Perpetual Peace and Other Essays: on Politics, History, and Morals”, p.42, Hackett Publishing

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• The first time I read the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, my instinctive reaction was, so what’s wrong with THAT?  Isn’t that the way any master plan should work?  Doesn’t the public deserve - nay, demand - such despotism?

  Anton Szandor LaVey

  Zion, Demand, Way

  Anton Szandor LaVey (1998). “Satan Speaks!”, p.71, Feral House

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• Other offences, even the greatest, are the violation of one law: despotism is the violation of all.

  Walter Savage Landor

  Law, Violation, Offence

  Walter Savage Landor (1826). “Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen”, p.60

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• The market is sovereign and in the magic economy of the small entrepreneur there is no authoritarian center... in the political sphere... the equilibrium of powers prevails, and hence there is no chance of despotism.

  C. Wright Mills

  Political, Entrepreneur, Magic

  C. Wright Mills (2000). “The Power Elite”, p.242, Oxford University Press

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• Tyranny and despotism can be exercised by many, more rigorously, more vigorously, and more severely, than by one.

  Andrew Johnson

  Freedom, Democracy, Tyranny

  "Presidential Government in the United States: The Unwritten Constitution". Book by Caleb Perry Patterson, 1947.

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• The question now was...whether that beautiful fabric [the English constitution]...was to be maintained in that freedom...for which blood had been spilt; or whether we were to submit to that system of despotism, which had so many advocates in this country.

  Charles James Fox

  Beautiful, Country, Blood

  "The Speeches of the Rt. Hon. C. J. Fox in the House of Commons. Volume I" edited by J. Wright, (p. 261), 1815.

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• Socialism easily accepts despotism. It requires the strongest execution of power -- power sufficient to interfere with property.

  Lord Acton

  Execution, Socialism, Accepting

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• I had long since insisted upon interpreting the things that Fate forced me to do as victories of my own will and intelligence, and now this bad habit had grown into a sort of frenzied arrogance. In the nature of what I was calling my intelligence there was a touch of something illegitimate, a touch of the sham pretender who has been placed on the throne by some freak chance. This dolt of a usurper could not foresee the revenge that would inevitably be wreaked upon his stupid despotism.

  Yukio Mishima

  Revenge, Stupid, Fate

  "Confessions of a Mask". Book by Yukio Mishima, 1949.

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• The complete emancipation of women from the ties which held them back in the past, during the ages of despotism and ignorance, is a basic aim of the Party and the Revolution. Women make up one half of society. Our society will remain backward and in chains unless its women are liberated, enlightened and educated.

  Saddam Hussein

  Party, Ignorance, Past

  Saddam Hussein (2009). “Social and Foreign Affairs in Iraq (Routledge Revivals)”, p.14, Routledge

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• The United States has already passed on as the world's economic leader. Having flouted Thomas Jefferson for too long, America has succumbed to public debt, the 'fore horse for oppression and despotism,' after which 'taxation will follow, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.'

  Ilana Mercer

  Horse, America, Long

  "Economic Apocalypse Now". www.wnd.com. June 03, 2011.

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• This [the U.S. Constitution] is likely to be administered for a course of years and then end in despotism... when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Government, Years, People

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• It's political Daddyism and it's as old as demagogues and despotism.

  Barry Goldwater

  Political

  "Nation: The Underdog Underdog". content.time.com. November 06, 1964.

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• All education is despotism. It is perhaps impossible for the young to be conducted without introducing in many cases the tyranny implicit in obedience. Go there; do that; read; write; rise; lie down - will perhaps forever be the language addressed to youth by age.

  William Godwin

  Lying, Writing, Forever

  William Godwin (1823). “The enquirer. Reflections on education, manners, and literature. In a series of essays”, p.53

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• No despotism is so formidable as that of a religion or a scientific system.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Formidable

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• A state too expensive in itself, or by virtue of its dependencies, ultimately falls into decay; its free government is transformed into a tyranny; it disregards the principles which it should preserve, and finally degenerates into despotism. The distinguishing characteristic of small republics is stability: the character of large republics is mutability.

  Simon Bolivar

  Fall, Character, Government

  Simon Bolivar's letter from Jamaica, Summer 1815.

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• Liberty ... was a two-headed boon. There was first, the liberty of the people as a whole to determine the forms of their own government, to levy their own taxes, and to make their own laws.... There was second, the liberty of the individual man to live his own life, within the limits of decency and decorum, as he pleased -- freedom from the despotism of the majority.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Law, Two

  Lapham's Quarterly, Alexander Hamilton, Ezra Pound, Richard Hofstadter, Thomas Jefferson (2016). “Alexander Hamilton: Lapham's Quarterly - Special Issue”, p.124, Pronoun

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• During the last dozen years the tales of suppression of free assemblage, free press, and free speech, by local authorities or the State operating under martial law have been so numerous as to have become an old story. They are attacked at the instigation of an economically and socially powerful class, itself enjoying to the full the advantages of free communications, but bent on denying them to the class it holds within its power.

  Edward Alsworth Ross

  Powerful, War, Military

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• Oligopoly is an imperfect monopoly. Like the despotism of the Dual Monarchy, it is saved only by its incompetence.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Imperfect, Incompetence, Oligopoly

  John Kenneth Galbraith (2015). “The New Industrial State”, p.226, Princeton University Press

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• The right to discuss freely and openly, by speech, by the pen, by the press, all political questions, and to examine the animadvert upon all political institutions is a right so clear and certain, so interwoven with our other liberties, so necessary, in fact, to their existence, that without it we must fall into despotism and anarchy.

  William C. Bryant

  Fall, Political, Liberty

  "The Death of Lovejoy" by William C. Bryant (November 18, 1837), as quoted in William Cullen Bryant II "Power For Sanity: Selected Editorials of William Cullen Bryant, 1829-61" (p. 78), 1994.

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• All such men are, or ought to be, agreed, that simple governments are despotisms; and of all despotisms, a democracy, though the least durable, is the most violent.

  Fisher Ames

  Simple, Men, Democracy

  Fisher Ames (1835). “The influences of democracy on liberty, property, and the happiness of society, considered”, p.45

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