Despotism Quotes - Page 2

• They have exiled me now from their society and I am pleased, because humanity does not exile except the one whose noble spirit rebels against despotism and oppression. He who does not prefer exile to slavery is not free by any measure of freedom

  Khalil Gibran

  Truth, Freedom, Humanity

  8 Copy quote

• We should...be able to see that our interest would be best served not by asking the state to promulgate our values but by forbidding the state to promulgate any values at all. If the state can espouse some value that we love, it can, with equal justice, espouse others we do not love.

  Richard Mitchell

  Justice, Would Be, Asking

  9 Copy quote

• Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Freedom, 4th Of July, Men

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence 1793-1798”, p.238, Cosimo, Inc.

  35 Copy quote

  Show source

• The constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruption's of time and party, its members would become despots.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Party, Hands, Knowing

  Thomas Jefferson, H. A. Washington (2011). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private”, p.178, Cambridge University Press

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Encouragement, Difficult And Easy, Political

  Letter to Marquis de Lafayette, 2 Apr. 1790

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.

  Thomas Jefferson

  War, Military, Parent

  Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson (1988). “Paine and Jefferson on Liberty”, p.143, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Country, Freedom, Taken

  Letter to Joshua F. Speed, 24 Aug. 1855

  319 Copy quote

  Show source

• Despotism can only exist in darkness, and there are too many lights now in the political firmament to permit it to remain anywhere, as it has heretofore done, almost everywhere.

  James Madison

  Light, Tyrants, Political

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

  13 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

  Lord Acton

  Inspirational, Leadership, Work

  Letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, 3 April 1887, in Louise Creighton 'Life and Letters of Mandell Creighton' (1904) vol. 1, ch. 13.

  136 Copy quote

  Show source

• Despotism is the only form of government which may with safety to itself, neglect the education of its infant poor.

  Samuel Horsley

  Government, Safety, May

  Samuel Horsley (1827). “Sermons”, p.104

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I will believe in the right of one man to govern a nation despotically when I find a man born unto the world with boots and spurs, and a nation with saddles on their backs.

  Algernon Sidney

  Believe, Men, Spurs

  13 Copy quote

• Bureaucracy, the rule of no one, has become the modern form of despotism.

  Mary McCarthy

  Liberty, Libertarian, Modern

  "The Vita Activa". The New Yorker, October 18, 1958.

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity. Too absurd for belief, too impossible to convince, and too inconsistent for practice, it renders the heart torpid or produces only atheists or fanatics. As an engine of power, it serves the purpose of despotism, and as a means of wealth, the avarice of priests, but so far as respects the good of man in general it leads to nothing here or hereafter.

  Thomas Paine

  Atheist, Heart, Mean

  54 Copy quote

• Any government, that is its own judge of, and determines authoritatively for the people, what are its own powers over the people, is an absolute government of course. It has all the powers that it chooses to exercise. There is no other or at least no more accurate definition of a despotism than this.

  Lysander Spooner

  Exercise, Government, People

  Lysander Spooner (1971). “The Collected Works of Lysander Spooner: Legal writings”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  John Stuart Mill

  School Education, Education And Freedom, Government

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

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Despotism is a long crime.

  Victor Hugo

  Long, Crime

  7 Copy quote

• But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Government, Tyrants, Long

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence 1771 - 1779, the Summary View, and the Declaration of Independence”, p.202, Cosimo, Inc.

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• What a triumph for the advocates of despotism to find that we are incapable of governing ourselves, and that systems founded on the basis of equal liberty are merely ideal and fallacious.

  George Washington

  Liberty, Triumph, Equal

  George Washington, Jared Sparks (1837). “The Writings of George Washington: Life of Washington”, p.426

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• The flames kindled on the Fourth of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them.

  Thomas Jefferson

  July, Flames, Too Much

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, cont”, p.218

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Despots govern by terror. They know that he who fears God fears nothing else; and therefore they eradicate from the mind, through their Voltaire, their Helvetius, and the rest of that infamous gang, that only sort of fear which generates true courage.

  Edmund Burke

  Mind, Gang, Infamous

  Edmund Burke (1852). “The works and correspondence of...Edmund Burke”, p.378

  51 Copy quote

  Show source

• In times of anarchy one may seem a despot in order to be a saviour.

  Victor de Riqueti, marquis de Mirabeau

  Order, May, Anarchy

  8 Copy quote

• Society will develop a new kind of servitude which covers the surface of society with a network of complicated rules, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate. It does not tyrannise but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Character, Animal, Government

  159 Copy quote

• Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Party, Passion, Men

  Thomas Jefferson “Selected letters of Thomas Jefferson”, Lulu.com

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Under a Presidential government, a nation has, except at the electing moment, no influence; it has not the ballot-box before it; its virtue is gone, and it must wait till its instant of despotism again returns.

  Walter Bagehot

  Government, Presidential, Waiting

  Walter Bagehot (1930). “The English Constitution: And Other Political Essays”, p.44, Lulu.com

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Whatever crushes individuality is despotism.

  John Stuart Mill

  Crush, Individuality, Liberty

  On Liberty ch. 3 (1859)

  46 Copy quote

  Show source