Despotism Quotes - Page 3

• So long as war is the main business of nations, temporary despotism - despotism during the campaign - is indispensable.

  Walter Bagehot

  Business, War, Tyrants

  Walter Bagehot (1873). “Physics and Politics: Or, Thoughts on the Application of the Principles of "natural Selection" and "inheritance" to Political Society”, p.65

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• Freedom of conscience entails more dangers than authority and despotism.

  Michel Foucault

  Freedom, Tyrants, Authority

  Michel Foucault (1971). “Madness and Civilization”

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• As a nation we began by declaring that all me are created equal. We now practically read it, all men are created equal except Negroes.

  Abraham Lincoln

  War, Men, Equal

  Letter to Joshua F. Speed, 24 Aug. 1855

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• Equality, rightly understood as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences; wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism.

  Barry Goldwater

  Father, Equality, Differences

  Speech Accepting the Republican Presidential Nomination, delivered 16 July 1964, San Francisco

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• The revolutionary government is the despotism of liberty against tyranny

  Georg Buchner

  Government, Tyrants, Liberty

  Georg Buchner, Howard Brenton (2013). “Danton's Death”, p.17, A&C Black

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• The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement.

  John Stuart Mill

  Advancement, Standing Alone, Humans

  John Stuart Mill (1989). “J. S. Mill: 'On Liberty' and Other Writings”, p.70, Cambridge University Press

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• Man is insatiable for power; he is infantile in his desires and, always discontented with what he has, loves only what he has not. People complain of the despotism of princes; they ought to complain of the despotism of man.

  Joseph de Maistre

  Love, Power, Men

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• Despotism can no more exist in a nation until the liberty of the press be destroyed than the night can happen before the sun is set.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Night, Liberty, Sun

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.198

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• Democracy has two excesses to avoid: the spirit of inequality, which leads to an aristocracy, or to the government of a single individual; and the spirit of extreme equality, which conducts it to despotism, as the despotism of a single individual finishes by conquest.

  Baron de Montesquieu

  Wisdom, Democracies Have, Government

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• France was long a despotism tempered by epigrams.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Long, France, Epigrams

  History of the French Revolution vol. 3, bk. 7, ch. 7 (1837)

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• The more complete the despotism, the more smoothly all things move on the surface.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Moving, Tyrants, Surface

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan Brownell Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Ida Husted Harper (1889). “History of woman suffrage”

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• Despotism isn't nearly as bad as it's cracked up to be.

  Arabella Weir

  Cracked

  "Auditions are hell, but I never thought that I would have to go through 'casting' to get on Newsnight - and fail" by Arabella Weir, www.theguardian.com. May 26, 2006.

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• Whatever crushes individuality is despotism.

  John Stuart Mill

  Crush, Individuality, Liberty

  On Liberty ch. 3 (1859)

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• Religions are the cradles of despotism.

  Marquis de Sade

  Tyrants, Religion, Literature

  Marquis de Sade “Philosophy in the Bedroom: An Erotic Novel”, Library of Alexandria

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• The chains of military despotism, once fastened upon a nation, ages might pass away before they could be shaken off.

  William Henry Harrison

  Military, Tyrants, Age

  David A. Durfee, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, United States. President (1841-1845 : Tyler) (1970). “William Henry Harrison, 1773-1841: John Tyler, 1790-1862; chronology, documents, bibliographical aids”, Oceana Pubns

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• Each man has an equal social right to multiply his power of motion by all the social factors of civilization. Private property in any of these factors is inconsistent with this fundamental right; it must, obviously, prove a source of economic despotism and industrial slavery.

  Daniel De Leon

  Men, Civilization, Tyrants

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• There are three kinds of despots. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the body. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the soul. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the soul and body alike. The first is called the Prince. The second is called the Pope. The third is called the People.

  Oscar Wilde

  Government, Soul And Body, People

  Oscar Wilde (1969). “The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde”, p.282, University of Chicago Press

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

  Victor de Riqueti, marquis de Mirabeau

  Order, May, Anarchy

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.

  John Stuart Mill

  Crush, Men, Names

  John Stuart Mill (2015). “On Liberty, Utilitarianism and Other Essays”, p.62, OUP Oxford

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• The doctrine of blind obedience and unqualified submission to any human power, whether civil or ecclesiastical, is the doctrine of despotism.

  Angelina Grimke

  Doctrine, Libertarian, Unqualified

  Sarah Grimke, Angelina Grimke (2015). “On Slavery and Abolitionism: Essays and Letters”, p.97, Penguin

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