Despotism Quotes - Page 6

• Nothing renders a nation so despicable as religious despotism.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Religious, Despicable, Nations

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• The distinctions of personal merit and influence, so conspicuous in a republic, so feeble and obscure under a monarchy, were abolished by the despotism of the emperors; who substituted in their room a severe subordination of rank and office, from the titled slaves who were seated on the steps of the throne, to the meanest instruments of arbitrary power.

  Edward Gibbon

  History, Office, Thrones

  Edward Gibbon (2009). “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Edited and Abridged): Abridged Edition”, p.325, Modern Library

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• Neither should men study war with a view to the enslavement of those who do not deserve to be enslaved; but first of all they should provide against their own enslavement, and in the second place obtain empire for the good of the governed, and not for the sake of exercising a general despotism, and in the third place they should seek to be masters only over those who deserve to be slaves.

  Aristotle

  War, Exercise, Men

  Aristotle (2013). “The Essential Aristotle”, p.383, Simon and Schuster

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• If the objects who serve us feel ecstacy, they are much more often concerned with themselves than with us, and our own enjoyment is consequently impaired. The idea of seeing another person experience the same pleasure reduces one to a kind of equality which spoils the unutterable charms that come from despotism.

  Marquis de Sade

  Happiness, Men, Equality

  Sade (marquis de), Marquis de Sade (1987). “The 120 days of Sodom and other writings”, Grove Pr

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• Have them all shot. I don't want any of my workers dissatisfied.

  Charlie Chaplin

  Want, Shots, Dissent

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• It is always observable that the physical and the exact sciences are the last to suffer under despotisms.

  Richard Henry Dana, Jr.

  Suffering, Lasts, Physical Science

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• Europeans have sometimes been beguiled by a despotism that comes concealed in the seductive form of an ideal – as it did in the cases of Hitler and Stalin. This fact may remind us that the possibility of despotism is remote neither in space nor in time.

  Kenneth Minogue

  Space, Seductive, May

  Kenneth Minogue (2000). “Politics: A Very Short Introduction”, p.17, Oxford Paperbacks

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• A long war almost always places nations in this sad alternative: that their defeat delivers them to destruction and their triumph to despotism.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  War, Long, Triumph

  Alexis de Tocqueville (2012). “Democracy in America”, p.159, University of Chicago Press

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• That slow poison [slavery] is daily contaminating the minds and morals of our people. Every gentlemen here is born a petty tyrant, practiced in acts of despotism and cruelty.

  George Mason

  Tyrants, People, Gentleman

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• Freemasonry teaches not merely temperance, fortitude, prudence, justice, brotherly love, relief, and truth, but liberty, equality, and fraternity, and it denounces ignorance, superstition, bigotry, lust tyranny and despotism.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Ignorance, Justice, Lust

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• We look back, already, with astonishment, at the daring outrages committed by despotism, on the reason and rights of man; we look forward with joy, to the period, when it shall be despoiled of all its usurpations, and bound forever in the chains, with which it had loaded its miserable victims.

  James Madison

  Men, Rights, Joy

  James Madison (1867). “1829-1836”, p.467

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• [Restraints on the press] in all ages, have debauched morals, depressed liberty, shackled religion, supported despotism, and deluged the scaffold with blood.

  James Madison

  Blood, Age, Liberty

  James Madison (1865). “Letters and other writings of James Madison”, p.512

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• At a distance, we cannot conceive of the authority of a despot who knows all his subjects on sight.

  Stendhal

  Distance, Power, Government

  "La Chartreuse de Parme (The Charterhouse of Parma)". Book by Stendhal (Chapter 16), 1839.

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• The despotism of custom is on the wane. We are not content to know that things are; we ask whether they ought to be.

  John Stuart Mill

  Customs, Ought, Knows

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• The worst of all States is the democratic State.

  Pierre Corneille

  Democracy, States, Democratic

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  Despotism often presents itself as the repairer of all the ills suffered, the support of just rights, defender of the oppressed, and founder of order.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Rights, Order, Support

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1990). “Democracy in America”

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• All modes of government are failures. Despotism is unjust to everybody, including the despot, who was probably made for better things. Oligarchies are unjust to the many, and ochlocracies are unjust to the few. High hopes were once formed of democracy; but democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people. It has been found out. I must say that it was high time, for all authority is quite degrading. It degrades those who exercise it, and degrades those over whom it is exercised.

  Oscar Wilde

  Mean, Exercise, Government

  "The Soul of Man Under Socialism" (1891)

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• The foremost or indeed sole condition required in order to succeed in centralizing the supreme power in a democratic community is to love equality or to get men to believe you love it. Thus, the science of despotism, which was once so complex, has been simplified and reduced, as it were, to a single principle.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Believe, Men, Order

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1847). “Democracy in America”

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• In comparison to the French Revolution, the American Revolution has come to seem a parochial and rather dull event. This, despitethe fact that the American Revolution was successful--realizing the purposes of the revolutionaries and establishing a durable political regime--while the French Revolution was a resounding failure, devouring its own children and leading to an imperial despotism, followed by an eventual restoration of the monarchy.

  Irving Kristol

  Children, Successful, Political

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• It was natural and perhaps human that the privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction. ...And as a result the average man once more confronts the problem that faced the Minute Man.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Men, Average, Liberty

  Franklin D. Roosevelt (1995). “The Essential Franklin Delano Roosevelt”, Gramercy

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• Beneath a free government there is nothing but the intelligence of the people to keep the people's peace. Order must be preserved, not by a military police or regiments of horse-guards, but by the spontaneous concert of a well-informed population, resolved that the rights which have been rescued from despotism shall not be subverted by anarchy.

  Edward Everett

  Horse, Military, Order

  Edward Everett (1850). “Orations and speeches on various occasions”, p.609

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• There was one species of despotism under which he had long groaned, and that was petticoat government.

  Washington Irving

  Government, Long, Species

  Washington Irving (1999). “Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories”, p.58, Penguin

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• Toleration is not the opposite of intolerance, but is the counterfeit of it. Both are despotisms. The one assumes to itself the right of withholding liberty of conscience, the other of granting it.

  James Madison

  Opposites, Liberty, Assuming

  "Rights of Man". Book by Thomas Paine, 1791.

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• As it was 189 years ago, so today the cause of America is a revolutionary cause. And I am proud this morning to salute you as fellow revolutionaries. Neither you nor I are willing to accept the tyranny of poverty, nor the dictatorship of ignorance, nor the despotism of ill health, nor the oppression of bias and prejudice and bigotry. We want change. We want progress. We want it both abroad and at homeand we aim to get it.

  Lyndon B. Johnson

  Morning, Ignorance, Bias And Prejudice

  Johnson, Lyndon B. (1967). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1966”, p.830, Best Books on

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• Monarchy hardens into despotism. Aristocracy contracts into oligarchy. Democracy expands into the supremacy of numbers.

  Lord Acton

  Numbers, Democracy, Aristocracy

  John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton (2016). “The History of Freedom (and other Essays)”, p.42, Jazzybee Verlag

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