Despotism Quotes - Page 8

• The moment you introduce a despotism in the world of thought, you succeed in making hypocrites - and you get in such a position that you never know what your neighbor thinks.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Hypocrite, Thinking, Atheism

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.2195, Library of Alexandria

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• You do not know the unfathomable cowardice of humanity...servile in the face of force, pitiless in the face of weakness, implacable before blunders, indulgent before crimes...and patient to the point of martyrdom before all the violences of bold despotism.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Humanity, Liberty, Weakness

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• The East knew and to the present day knows only that One is Free; the Greek and the Roman world, that some are free; the German World knows that All are free. The first political form therefore which we observe in History, is Despotism, the second Democracy and Aristocracy, the third, Monarchy.

  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

  Freedom, Political, Greek

  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (2012). “The Philosophy of History”, p.104, Courier Corporation

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• If the perpetual oscillation of nations between anarchy and despotism is to be replaced by the steady march of self-restraining freedom, it will be because men will gradually bring themselves to deal with political, as they now deal with scientific questions.

  Thomas Huxley

  Men, Self, Political

  Thomas Henry Huxley (2006). “Huxley's Autobiography and Essays”, p.234, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Republican despotism is more fertile in acts of tyranny, because everyone has a hand in it.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Hands, Revolution, Republican

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• Not mythical material productive forces, but reason and ideas determine the course of human affairs. What is needed to stop the trend toward socialism and despotism is common-sense and moral courage.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Ideas, Common Sense, Liberty

  Ludwig Von Mises (1947). “Planned Chaos”, p.83, Ludwig von Mises Institute

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• I am entirely persuaded that the agitations of the public mind advance its powers, and that at every vibration between the points of liberty and despotism, something will be gained for the former. As men become better informed, their rulers must respect them the more.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Men, Mind, Liberty

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.177, Cambridge University Press

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• Democracy is necessarily despotism, as it establishes an executive power contrary to the general will; all being able to decide against one whose opinion may differ, the will of all is therefore not that of all: which is contradictory and opposite to liberty.

  Immanuel Kant

  Opposites, Liberty, Democracy

  Immanuel Kant (1932). “Perpetual peace”

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• How prone all human institutions have been to decay; how subject the best-formed and most wisely organized governments have been to lose their check and totally dissolve; how difficult it has been for mankind, in all ages and countries, to preserve their dearest rights and best privileges, impelled as it were by an irresistible fate of despotism.

  James Monroe

  Country, Fate, Rights

  James Monroe (2006). “The Papers of James Monroe: Selected correspondence and papers, 1776-1794”, Greenwood Publishing Group

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• A warlike nation like the Germans, without either cities, letters, arts, or money, found some compensation for this savage state in the enjoyment of liberty. Their poverty secured their freedom, since our desires and our possessions are the strongest fetters of despotism.

  Edward Gibbon

  Art, Cities, History

  Edward Gibbon (1854). “The history of the decline and fall of the Roman empire, with notes by Milman and Guizot. Ed. by W. Smith”, p.359

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• People forgot that industry is not an end in itself, but should be only a means to insure to man his material subsistence and to make accessible to him the blessings of a higher intellectual culture. Where industry is everything and man is nothing begins the realm of a ruthless economic despotism whose workings are no less disastrous than those of any political despotism.

  Rudolf Rocker

  Mean, Blessing, Men

  Rudolf Rocker (2004). “Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice”, p.2, AK Press

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• Superstition changes a man to a beast, fanaticism makes him a wild beast, and despotism a beast of burden.

  Jean-Francois de La Harpe

  Men, Superstitions, Beast

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• The seeds of freedom . . . have now been scattered where despotism and tyranny ranked and ruled, will be watered by the enlivening dews of God's clemency, till the reapers abolitionists shall shout the harvest home.

  Henry McNeal Turner

  Home, Dew, Harvest

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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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• Confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism. Free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Government, Parent, Libertarian

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence 1793-1798”, p.474, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Socialism is the phantastic younger brother of despotism, which it wants to inherit. Socialism wants to have the fullness of state force which before only existed in despotism. ... However, it goes further than anything in the past because it aims at the formal destruction of the individual ... who ... can be used to improve communities by an expedient organ of government.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Brother, Past, Government

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• What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling sea coasts, our army and our navy... Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in us. Our defense is in the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism at your own doors... You have lost the genius of your own independence and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Army, Men, Doors

  "The Writings of Abraham Lincoln" by Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 5, (pp. 6-7), 2004.

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• He asks how the evil is to be remedied. I tell him that there seems to be little chance for avoiding the extremes of despotism or anarchy; that the only ground of hope must be the morals of the people, but that these are, I fear, too corrupt.

  Gouverneur Morris

  People, Evil, Littles

  Gouverneur Morris (1888). “The Diary and Letters of Gouverneur Morris: Minister of the United States to France ... Etc”

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• I earnestly pray that the Omnipotent Being who has not deserted the cause of America in the hour of its extremest hazard, will never yield so fair a heritage of freedom a prey to 'Anarchy' or 'Despotism'.

  George Washington

  Yield, America, Hazards

  George Washington, Jared Sparks (1835). “The Writings of George Washington: Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private”, p.406

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• Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all of the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.

  Frederick Douglass

  Practice, America, Hypocrisy

  What to the Slave is the 4th of July?, delivered 4 July 1852

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• Are the peoples of the Middle East somehow beyond the reach of liberty? Are millions of men and women and children condemned by history or culture to live in despotism? Are they alone never to know freedom and never even to have a choice in the matter?

  George W. Bush

  Children, Men, Choices

  National Endowment for Democracy Address on the Middle East, delivered 6 November 2003, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Washington, D.C.

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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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