Despots Quotes - Page 3

• I'm thinking of a God very different from the God of the Christian and far and away from the God of Islam, because both are depicted as omnipotent Oriental despots, cosmic Saddam Husseins.

  Antony Flew

  Christian, Thinking, Islam

  "Leading Atheist Philosopher Concludes God's Real". www.foxnews.com. December 9, 2004.

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• Men are still men. The despot's wickedness Comes of ill teaching, and of power's excess,-- Comes of the purple he from childhood wears, Slaves would be tyrants if the chance were theirs.

  Victor Hugo

  Teaching, Men, Tyrants

  Victor Hugo (19??). “Poems. The history of a crime”

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• I think it's essential for comic writers to have a hate figure, a despot, a regime to react against, and I think Thatcher was perfect for me, I loathed everything she stood for.

  Sue Townsend

  Hate, Thinking, Perfect

  2002 In the Observer, 24 Mar.

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• A free and open Internet is a despot's worst enemy.

  Jay Samit

  Worst Enemy, Internet, Enemy

  Jay Samit (2015). “Disrupt You!: Master Personal Transformation, Seize Opportunity, and Thrive in the Era of Endless Innovation”, p.235, Macmillan

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• Man, who wert once a despot and a slave, A dupe and a deceiver! a decay, A traveller from the cradle to the grave Through the dim night of this immortal day.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Night, Men, Decay

  'Prometheus Unbound' (1820) act 4, l. 551

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• When I have been travelling up and down on our boats, or about on my collecting tours, and reflected that every brutal, disgusting, mean, low-lived fellow I met, was allowed by our laws to become absolute despot of as many men, women and children, as he could cheat, steal, or gamble money enough to buy,-when I have seen such men in actual ownership of helpless children, of young girls and women,-I have been ready to curse my country, to curse the human race!

  Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Girl, Country, Children

  Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852). “Life Among the Lowly”, p.12

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• Egotism erects its center in itself; love places it out of itself in the axis of the universal whole. Love aims at unity, egotism at solitude. Love is the citizen ruler of a flourishing republic, egotism is a despot in a devastated creation. Egotism sows for gratitude, love for the ungrateful. Love gives, egotism lends; and love does this before the throne of judicial truth, indifferent if for the enjoyment of the following moment, or with the view to a martyr's crown--indifferent whether the reward is in this life or in the next.

  Friedrich Schiller

  Gratitude, Love Is, Axes

  Friedrich Schiller (2017). “Philosophical Letters of Friedrich Schiller”, p.20, Litres

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• A man who's active and incisive can yet keep nail-care much in mind: why fight what's known to be decisive? Custom is despot of mankind.

  Alexander Pushkin

  Fighting, Men, Mind

  "Eugene Onegin". Book by Alexander Pushkin, 1833.

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• When the last of the Reformers died, religion, instead of emancipating the nations, had become an excuse for the criminal art of despots. Calvin preached, and Bellarmine lectured; but Machiavelli reigned.

  Lord Acton

  Art, Criminals, Lasts

  Lord Acton (2016). “The History of Freedom: Great Event”, p.39, VM eBooks

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• In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Religious, Atheist

  Thomas Jefferson (2011). “The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, Volume 7: 28 November 1813 to 30 September 1814”, p.248, Princeton University Press

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• A hurt body and mind aren't just like a dictatorship; they are a dictatorship. There is no tyrant as merciless as pain, no despot so cruel as confusion.

  Stephen King

  Hurt, Pain, Tyrants

  Stephen King (2008). “Duma Key: A Novel”, p.52, Simon and Schuster

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• Nothing is more durable than the dynasty of Doubt; for he reigns in the hearts of all his people, but gives satisfaction to none of them, and yet he is the only despot who can never die, while any of his subjects live.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Heart, People, Giving

  Charles Caleb Colton (1823). “Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan”

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• In this statement, my Scipio, I build on your own admirable definition, that there can be no community, properly so called, unless it be regulated by a combination of rights. And by this definition it appears that a multitude of men may be just as tyrannical as a single despot and indeed this is the most odious of all tyrannies, since no monster can be more barbarous than the mob, which assumes the name and mask of the people.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Men, Rights, Names

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• In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own. It is easier to acquire wealth and power by this combination than by deserving them, and to effect this, they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer for their purposes.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Men, Abuse

  Thomas Jefferson (2004). “Light and Liberty: Reflections on the Pursuit of Happiness”, p.74, Modern Library

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• Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the snake.

  Edgar Wallace

  Fear, Snakes, Tyrants

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• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said any assumption that the US would not use force against North Korea would be a mistake. Such bellicosity frightens liberals. The left's reaction to nutty despots is: he might hit me, so I'll be nice. Rumsfeld's idea is: He'll hit me? Maybe I'll hit him. The beauty of that approach cannot be denied.

  Ann Coulter

  Mistake, Nice, Korea

  Ann Coulter (2003). “Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism”, p.304, Crown Forum

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• The possession of unlimited power will make a despot of almost any man. There is a possible Nero in the gentlest human creature that walks.

  Thomas Bailey Aldrich

  Power, Men, Nero

  Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1907). “The Writings of Thomas Bailey Aldrich”

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• If men use their liberty in such a way as to surrender their liberty, are they thereafter any the less slaves? If people by a plebiscite elect a man despot over them, do they remain free because the despotism was of their own making?

  Herbert Spencer

  Freedom, Men, People

  Herbert Spencer, John Offer (1994). “Spencer: Political Writings”, p.76, Cambridge University Press

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• The savior who wants to turn men into angels is as much a hater of human nature as the totalitarian despot who wants to turn them into puppets.

  Eric Hoffer

  Hater, Nature, Angel

  Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• Peace /n/: A rare state which has only existed when a despot has been fearsome or strong enough to impose it. The image of your head on the end of a stick is a strong incentive toward 'visualizing world peace'.

  Boyd Rice

  Death, Suicide, Strong

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• I realized that I had granted my illness lordship over me. In viewing my depression as a despot subjecting me to its savage fancies, I was able to escape responsibility, to indulge fully my selfish desire to let my ego flourish unfettered, not obliged to anyone. But this wasn't freedom. It was a prison-a cell separating me from those who cared for me and for whom I might have cared.

  Eric G. Wilson

  Depression, Selfish, Responsibility

  Eric G. Wilson (2012). “Everyone Loves a Good Train Wreck: Why We Can't Look Away”, p.128, Sarah Crichton Books

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• The American culture ideal of the "self-made-man," of everyone "standing on his own feet" seemed as tragic a picture as the initiative-destroying dependence on a benevolent despot. He felt and perceived clearly that we all need continuous help from each other, and that this type of interdependence is the greatest challenge to maturity of individual and group functioning.

  Kurt Lewin

  Maturity, Men, Self

  "The Research Center for Group Dynamics".

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• I should favour anything that would increase the present enormous authority of women and their creative action in their own homes. The average woman...is a despot; the average man is a serf.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Women, Home, Average

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• Sanctions make a substantial contribution to power based on privation, and they have never hurt a single despot in the whole history of their use.

  Roger Scruton

  Hurt, Use, Sanctions

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• Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty; power is ever stealing from the many to the few. The manna of popular liberty must be gathered each day or it is rotten. The living sap of today outgrows the dead rind of yesterday. The hand entrusted with power becomes, either form human depravity or esprit de corps, the necessary enemy of the people. Only by continued oversight can the democrat in office be prevented from hardening into a despot; only by unintermitted agitation can a people be sufficiently awake to principle not to let liberty be smothered in material prosperity.

  Wendell Phillips

  Hands, Yesterday, People

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