Quotes About Despotism

Democracy passes into despotism.

Man's capacity for self-government is on trial before the world," he said, "and we must conquer or the verdict will be against democratic government and in favor of privilege and despotism everywhere. The conspirators and rebels are attempting the destruction of our democratic government, because democracy…is opposed to privilege and slavery.

General Grant, John Hay recalled, was "deeply impressed with…the late Presidential election. The point which impressed him most powerfully was that which I regarded as the critical one—the pivotal centre of our history—the quiet and orderly character of the whole affair. No bloodshed or riot….It proves our worthiness of free institutions, and our capability of preserving them without running into anarchy or despotism.

Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.

Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' 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 shall 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 hypocrisy.

L'homme est né sociable, c'est-à-dire qu'il cherche dans toutes ses relations l'égalité et la justice ; mais il aime l'indépendance et l'éloge : la difficulté de satisfaire en même temps à ces besoins divers est la première cause du despotisme de la volonté et de l'appropriation qui en est la suite.

Democracy passes into despotism.

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

U]nder 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.

War is the greatest human experience that men have passed through for many centuries. But only when we know, through their own words, the full horror of what they experienced, and the depth and complexity of their feelings when under duress, can we appreciate how they held together and saved the world from despotism.

Whatever government is not a government of laws, is a despotism, let it be called what it may

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.

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 —

Though it was undeclared, there was a new world war being waged, where fundamental decency and respect for human rights were under assault by forces of intolerance, despotism, and blind fervor. And while its battles were sometimes waged in plain sight-- in New York City, in Iraq-- its greater struggle was carried on invisibly, fought in secret, its heroes unknown, its villains hidden.

It is the day of the Dantons, and the Marats, the day of the rabble. The reins of government will be tossed to the populace, or else the populace, drunk with the conceit with which the Dantons and the Marats have filled it, will seize the reins by force. Chaos must follow, and a despotism of brutes and apes, a government of the whole by its lowest parts. It cannot endure, because unless a nation is ruled by its best elements it must wither and decay.

Friendship is necessary and ennobling; but impersonal despotism is destructive of all dignity and manly virtue.

nepotism and despotism will lasts only for a short while. For like a dead fish in the heat of the mid-day sun it is bound to rot and spoil

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

Law And Freedom without Violence (Anarchy) Law And Violence without Freedom (Despotism) Violence without Freedom And Law (Barbarism) Violence with Freedom And Law (Republic)

Against us are all timid men who prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty We are likely to preserve the liberty we have obtained only by unremitting labors and perils.

Only the history of free peoples is worth our attention; the history of men under a despotism is merely a collection of anecdotes.

When men have become heartily wearied of licentious anarchy, their eagerness has been proportionately great to embrace the opposite extreme of rigorous despotism.

We are ruled by chance but never have enough patience to accept its despotism.

You can't build politics on love. People aren't concerned with love; it's too disordered. They prefer despotism. Too much freedom breeds chaos.