Quotes About Despotism

The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance.

Nothing could've been more easy to predict, than that it was of no avail for him to have right on his side when his adversary had influence and wealth, and therefore could so victoriously justify any extravagancies that he might think proper to commit. This maxim was completely illustrated in the sequel. Wealth and despotism easily know how to engage those laws as coadjutors of their oppression, which were perhaps at first intended for the safeguards of the poor.

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.

We are now forming a republican government. Real liberty is never found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.

The struggle for freedom is ultimately not resistance to autocrats or oligarchs but resistance to the despotism of public opinion.

Government is frequently and aptly classed under two descriptions-a government of force, and a government of laws; the first is the definition of despotism-the last, of liberty.

We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.

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

Despotism is the only form of government which may with safety to itself, neglect the education of its infant poor.

The revolutionary government is the despotism of liberty against tyranny

Wealth held by a class and used ambitiously becomes as despotic as an absolute monarchy, and has in its hands manners, customs, laws, institutions, and governments themselves.

Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement.

But in all despotic governments, though a particular prince may favour arts and letter, there is a natural degeneracy of mankind.

Tyranny is yielding to the lust of governing.

Small natures require despotism to exercise their sinews, as great souls thirst for equality to give play to their heart.

Despotism accomplishes great things illegally; liberty doesn't even go to the trouble of accomplishing small things legally.

Summation of Leviathan: "The axiom, fear; the method, logic; the conclusion, despotism."

Despotic governments can stand 'moral force' till the cows come home; what they fear is physical force.

As virtue is necessary in a republic, and honor in a monarchy, fear is what is required in a despotism. As for virtue, it is not at all necessary, and honor would be dangerous there.

What would happen if we withdrew? Ã¢â'¬Â¦ After the enormous expenditure which we have incurred in freeing this country from the withering despotism of the Turk, to hand it back to anarchy and confusion, and to take no responsibility for its development would be an act of folly and quite indefensible.

unchecked power corrupts.  

the new world across the Atlantic, with its great, powerful, populous nation, rivaling England in wealth and strength, grown from a small band of Puritan exiles who loved religious liberty better than country, and sought refuge from despotism in the savage wildernesses of an unexplored continent.

In an absolutism, the autocrat is visible and tangible. The real despotism of republican institutions is far deeper, more insidious, because it rests on the popular delusion of self-government and independence. That is the subtle source of democratic tyranny, and, as such, it cannot be reached with a bullet.

the advocates of despotism have drawn arguments, not only against the forms of republican government, but against the very principles of civil liberty. They have decried all free government as inconsistent with the order of society, and have indulged themselves in malicious exultation over its friends and partisans