Quotes About Despotism

The foremost, or indeed the sole condition, which is 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, is simplified, and reduced, as it were, to a single principle.

It had been supposed, until our time, that despotism was odious, under whatever form it appeared. But it is a discovery of modern days that there are such things as legitimate tyranny and holy injustice, provided they are exercised in the name of the people.

If ever the free institutions of America are destroyed, that event may be attributed to the unlimited authority of the majority, which may at some future time urge the minorities to desperation, and oblige them to have recourse to physical force. Anarchy will then be the result, but it will have been brought about by despotism.

Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot.

Despotism alone can provide that atmosphere of secrecy which favors crooked dealing and enables the freebooters of finance to make illicit fortunes.

Provincial liberties can subsist for a time without national liberty when those liberties are ancient and linked to habit, mores, and memories, while despotism is new. But it is unreasonable to think that one can create local liberties at will or even maintain them for long if general liberty is suppressed.

A long war almost always places nations in the wretched alternative of being abandoned to ruin by defeat or to despotism by success.

Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot. . . . How is it possible that society should escape destruction if the moral tie be not strengthened in proportion as the political tie is relaxed? and what can be done with a people which is its own master, if it be not submissive to the Divinity?

Despotism, suspicious by its very nature, views the separation of men as the best guarantee of its own permanence and usually does all it can to keep them in isolation. No defect of the human heart suits it better than egoism; a tyrant is relaxed enough to forgive his subjects for failing to love him, provided that they do not love one another...he gives the name of 'good citizens' to those who retreat into themselves.

Le despotisme, qui, de nature, est craintif, voit dans l'isolement des hommes le gage le plus certain de sa propre durée, et il met d'ordinaire tous ses soins à les isoler. Il n'est pas de vice du cÅ"ur humain qui lui agrée autant que l'égoïsme : un despote pardonne aisément aux gouvernés de ne point l'aimer, pourvu qu'ils ne s'aiment pas entre eux.

The desire to grow rich at all costs, the taste for business, the passion for gain, the pursuit of comfort and material enjoyment are thus the most common preoccupations in despotisms.

No vice of the human heart is so acceptable to it as egotism: a despot easily forgives his subjects for not loving him, provided they do not love each other.

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

Remember that there exists a certain malevolence about the formation of any social order. It is the struggle for existence by an artificial entity. Despotism and slavery hover at the edges. Many injuries occur and, thus, the need for laws. The law develops its own power structure, creating more wounds and new injustices. Such trauma can be healed by cooperation, not by confrontation. The summons to cooperate identifies the healer.

People aren't concerned with love; it's too disordered. They prefer despotism. Too much freedom breeds chaos. We can't have that, can we? And how do you make despotism lovable?

It leads to self-fulfilling prophecy and justifications for all manner of obscenities," Leto said. "This … rhetorical despotism, Lord?" "Yes! It shields evil behind walls of self-righteousness which are proof against all arguments against the evil.

This . . . rhetorical despotism, Lord?" "Yes! It shields evil behind walls of self-righteousness which are proof against all arguments against the evil.

Hydraulic despotism: central control of an essential energy such as water, electricity, fuel, medicines, melange. . . Obey the central controlling power or the energy is shut off and you die!

Não se pode fundamentar a política no amor. As pessoas não se interessam pelo amor: é desordenado demais. Elas preferem o despotismo. O excesso de liberdade engendra o caos. Não podemos permitir isso, podemos? E como transformar o despotismo em algo que se possa amar?

You can't build politics on love," he said. "People aren't concerned with love; it's too disordered. They prefer despotism. Too much freedom breeds chaos. We can't have that, can we? And how do you make despotism lovable?

The second assertion was that the pre-colonial political economy conformed to the model of what was called Oriental Despotism.

Hamilton's besetting fear was that American democracy would be spoiled by demagogues who would mouth populist shibboleths to conceal their despotism.

As too much power leads to despotism, too little leads to anarchy, and both eventually to the ruin of the people.

Tyranny and despotism can be exercised by many, more rigorously, more vigorously, and more severely, than by one.