Quotes About Despots

Diktatoren und Despoten sind bekanntlich prädestiniert dafür, poetischem Raunen anheimzufallen

It is far easier to concentrate power than to concentrate knowledge. That is why so much social engineering backfires and why so many despots have led their countries into disasters.

It is the old practice of despots to use a part of the people to keep the rest in order.

Despots play their part in the works of thinkers. The writer doubles and trebles the power of writing when a ruler imposes silence on the people.

Between the two lay a multitude of political units—republics and despots—in part of long standing, in part of recent origin, whose existence was founded simply on their power to maintain it.

Yeah, you're sitting in a tree because you're fine . That's easy to see. I can't believe this is Maximum Ride , destroyer of despots, warrior hottie, leader of the flock! All you need now to make yourself more pathetic is a pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream!

Close alliances with despots are never safe for free states.

Enlightened despots are mythical creatures; real despots seem more interested in stealing money or installing their sons after them.

To a Certain Cantatrice     Here, take this gift,   I was reserving it for some hero, speaker, or general,   One who should serve the good old cause, the great idea, the       progress and freedom of the race,   Some brave confronter of despots, some daring rebel;   But I see that what I was reserving belongs to you just as much as to any.

There are three kinds of despots. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the body. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the soul. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the soul and body alike. The first is called the Prince. The second is called the Pope. The third is called the People.

There are three kinds of despots.  There is the despot who tyrannises over the body.  There is the despot who tyrannises over the soul.  There is the despot who tyrannises over the soul and body alike.  The first is called the Prince.  The second is called the Pope.  The third is called the People.  The Prince may be cultivated. 

which among you does not know and suffer under such benevolent despots? It is in vain you say to them, 'Dear madam, I took Podgers' specific at your orders last year, and believe in it. Why, why, am I to recant and accept the Rodger's articles now?' There is no help for it; the faithful proselytizer, if she cannot convice by argument, bursts into tears, and the recusant finds himself, at the end of the conteest, taking down the bolus, and saying, 'Well, well, Rodger's be it.

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.

Last chances in the Middle East have been two a dirham since the 1950s. Each year the enmities are more profound, the despots more bloodthirsty and clownish, the violence more extreme, and the conditions of ordinary existence more ghastly.

The alternative to the rule of law is the rule of despots.

Every step in the direction of Fascism—every plucked feather—causes damage to individuals and to society; each makes the next step shorter. To hold the line, we must recognize that despots rarely reveal their intentions and that leaders who begin well frequently become more authoritarian the longer they hold power.

To hold the line, we must recognize that despots rarely reveal their intentions and that leaders who begin well frequently become more authoritarian the longer they hold power.

Freedom is contagious. That's why despots fear it so much.

Poverty in a democracy is as much to be preferred to what is called prosperity under despots, as freedom is to slavery.

This was the ideology of the European enlightened despots of the eighteenth century, especially Prussia's Frederick the Great, who ruled through a meritocratic class of efficient, educated, benevolent bureaucrats, who, more than ordinary citizens, could divine the spirit of the times and knew which way the arc of history bent, so they could speed it along in the right direction.