Quotes About Republics

Those princes or republics that wish to maintain their integrity must, above all else, maintain the integrity of their religious ceremonies, and must always hold them in veneration, because there can be no greater indication of the ruin of a state than to see a disregard for its divine worship.

Just as the observance of divine worship is the cause of the greatness of republics, so the disregard of divine worship is the cause of their ruin, because where fear of God is lacking, that kingdom must either come to ruin or be sustained through fear of a prince who makes up for the shortcomings in its religion.

the authority that is seized by violence, not that given by votes, harms republics.

But in republics there is more vitality, greater hatred, and more desire for vengeance, which will never permit them to allow the memory of their former liberty to rest; so that the safest way is to destroy them or to reside there.

As long as the human heart is strong and the human reason weak, royalty will be strong because it appeals to diffuse feeling, and Republics weak because they appeal to the understanding.

America, then, is only as good as the citizens of any era who choose to preserve and to nourish it for one more generation. Republics are so often lost not over centuries but within a single decade.3

In monarchies, each man's desire to do what was right in his own eyes could be restrained by beer, or force, by patronage, or by honor, and by professional standing armies. By contrast, republics had to hold themselves together from the bottom up, ultimately.

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.

Debt is the fatal disease of republics, the first thing and the mightiest to undermine governments and corrupt the people.

As in Athens, the right to participate was restricted to men, just as it was also in all later democracies and republics until the twentieth century.

Bound together by common ties of language, history and religion, they offered a deceptive appearance of strength and solidarity. Two nations, Syria and Lebanon, were French-style republics. Three, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Jordan, were quasi-feudal kingdoms evolved from desert tribal patterns. Two, Egypt and Iraq, had constitutional monarchies of British inspiration.

Luxury ruins republics; poverty, monarchies.

It was in making education not only common to all, but in some sense compulsory on all, that the destiny of the free republics of America was practically settled.

The Arab monarchies, especially Jordan and Morocco, are more legitimate than the false republics, with their stolen elections, regime-dominated courts and rubber-stamp parliaments.

Nations that had spent a thousand years under tyrants did not transform into free republics overnight because the United States wished them to do so. Elections alone did not a democracy make; they could bring strongmen to power and keep them there. Democracy, as it developed, could not be easily exported; it was not a commodity like soybeans or sneakers but an ideal that lived in the mind.

Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners.

Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in the ancient Greek republics: freedom for the slave-owners.

The people are not always well-informed, but is better that they have misconceptions that make them restless than that they be lethargic-for lethargy in the people means death for republics.

It was in making education not only common to all, but in some sense compulsory on all, that the destiny of the free republics of America was practically settled. Every man was to be trained, not only to the use of arms, but of his wits also; and it is these which alone make the others effective weapons for the maintenance of freedom.

It was in making education not only common to all, but in some sense compulsory on all, that the destiny of the free republics of America was practically settled.

the Union of these States—Monarchs form alliances—Republics form leagues—but here, behold a band of brothers.

An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics. —PLUTARCH I

As I look back to the events of December 1991, each time I come to the conclusion that I had no right to act differently. To act counter to the decisions made by eleven republics, whose Supreme Soviets approved the Minsk agreement, would have meant to unleash a bloody slaughter, which might have developed into a global catastrophe.

The U.S. has unthinkingly embarked upon a neoimperial policy that must involve us in virtually every great war of the coming century--and wars are the death of republics. If we continue on this course of reflexive interventions, enemies will one day answer our power with the weapon of the weak-terror, and eventually cataclysmic terrorism on U.S. soil.