Honor is unknown in despotic states.

When the savages of Louisiana wish to have fruit, they cut the tree at the bottom and gather the fruit. That is exactly a…

— Baron de Montesquieu

Moral qualities rule the world, but at short distances the senses are despotic.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“There are two ways of life, one leading to righteousness, which brings happiness, and the other to unrighteousness, which produces misery. One leads to…

— Arthur Findlay

Despotic rules are attempting to deprive women of their rights.

— Yousef Saanei

“He looks as if he were three or four; looks just like one of those unapproachable, incomprehensible, willful little prehuman creatures, who in their…

— Patrick Süskind

All power, even the most despotic, rests ultimately on opinion.

— David Hume

When law becomes despotic, morals are relaxed, and vice versa.

— Honore de Balzac

Whether it comes from a despotic sovereign or an elected president, from a murderous general or a beloved leader, I see power as an…

— Oriana Fallaci

Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.

— Lord Acton

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

— Joseph Addison

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

— Henry Ward Beecher

The idea that laws don't apply to the law-makers is for despotic regimes.

— Julia Hartley-Brewer

Clearly if the United States' relationship with Cuba changed, which would require a regime change inside Cuba, if Cuba moved towards a more democratic…

— Jeb Bush

'The will of the nation' is one of those expressions which have been most profusely abused by the wily and the despotic of every…

— Alexis De Tocqueville

Democracy has two excesses to avoid: the spirit of inequality, which leads to an aristocracy, or to the government of a single individual; and…

— Baron de Montesquieu