Despotism sits nowhere so secure as under the effigy and…

Other offences, even the greatest, are the violation of one law: despotism is the violation of all.

— Walter Savage Landor

Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty, may have found an established Clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just Government instituted to secure & perpetuate…

— James Madison

Despotism often presents itself as the repairer of all the ills suffered, the support of just rights, defender of the oppressed, and founder of…

— Alexis de Tocqueville

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it…

— Anonymous

“All despotism is bad; but the worst is that which works with the machinery of freedom.”

— Junius

“No longer enslaved or made dependent by force of law, the great majority are so by force of poverty; they are still chained to…

— John Stuart Mill

Liberty ... was a two-headed boon. There was first, the liberty of the people as a whole to determine the forms of their own…

— H. L. Mencken

If Despotism failed only for want of a capable benevolent despot, what chance has Democracy, which requires a whole population of capable voters.

— George Bernard Shaw

Neither should men study war with a view to the enslavement of those who do not deserve to be enslaved; but first of all…

— Aristotle

There are, after all, atheists who say they wish the fable were true but are unable to suspend the requisite disbelief, or who have…

— Christopher Hitchens

Republican despotism is more fertile in acts of tyranny, because everyone has a hand in it.

— Napoleon Bonaparte

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

“The central government was a despotism tempered by military rebellion and assassination and replacement of one scurvy lot of ruling dynasts by another. But…

— Norman F. Cantor

At a distance, we cannot conceive of the authority of a despot who knows all his subjects on sight.

— Stendhal

Generally, I like all islands. There, it is easier to rule.

— Albert Camus