Despotism Quotes

The worst of all States is the democratic State.

— Pierre Corneille

Despotism is a long crime.

— Victor Hugo

Honor is unknown in despotic states.

— Baron de Montesquieu

Fear must rule in a despotism.

— Lajos Kossuth

Religions are the cradles of despotism.

— Marquis de Sade

Of the people, by the people, for the people,

— Sun Yat-sen

Democracy passes into despotism.

— Plato

Whatever crushes individuality is despotism.

— John Stuart Mill

Bureaucracy, the rule of no one, has become the modern form of despotism.

— Mary McCarthy

It's political Daddyism and it's as old as demagogues and despotism.

— Barry Goldwater

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

— Walter Savage Landor

No despotism is so formidable as that of a religion or a scientific system.

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

“Despotism despieses nothing so much as righteousness in its victims”

— Gregory David Roberts

Equating brutality and despotism with leadership is not an American value.

— Jake Tapper

Despotism and freedom of the press cannot exist together.

— Leon Gambetta

Despotism isn't nearly as bad as it's cracked up to be.

— Arabella Weir

The steward, according to custom, had stopped all the clocks. This, in the language of Narouz, said "Your stay with us is…

— Lawrence Durrell

William: "I'm sure we can all pull together, sir." Vetinari: "Oh, I do hope not. Pulling together is the aim of despotism…

— Terry Pratchett

It seems that the inevitable fate of man is never attain complete freedom: princes everywhere tend to despotism and the people to…

— Jean-Paul Marat

In matters editorial, I am a believer in totalitarian despotism. Most writers are lazy, difficult, selfish, thoughtless, and unreliable.

— John Derbyshire

Oligopoly is an imperfect monopoly. Like the despotism of the Dual Monarchy, it is saved only by its incompetence.

— John Kenneth Galbraith

“I always said a good despotism was the best form of government; and I am twice as much in favour of it…

— Elizabeth Gaskell

To consider judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions is a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place…

— Thomas Jefferson

The doctrine of blind obedience and unqualified submission to any human power, whether civil or ecclesiastical, is the doctrine of despotism.

— Angelina Grimke

Toleration is not the opposite of intoleration, but it is the counterfeit of it. Both are despotisms. The one assumes to itself…

— Thomas Paine

The distinctions of personal merit and influence, so conspicuous in a republic, so feeble and obscure under a monarchy, were abolished by…

— Edward Gibbon

Which is more subversive-and corrosive-to believe in altruism or to see it simply as a cloak of self interest? Even if altruism…

— Frank Prochaska

Democracy is necessarily despotism, as it establishes an executive power contrary to the general will; all being able to decide against one…

— Immanuel Kant

The question now was...whether that beautiful fabric [the English constitution]...was to be maintained in that freedom...for which blood had been spilt; or…

— Charles James Fox

Under a Presidential government, a nation has, except at the electing moment, no influence; it has not the ballot-box before it; its…

— Walter Bagehot

Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot. How is it possible that society should escape destruction if the moral tie is…

— Alexis de Tocqueville

“The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement, being in unceasing antagonism to that disposition to aim at…

— John Stuart Mill

Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man,…

— Thomas Paine

A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another; and as the mould in…

— John Stuart Mill

What astonishing changes a few years are capable of producing! I am told that even respectable characters speak of a monarchical form…

— George Washington

If an angel should be winged from Heaven, on an errand of mercy to our country, the first accents that would glow…

— Daniel Webster

The free-trade idea, logically applied, will abolish usury; and with usury will disappear the chief bone of contention between labor and capital.…

— Ezra Heywood

As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created…

— Abraham Lincoln

As long as mankind shall continue to bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than on their benefactors, the thirst of military…

— Edward Gibbon

In comparison to the French Revolution, the American Revolution has come to seem a parochial and rather dull event. This, despitethe fact…

— Irving Kristol