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Despotism Quote by Edward Gibbon

“Their poverty secured their freedom, since our desires and our…” quote by Edward Gibbon — Download Open image

“Their poverty secured their freedom, since our desires and our possessions are the strongest fetters of despotism.”

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Despotism Freedom Poverty Secured Strongest

More by Edward Gibbon

That country [Carthage] was rapidly sinking into the state of barbarism from whence it had been raised by the Phoenician colonies and Roman laws;…

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The sectaries of a persecuted religion, depressed by fear, animated with resentment, and perhaps heated by enthusiasm, are seldom in a proper temper of…

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A heart to resolve, a head to contrive, and a hand to execute.

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[In] the national and religious conflict of the [Byzantine and Saracen] empires, peace was without confidence, and war without mercy.

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Instead of a perpetual and perfect measure of the divine will, the fragments of the Koran were produced at the discretion of Mahomet; each…

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Constantinople was the principal seat and fortress of Arianism; and, in a long interval of forty years, the faith of the princes and prelates…

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It is the common calamity of old age to lose whatever might have rendered it desirable.

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If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was…

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If all the barbarian conquerors had been annihilated in the same hour, their total destruction would not have restored the empire of the West:…

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But the desire of obtaining the advantages, and of escaping the burthens, of political society, is a perpetual and inexhaustible source of discord; nor…

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[Every] hour of delay abates the fame and force of the invader, and multiplies the resources of defensive war.

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The science of the church is neglected for the study of geometry, and they lose sight of Heaven while they are employed in measuring…

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More Despotism quotes

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

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

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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

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

Napoleon Bonaparte

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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

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

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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

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

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

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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

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A court which yields to the popular will thereby licenses itself to practice despotism, for there can be no assurance that it will not,…

Felix Frankfurter

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The progress of despotism tends to disappoint its own purpose.

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Browse all 297 Despotism quotes