Despotism Quotes - Page 2

• Education is a companion which no misfortune can depress, no crime can destroy, no enemy can alienate, no despotism can enslave. At home, a friend, abroad, an introduction, in solitude a solace and in society an ornament. It chastens vice, it guides virtue, it gives at once grace and government to genius. Without it, what is man? A splendid slave, a reasoning savage.

  Joseph Addison

  Graduation, Education, Depressing

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• They have exiled me now from their society and I am pleased, because humanity does not exile except the one whose noble spirit rebels against despotism and oppression. He who does not prefer exile to slavery is not free by any measure of freedom

  Khalil Gibran

  Truth, Freedom, Humanity

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• Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Freedom, 4th Of July, Men

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence 1793-1798”, p.238, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Despotism is the only form of government which may with safety to itself, neglect the education of its infant poor.

  Samuel Horsley

  Government, Safety, May

  Samuel Horsley (1827). “Sermons”, p.104

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• Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.

  Thomas Jefferson

  War, Military, Parent

  Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson (1988). “Paine and Jefferson on Liberty”, p.143, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

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• As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Country, Freedom, Taken

  Letter to Joshua F. Speed, 24 Aug. 1855

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  Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

  Lord Acton

  Inspirational, Leadership, Work

  Letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, 3 April 1887, in Louise Creighton 'Life and Letters of Mandell Creighton' (1904) vol. 1, ch. 13.

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

  Mary McCarthy

  Liberty, Libertarian, Modern

  "The Vita Activa". The New Yorker, October 18, 1958.

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• We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Encouragement, Difficult And Easy, Political

  Letter to Marquis de Lafayette, 2 Apr. 1790

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• Despotism can only exist in darkness, and there are too many lights now in the political firmament to permit it to remain anywhere, as it has heretofore done, almost everywhere.

  James Madison

  Light, Tyrants, Political

  James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

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• The constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruption's of time and party, its members would become despots.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Party, Hands, Knowing

  Thomas Jefferson, H. A. Washington (2011). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private”, p.178, Cambridge University Press

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• Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity. Too absurd for belief, too impossible to convince, and too inconsistent for practice, it renders the heart torpid or produces only atheists or fanatics. As an engine of power, it serves the purpose of despotism, and as a means of wealth, the avarice of priests, but so far as respects the good of man in general it leads to nothing here or hereafter.

  Thomas Paine

  Atheist, Heart, Mean

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• I will believe in the right of one man to govern a nation despotically when I find a man born unto the world with boots and spurs, and a nation with saddles on their backs.

  Algernon Sidney

  Believe, Men, Spurs

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• Any government, that is its own judge of, and determines authoritatively for the people, what are its own powers over the people, is an absolute government of course. It has all the powers that it chooses to exercise. There is no other or at least no more accurate definition of a despotism than this.

  Lysander Spooner

  Exercise, Government, People

  Lysander Spooner (1971). “The Collected Works of Lysander Spooner: Legal writings”

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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 is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Government, Tyrants, Long

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence 1771 - 1779, the Summary View, and the Declaration of Independence”, p.202, Cosimo, Inc.

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• What a triumph for the advocates of despotism to find that we are incapable of governing ourselves, and that systems founded on the basis of equal liberty are merely ideal and fallacious.

  George Washington

  Liberty, Triumph, Equal

  George Washington, Jared Sparks (1837). “The Writings of George Washington: Life of Washington”, p.426

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• A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another, and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the dominant power in the government.

  John Stuart Mill

  School Education, Education And Freedom, Government

  John Stuart Mill (1978). “On Liberty”, Penguin Books

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• Despotism is a long crime.

  Victor Hugo

  Long, Crime

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• Despotism increases in severity with the number of despots; the responsibility is more divided, and the claims are more numerous.

  William Wells Brown

  Responsibility, Tyrants, Numbers

  William Wells Brown (1853). “Clotel; or, The president's daughter”, p.179

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

  Edward Gibbon

  Freedom, Desire, Liberty

  Edward Gibbon (1839). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.127

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• To add to our misery and despair, a bloated aristocracy has sent to China - the greatest and oldest despotism in the world - for a cheap working slave.

  Denis Kearney

  Tyrants, Despair, World

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• Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Men, Doors, Land

  Abraham Lincoln, Bob Blaisdell (2005). “The Wit and Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln: A Book of Quotations”, p.3, Courier Corporation

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• Is not liberty the destruction of all despotism - including, of course, legal despotism?

  Frederic Bastiat

  Liberty, Destruction, Courses

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.41, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Despotism is unjust to everybody, including the despot, who was probably made for better things.

  Oscar Wilde

  Government, Unjust, Made

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde”, p.1049, Wordsworth Editions

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• Small natures require despotism to exercise their sinews, as great souls thirst for equality to give play to their heart.

  Honore de Balzac

  Heart, Exercise, Equality

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