Despots Quotes - Page 2

• Those who disagree with the dictator's plan have no other means to carry on than to defeat the despot by force of arms.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Mean, Arms, Defeat

  Ludwig Von Mises (1947). “Planned Chaos”, p.16, Ludwig von Mises Institute

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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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• The devil's aversion to holy water is a light matter compared with a despots dread of a newspaper that laughs.

  Mark Twain

  Light, Water, Laughing

  Mark Twain, Bob Blaisdell (2013). “The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain”, p.97, Courier Corporation

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• Neither a life of anarchy nor a life under a despot should you praise. To all that lies in the middle has a god given excellence.

  Aeschylus

  Lying, Tyrants, Excellence

  "Oresteia".

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• Despots govern by terror. They know that he who fears God fears nothing else; and therefore they eradicate from the mind, through their Voltaire, their Helvetius, and the rest of that infamous gang, that only sort of fear which generates true courage.

  Edmund Burke

  Mind, Gang, Infamous

  Edmund Burke (1852). “The works and correspondence of...Edmund Burke”, p.378

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• There is not land beneath the sun where there is an open Bible and a preached gospel, where a tyrant long can hold his place... Let the Bible be opened to be read by all men, and no tyrant can long rule in peace... The religion of Jesus makes men think, and to make men think is always dangerous to a despot's power.

  Charles Spurgeon

  Jesus, Men, Thinking

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• Here Fashion is a despot, and no one dreams of evading its dictates.

  Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington

  Dream, Fashion, Tyrants

  Marguerite GARDINER (Countess of Blessington.) (1841). “The Idler in France”, p.36

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• All modes of government are failures. Despotism is unjust to everybody, including the despot, who was probably made for better things. Oligarchies are unjust to the many, and ochlocracies are unjust to the few. High hopes were once formed of democracy; but democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people. It has been found out. I must say that it was high time, for all authority is quite degrading. It degrades those who exercise it, and degrades those over whom it is exercised.

  Oscar Wilde

  Mean, Exercise, Government

  "The Soul of Man Under Socialism" (1891)

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• In times of anarchy one may seem a despot in order to be a saviour.

  Victor de Riqueti, marquis de Mirabeau

  Order, May, Anarchy

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• In a Democracy, the real rulers are the dexterous manipulators of votes, with their placemen, the mechanics who so skillfully operate the hidden springs which move the puppets in the arena of democratic elections. Men of this kind are ever ready with loud speeches lauding equality; in reality, they rule the people as any despot or military dictator might rule it.

  Konstantin Pobedonostsev

  Spring, Military, Real

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• Custom governs the world; it is the tyrant of our feelings and our manners and rules the world with the hand of a despot.

  Bill Vaughan

  Tyrants, Hands, Feelings

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• One hundred and seventy-three despots would surely be as oppressive as one.

  James Madison

  Three, Legislature, Hundred

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1852). “The Federalist, on the new constitution, written in 1788, with an appendix, containing the letters of Pacificus and Helvidius on the proclamation of neutrality of 1793, also the original articles of confederation and the constitution of the United States”, p.230

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• Prig and philistine, Ph.D. and C.P.A., despot of English 218c and big shot of the Kiwanis Club-how much, at bottom, they both hate Art, and how hard it is to know which of them hates it the more.

  Louis Kronenberger

  Art, Hate, Culture

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• No despot ever flung forth his legions to die in foreign conquest, no privilege-ruled nation ever erupted across its borders, to lock in death embrace with another, but behind them loomed the driving power of a population too large for its boundaries and its natural resources.

  Margaret Sanger

  Death, Science, Privilege

  Margaret Sanger (2005). “Woman and the New Race”, p.3, Cosimo, Inc.

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• The orators and the despots have the least power in their cities ... since they do nothing that they wish to do, practically speaking, though they do whatever they think to be best.

  Plato

  Plato, Thinking, Cities

  Plato, Harold North Fowler, Walter Rangeley Maitland Lamb, Robert Gregg Bury (1953). “Plato”

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• A country governed by a despot is an inverted cone.

  Samuel Johnson

  Country, Cones, Inverted

  In James Boswell 'The Life of Samuel Johnson' (1791) vol. 3, p. 283 (14 April 1778)

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• I wish I was a despot that I might save the noble, the beautiful trees that are daily falling sacrifice to the cupidity of their owners, or the necessity of the poor. The unnecessary felling of a tree, perhaps the growth of centuries, seems to me a crime little short of murder.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Beautiful, Fall, Sacrifice

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• Ignorant, unconscious and dishonourable part of a society want and like kings, dictators, padishahs and all sort of despots; educated, conscious and honourable part of the same society hate and refuse monarchs, tyrants, oppressors and any kind of autocrats!

  Mehmet Murat Ildan

  Kings, Hate, Tyrants

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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

  Democracy, Population, Want

  George Bernard Shaw (2015). “The Collected Plays of George Bernard Shaw (Illustrated): Including Renowned Titles like Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, The Inca Of Perusalem, Macbeth Skit, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion”, p.1044, e-artnow

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• All ideas advanced to deal with the Florentine noise problem, the Florentine traffic problem, are Utopian, and nobody believes in them, just as nobody believed in Machiavelli's Prince, a Utopian image of the ideally self-interested despot.

  Mary McCarthy

  Believe, Self, Ideas

  Mary McCarthy (2016). “The Stones of Florence”, p.18, Pickle Partners Publishing

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• There is one safeguard known generally to the wise, which is an advantage and security to all, but especially to democracies as against despots - suspicion.

  Demosthenes

  Trust, Wise, Tyrants

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• Fashion, n. A despot whom the wise ridicule and obey.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Wise, Fashion, Ridicule

  Ambrose Bierce (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)”, p.2396, Delphi Classics

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• There are three kinds of despots. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the body. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the soul. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the soul and body alike. The first is called the Prince. The second is called the Pope. The third is called the People.

  Oscar Wilde

  Government, Soul And Body, People

  Oscar Wilde (1969). “The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde”, p.282, University of Chicago Press

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• I imagine that the goddess of Love has come down from Olympus to visit a mortal. So as not to die of cold in this modern world of ours, she wraps her sublime body in great heavy furs and warms her feet on the prostrate body of her lover. I imagine the favorite of this beautiful despot, who is whipped when his mistress grows tired of kissing him, and whose love only grows more intense the more he is trampled underfoot. I shall call the picture "Venus in Furs

  Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

  Beautiful, Tired, Kissing

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• Our nation and those of the developed world must offer our own resistance to despot leaders who seek to commit murder on the basis of religion or race.

  Tim Bishop

  Race, Tyrants, Leader

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