#despot

Whatever crushes individuality is despotism. ↗

— John Stuart Mill

#individuality #liberty #tyranny #liberty

First Afghanistan, now Iraq. So who's next? Syria? North Korea? Iran? Where will it all end?' If these illegal interventions are permitted to continue, the implication seems to be, pretty soon, horror of horrors, no murderously repressive regimes might remain. ↗

— Daniel Kofman

#antiwar-movement #axis-of-evil #despotism #foreign-policy #foreign-policy-of-the-us

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

#against #democracies #despots #especially #generally

The savior who wants to turn men into angels is as much a hater of human nature as the totalitarian despot who wants to turn them into puppets. ↗

— Eric Hoffer

#despot #hater #human #human nature #into

Despotism is a long crime. ↗

— Victor Hugo

#despotism #long

So long as war is the main business of nations, temporary despotism - despotism during the campaign - is indispensable. ↗

— Walter Bagehot

#campaign #despotism #during #indispensable #long

Democracy passes into despotism. ↗

— Plato

#despotism #into #passes

Have any of our friends got off the Island with their families, or what must they submit to? Despotism or destruction, I fear, is their fate. ↗

— William Floyd

#despotism #destruction #families #fate #fear

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

#bigotry #despotism #equality #hypocrisy #know-nothings

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

#freedom #freedom