#despot

If there were only one religion in England there would be danger of despotism, if there were two, they would cut each other's throats, but there are thirty, and they live in peace and happiness. ↗

— Voltaire

#religion #religion

When law becomes despotic, morals are relaxed, and vice versa. ↗

— Honore de Balzac

#despotic #law #morals #relaxed #versa

Idealism is the despot of thought, just as politics is the despot of will. ↗

— Mikhail Bakunin

#idealism #just #politics #thought #will

Recent action in Syria and Palestine also tell us that the awakening voices of democracy in those regions are occurring, and that those in that region are able to pursue it without being stifled by terrorists that are despotic. ↗

— Judd Gregg

#action #also #awakening #being #democracy

We invaded Iraq to change a totalitarian, despotic regime, and we have been successful there. ↗

— Judd Gregg

#change #despotic #invaded #iraq #regime

The chains of military despotism, once fastened upon a nation, ages might pass away before they could be shaken off. ↗

— William Henry Harrison

#away #before #chains #could #despotism

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty. ↗

— George Washington

#party-dissension #party-politics #age

Universal suffrage is the only guarantee against despotism. ↗

— May Wright Sewall

#despotism #guarantee #only #suffrage #universal

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

— Honore de Balzac

#equality #exercise #give #great #great souls

Last chances in the Middle East have been two a dirham since the 1950s. Each year the enmities are more profound, the despots more bloodthirsty and clownish, the violence more extreme, and the conditions of ordinary existence more ghastly. ↗

— James Buchan

#chances #conditions #despots #each #east