#despotism

Democracy passes into despotism. ↗

— Plato

#despotism #into #passes

Despotism isn't nearly as bad as it's cracked up to be. ↗

— Arabella Weir

#cracked #despotism #nearly #up

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

— William Wells Brown

#despotism #despots #divided #increases #more

The revolutionary government is the despotism of liberty against tyranny. ↗

— Georg Buchner

#despotism #government #liberty #revolutionary #tyranny

The right-wing Tories and the conservative Whigs fought Napoleon as the Usurper and the Enemy of the Established Order; the liberal Tories and the radical Whigs fought him as the Betrayer of the Revolution and the Enslaver of Europe; they were all agreed in fighting him, and his notion that their disagreement signified national disunion was mere wishful thinking. All dictators since his time have fallen into the same trap: themselves blind to the values of liberty, they cannot conceive that people who disagree on its meaning can nevertheless unite in upholding their freedoms against patent despotism. ↗

— J. Christopher Herold

#liberty #napoleon #napoleonic-wars #tories #whigs

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

I love my country, not my government. ↗

— Jesse Ventura

#bill-of-rights #constitution #despotism #freedom #government

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

#aristocracy #bloated #cheap #china #despair

Sanctions make a substantial contribution to power based on privation, and they have never hurt a single despot in the whole history of their use. ↗

— Roger Scruton

#international-sanctions #iraq #iraq-sanctions #kim-jong-il #north-korea

The peoples owe all political rights and privileges which we enjoy today in greater or lesser measure, not to the good will of their governments, but to their own strength. One need only study the history of the past three hundred years to understand by what relentless struggles every right has had to be wrested inch by inch from the despots. ↗

— Rudolf Rocker

#freedom #government #privileges #rights #struggle