#despotism

Religions are the cradles of despotism. ↗

— Marquis de Sade

#religions

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

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

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

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

— Thomas Jefferson

#despotism #liberty #men #prefer #sea

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

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

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

— Frederic Bastiat

#despotism #destruction #including #legal #liberty

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

— Mary McCarthy

#bureaucracy #despotism #form #modern #rule

Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men. ↗

— John Stuart Mill

#crushes #despotism #enforcing #god #individuality