#despotism

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

— Mary McCarthy

#bureaucracy #despotism #form #modern #rule

The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement. ↗

— John Stuart Mill

#custom #despotism #everywhere #hindrance #human

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

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

Despotism is the only form of government which may with safety to itself, neglect the education of its infant poor. ↗

— Samuel Horsley

#education #form #government #infant #itself

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

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

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

Fear is the State's psychological weapon of choice to frighten citizens into sacrificing their basic freedoms and rule-of-law protections in exchange for the security promised by their all-powerful government. ↗

— Philip G. Zimbardo

#fear #war-on-terror #freedom