Beauty is the greatest of human powers. Any power without counterbalance or control becomes autocratic and leads to abuse and to folly. Despotism in a government is insanity; in woman, fantasy.

There are three kinds of despots. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the body. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the soul. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the soul and body alike. The first is called the Prince. The second is called the Pope. The third is called the People.

Wherever despotism abounds, the sources of public information are the first to be brought under its control. Where ever the cause of liberty is making its way, one of its highest accomplishments is the guarantee of the freedom of the press.

Despotism may be able to do without religion, but democracy cannot.

We are ruled by chance but never have enough patience to accept its despotism.

Honor is unknown in despotic states.

A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations…is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy or to despotism.

The worst of all States is the democratic State.

This [the U.S. Constitution] is likely to be administered for a course of years and then end in despotism… when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.

Tyranny and despotism can be exercised by many, more rigorously, more vigorously, and more severely, than by one.

The first time I read the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, my instinctive reaction was, so what’s wrong with THAT?В  Isn’t that the way any master plan should work?В  Doesn’t the public deserve – nay, demand – such despotism?

‘Fair’ is one of the most dangerous concepts in politics. Since no two people are likely to agree on what is ‘fair,’ this means that there must be some third party with power – the government – to impose its will. The road to despotism is paved with ‘fairness‘.

The ‘survival of the fittest‘ is beneficently inevitable; the capitalist is powerless against labor, unless the State . . . steps in, and helps him catch and fleece his victims. The old plea of despotism, that liberty is unsafe, reappears now in the mistaken notion that competition is hostile to labor.

Democracy has two excesses to avoid: the spirit of inequality, which leads to an aristocracy, or to the government of a single individual; and the spirit of extreme equality, which conducts it to despotism, as the despotism of a single individual finishes by conquest.

No despotism is so formidable as that of a religion or a scientific system.

A great civilization is not conquered from without, until it has destroyed itself from within. The essential causes of Rome‘s decline lay in her people, her morals, her class struggle, her failing trade, her bureaucratic despotism, her stifling taxes, her consuming wars.

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

If the objects who serve us feel ecstacy, they are much more often concerned with themselves than with us, and our own enjoyment is consequently impaired. The idea of seeing another person experience the same pleasure reduces one to a kind of equality which spoils the unutterable charms that come from despotism.

Whatever crushes individuality is despotism.

We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.

There is no history worthy attention save that of free nations; the history of nations under the sway of despotism is no more than a collection of anecdotes.

Summation of Leviathan: “The axiom, fear; the method, logic; the conclusion, despotism.”

Despotism has forever had a powerful hold upon the world. Autocratic government, not self-government, has been the prevailing state of mankind. The record of past history is the record, not of the success of republics, but of their failure.

That slow poison [slavery] is daily contaminating the minds and morals of our people. Every gentlemen here is born a petty tyrant, practiced in acts of despotism and cruelty.

[Restraints on the press] in all ages, have debauched morals, depressed liberty, shackled religion, supported despotism, and deluged the scaffold with blood.

Every State is a despotism, be the despot one or many.

By giving the government unlimited powers, the most arbitrary rule can be made legal; and in this way a democracy may set up the most complete despotism imaginable.

The market is sovereign and in the magic economy of the small entrepreneur there is no authoritarian center… in the political sphere… the equilibrium of powers prevails, and hence there is no chance of despotism.

The seeds of freedom . . . have now been scattered where despotism and tyranny ranked and ruled, will be watered by the enlivening dews of God‘s clemency, till the reapers abolitionists shall shout the harvest home.

The complete emancipation of women from the ties which held them back in the past, during the ages of despotism and ignorance, is a basic aim of the Party and the Revolution. Women make up one half of society. Our society will remain backward and in chains unless its women are liberated, enlightened and educated.

Are the peoples of the Middle East somehow beyond the reach of liberty? Are millions of men and women and children condemned by history or culture to live in despotism? Are they alone never to know freedom and never even to have a choice in the matter?

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.

Despotism, which we regard with abhorrence, is rather too plausible in decaying feudal, agrarian, pastoral societies. That’s why we must expect to have many a defeat before we’ll have an ultimate victory in this contest with Communism.

Toleration is not the opposite of intoleration, but it is the counterfeit of it. Both are despotisms. The one assumes to itself the right of withholding liberty of conscience, and the other of granting it. The one is the pope, armed with fire and fagot, and the other is the pope selling or granting indulgences.

Slave power crushes freedom of speech and of opinion. Slave power degrades labor. Slave power is arrogant, is jealous and intrusive, is cruel, is despotic, not only over the slave but over the community, the state.

The more complete the despotism, the more smoothly all things move on the surface.

We are now forming a republican government. Real liberty is never found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.

When Michelle and I decided that I would run for President, it was because of a shared belief in the power of community and connection, a commitment to the idea that we are our brothers‘ keepers.

The doctrine of blind obedience and unqualified submission to any human power, whether civil or ecclesiastical, is the doctrine of despotism.

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.

When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than self-government – that is despotism.

Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.

Perhaps a revolution can overthrow autocratic despotism and profiteering or power-grabbing oppression, but it can never truly reform a manner of thinking; instead, new prejudices, just like the old ones they replace, will serve as a leash for the great unthinking mass.

Liberty has never lasted long in a democracy, nor has it ever ended in anything better than despotism.

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

Despotism can no more exist in a nation until the liberty of the press be destroyed than the night can happen before the sun is set.

We judge the Russians because they’re living under despotism and we don’t like it, but we’ve gotten into a fix now where we’re living in a common predicament, and we ought to recognize this common predicament.

The steward, according to custom, had stopped all the clocks. This, in the language of Narouz, said “Your stay with us is so brief, let us not be reminded of the flight of the hours.”

Their poverty secured their freedom, since our desires and our possessions are the strongest fetters of despotism.

As a nation we began by declaring that all me are created equal. We now practically read it, all men are created equal except Negroes.

Oligopoly is an imperfect monopoly. Like the despotism of the Dual Monarchy, it is saved only by its incompetence.

Generally, I like all islands. There, it is easier to rule.

Each man has an equal social right to multiply his power of motion by all the social factors of civilization. Private property in any of these factors is inconsistent with this fundamental right; it must, obviously, prove a source of economic despotism and industrial slavery.

The leading princes are the most servile tools of English despotism. . . . The native princes are the stronghold of the present abominable English system.

Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement.

All education is despotism. It is perhaps impossible for the young to be conducted without introducing in many cases the tyranny implicit in obedience. Go there; do that; read; write; rise; lie down – will perhaps forever be the language addressed to youth by age.

The revolutionary government is the despotism of liberty against tyranny

You can’t build politics on love. People aren’t concerned with love; it’s too disordered. They prefer despotism. Too much freedom breeds chaos.

To consider judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions is a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.

As virtue is necessary in a republic, and honor in a monarchy, fear is what is required in a despotism. As for virtue, it is not at all necessary, and honor would be dangerous there.

Man is about the same, in the main, whether with despotism, or whether with freedom.

Fear must rule in a despotism.

Arbitrary power is but the first natural step from anarchy, or the savage life.

You do not know the unfathomable cowardice of humanity…servile in the face of force, pitiless in the face of weakness, implacable before blunders, indulgent before crimes…and patient to the point of martyrdom before all the violences of bold despotism.

I earnestly pray that the Omnipotent Being who has not deserted the cause of America in the hour of its extremest hazard, will never yield so fair a heritage of freedom a prey to ‘Anarchy’ or ‘Despotism’.

The supreme mystery of despotism, its prop and stay, is to keep men in a state of deception, and with the specious title of religion to cloak the fear by which they must be held in check, so that they will fight for their servitude as if for salvation.

Throwing off despotism and tyranny is our history and part of our national identity – something in which we can take incredible pride.

Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.

War lives on despotism and is not waged with God’s love.

When the savages of Louisiana wish to have fruit, they cut the tree at the bottom and gather the fruit. That is exactly a despotic government.

Military despotism represses generous sentiments, priestly tyranny stifles them.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

After many unhappy experiments in the direction of an ideal Republic, it was found that what may be described as a Despotism tempered by Dynamite provides, on the whole, the most satisfactory description of ruler – an autocrat who dares not abuse his autocratic power.

The foremost or indeed sole condition required in order to succeed in centralizing the supreme power in a democratic community is to love equality or to get men to believe you love it. Thus, the science of despotism, which was once so complex, has been simplified and reduced, as it were, to a single principle.

Democracy passes into despotism.

Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.

Wherever despotism abounds, the sources of public information are the first to be brought under its control.

Europeans have sometimes been beguiled by a despotism that comes concealed in the seductive form of an ideal – as it did in the cases of Hitler and Stalin. This fact may remind us that the possibility of despotism is remote neither in space nor in time.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

To begin with unlimited freedom is to end with unlimited despotism.

Freedom of conscience entails more dangers than authority and despotism.

Despotism accomplishes great things illegally; liberty doesn’t even go to the trouble of accomplishing small things legally.

Which is more subversive-and corrosive-to believe in altruism or to see it simply as a cloak of self interest? Even if altruism did not exist, it would be necessary to believe in it. Pessimists in power are prone to despotism.

The flames kindled on the Fourth of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them.

Government is frequently and aptly classed under two descriptions-a government of force, and a government of laws; the first is the definition of despotism-the last, of liberty.

It seems that the inevitable fate of man is never attain complete freedom: princes everywhere tend to despotism and the people to servitude.

Only the history of free peoples is worth our attention; the history of men under a despotism is merely a collection of anecdotes.

Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.

An elective despotism was not the government we fought for.

Democracy is necessarily despotism, as it establishes an executive power contrary to the general will; all being able to decide against one whose opinion may differ, the will of all is therefore not that of all: which is contradictory and opposite to liberty.

Of the people, by the people, for the people.

If Despotism failed only for want of a capable benevolent despot, what chance has Democracy, which requires a whole population of capable voters.

Superstition changes a man to a beast, fanaticism makes him a wild beast, and despotism a beast of burden.

I will believe in the right of one man to govern a nation despotically when I find a man born unto the world with boots and spurs, and a nation with saddles on their backs.

Despotism is a long crime.

I do not want history to record me as someone who has bequeathed to his nation the institution of despotism.

Resolved … that it would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights: that confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism – free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence.

Toleration is not the opposite of intolerance, but is the counterfeit of it. Both are despotisms. The one assumes to itself the right of withholding liberty of conscience, the other of granting it.

We should not underestimate that: the Chinese people’s ignorance. Thousands of years of despotism had been such a poison that their understanding of modern politics is even inferior to that of the black slaves and other immigrants.

Freemasonry teaches not merely temperance, fortitude, prudence, justice, brotherly love, relief, and truth, but liberty, equality, and fraternity, and it denounces ignorance, superstition, bigotry, lust tyranny and despotism.

In matters editorial, I am a believer in totalitarian despotism. Most writers are lazy, difficult, selfish, thoughtless, and unreliable.

They have exiled me now from their society and I am pleased, because humanity does not exile except the one whose noble spirit rebels against despotism and oppression. He who does not prefer exile to slavery is not free by any measure of freedom

Attempts at reform, when they fail, strengthen despotism, as he that struggles tightens those cords he does not succeed in breaking.

Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.

Creativity doesn’t flourish in an atmosphere of despotism, coercion and fear.

Not mythical material productive forces, but reason and ideas determine the course of human affairs. What is needed to stop the trend toward socialism and despotism is common-sense and moral courage.

It has taken seas of blood to drown the idol of despotism, but the English do not think they bought their laws too dearly.

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

Despotism subjects a nation to one tyrant; democracy, to many.

Under a Presidential government, a nation has, except at the electing moment, no influence; it has not the ballot-box before it; its virtue is gone, and it must wait till its instant of despotism again returns.