Eric Hoffer Quotes

… we cannot conceive of the authority of a despot who knows all his subjects on sight.

Dictatorship is a constant lecture instructing you that your feelings, your thoughts and desires are of no account, that you are a nobody and must live as you are told by other people who desire and think for you

Despots and democratic majorities are drunk with power.

It has been said that terror is the principle of despotic government. Does your government therefore resemble despotism? Yes, as the sword that gleams in the hands of the heroes of liberty resembles that with which the henchmen of tyranny are armed ... The government of the revolution is liberty's despotism against tyranny.

The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands of others the submissiveness of sheep.

Absolute power should never be trusted to man. It has perverted the wisest heads, and corrupted the best hearts in the world. I should be afraid to commit my property, liberty and life to a body of angels for one whole year.

Absolute power can only be supported by error, ignorance and prejudice.

If you took the most ardent revolutionary, vested him in absolute power, within a year he would be worse than the Tsar himself.

The progress of despotism tends to disappoint its own purpose.

The possession of unlimited power will make a despot of almost any man. There is a possible Nero in the gentlest human creature that walks.

How did an allegedly free people spawn a vast, rampant cuttlefish of dominion with its tentacles in every orifice of the body politic?

Despotism can only exist in darkness.

Absolute power, as we have always known, corrupts absolutely; it corrupts because it does not do the trick for the individual. Reality always creeps in--the reality of our helplessness and our mortality; the reality that, despite our reach for the stars, a creaturely fate awaits us.

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.

In a society like this there is no negotiation, no discussion, except to tell you that power can crush you any time they want — not only you, your whole family and all people like you.

The dictator, in all his pride, is held in the grip of his party machine. He can go forward; he cannot go back. He must blood his hounds and show them sport, or else, like Actaeon of old, be devoured by them. All-strong without, he is all-weak within.

A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it.

Enlightened despots are mythical creatures; real despots seem more interested in stealing money or installing their sons after them.

To assume all the powers is not good for anybody. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. All those experiments have a bad ending.

For 73 years a totalitarian regime ruled the country. Totalitarian regime.

The principle of evil in Europe is the enervating spirit of Russian absolutism.

... the perfect dictatorship.

All executive power --- from the reign of ancient kings to the rule of modern dictators --- has the outward appearance of efficiency

A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.

The man whom events had elevated to the position of dictator tirelessly must have been aspiring to power himself, energetically pushing aside and crushing ruthlessly all who stood in his way