Van Jones Quotes

Any excuse will serve a tyrant.

Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesize and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true.

Mobutu does not think he is God.

It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own.

Power tends to corrupt if you're there too long.

… the tools of despotism and corruption

Despotism sits nowhere so secure as under the effigy and ensigns of freedom.

Dictators can always consolidate their tyranny by an appeal to patriotism.

Despotism has so often been established in the name of liberty that experience should warn us to judge parties by their practices rather than their preachings.

Tyranny is always better organized than freedom.

I am the government.

The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance.

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

This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.

Tyrants seldom want pretexts.

Despotism is a long crime.

It has been claimed at times that our modern age of technology facilitates dictatorship.

Anyone who seeks power wants absolute power.

Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.

Brutal men with unlimited power are the same all over the world.

Theocratic and military authorities share one thing: they have no sense of humour.

This administration seems intent on accumulating unchecked power.

You can't be a dictator any more; anyone who tries to play the part of God will stumble.

The shortest way to ruin a country is to give power to demogogues.

... a step in the direction of tyranny.