Tacitus Quotes

I should like to underline: no people, no country, in which a Communist dictatorship has been established, ever found its way out of it.

Today we have in this country the abuses of a military dictation without its unity of action and vigor of execution.

This administration seems intent on accumulating unchecked power.

1st RULER and TYRANT of the AMERICAN EMPIRE

De Gaulle has all the characteristics to be a dictator.

The tendency of an advanced civilization is in truth monarchy.

At the end of a century that has seen the evils of communism, Nazism and other modern tyrannies, the impulse to centralize power remains amazingly persistent.

Generally, dictatorships do not work in marriage - or, for that matter, in any other relationship.

While the Romans languished under the ignominious tyranny of eunuchs and bishops, the praises of Julian were repeated with transport in every part of the empire, except in the palace of Constantius.

The China of the 1970s was a communist dictatorship. The China of the twenty-first century is a one-party state without a firm ideological foundation, more similar to Mexico under the PRI than Russia under Stalin. But the measurement of the political and the economic evolution has not yet been completed, and is one of the weak points of the system.

As long-term institutions, I am totally against dictatorships. But a dictatorship may be a necessary system for a transitional period... Personally I prefer a liberal dictator to democratic government lacking liberalism. My personal impression - and this is valid for South America - is that in Chile, for example, we will witness a transition from a dictatorial government to a liberal government.

Whenever all men are...hastening to be slaves or tyrants we make Liberalism the prime bogey.

To resume, in a few words, the system of the Imperial government, as it was instituted by Augustus, and maintained by those princes who understood their own interest and that of the people, it may be defined an absolute monarchy disguised by the forms of a commonwealth. The masters of the Roman world surrounded their throne with darkness, concealed their irresistible strength, and humbly professed themselves the accountable ministers of the senate, whose supreme decrees they dictated and obeyed.

The general (federal) government will tend to monarchy, which will fortify itself from day to day, instead of working its own cures.

Dictatorships don't always die when the dictator leaves office.

We're approaching the end of a bloody century plagued by a terrible political invention, totalitarianism. Optimism comes less easily today, not because democracy is less vigorous, but because democracy's enemies have refined their instruments of repression.

The political system of the People's Republic of China can make things easy. Decisions are made quickly and results come quickly, too. In our democracy [in India], on the other hand, such things are extremely difficult.

Flee the country where a lone man holds all power: It is a nation of slaves.

He [the Statist] is unmoved by reason, evidence, and history.

The absolute ruler may be a Nero, but he is sometimes a Titus or Marc Aurelius; the people is often Nero, but never Marc Aurelius.

The Past is the textbook of tyrants; the Future is the Bible of the Free.

A nation ignorant of the equal benefits of liberty and law, must be awed by the flashes of arbitrary power: the cruelty of a despot will assume the character of justice; his profusion, of liberality; his obstinacy, of firmness.

The sin of all time has been the exercise of assumed powers. This is the essence of tyranny.

Historically, the most terrible things - war, genocide, and slavery - have resulted not from disobedience, but from obedience.

You cannot apply your high standards to a country [Egypt] burdened with decades of autocratic rule. Our democracy is still in its infancy.