Franz Grillparzer Quotes

If there is a State, then there is domination, and in turn, there is slavery.

One of the very basic ideas of Post-Modernism is rejection of arbitrary power structures. Different people are sensitive to different kinds of power structures.

He who can be, and therefore is, another's, and he who participates in reason enough to apprehend, but not to have, is a slave by nature.

How many, even of the better sort, would choose to be slaves to those above them, provided they might exercise an arbitrary and tyrannical rule over all below them?

Good masters generally have bad slaves, and bad slaves have good masters.

It only stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master.

Some people are by nature slaves and will always be so.

Every man needs slaves like he needs clean air. To rule is to breathe, is it not? And even the most disenfranchised get to breathe. The lowest on the social scale have their spouses or their children.

A Sudra [lowest caste untouchable], though emancipated by his master, is not released from servitude; since that is innate in him, who can set him free from it?

Law is merely the expression of the will of the strongest for the time being.

They would make fine servants .... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.

There is no more contemptible poison than power over one's fellow men.

The natural course of power is to make the many slaves to the few.

Was there ever any domination which did not appear natural to those who possessed it?

Whether the institution to be defended is slavery, political absolutism, or the absolutism of the head of a family, we are always expected to judge of it from its best instances; and we are presented with pictures of loving exercise of authority on one side, loving submission to it on the other

Would you rather lead an army of slaves?

Every organism, every human being, must conquer or serve.

The existence of the state is inseparable from the existence of slavery.

If you have two groups of people and you say one is inferior to the other, which is a lie, then the only way to maintain the lie is through violence or the threat of violence.

When an individual is kept in a situation of inferiority, the fact is that he does become inferior.

The man who gives me employment, which I must have or suffer, that man is my master, let me call him what I will.

What you're saying is that 'I, the superior elite, will take care of you.' Why? Because, you see, that superior, elite group needs to feel superior and elite. And they can't be superior and elite unless you have a whole lot of people down there groveling around. So you keep them down there by feeding them.

Neither can men, by the same principles, be considered as lands, goods, or houses, among possessions. It is necessary that all property should be inferiour to its possessor. But how does the slave differ from his master, but by chance?

Proclaim human equality as loudly as you like, Witless will serve his brother.

Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master.