Gertrude Stein Quotes

Most governments are designed for the purposes of oppression and personal ambition.

It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes.

But now well democracy has shown us that what is evil are the grosses têtes, the big heads, all big heads are greedy for money and power, they are ambitious that is the reason they are big heads and so they are at the head of the government and the result is misery for the people. They talk about cutting off the heads of the grosses têtes but now we know that there will be other grosses têtes and the will be all the same.

Throughout history government has served as a vehicle for the organization of hatred and oppression, benefiting no one except those who are ambitious and ruthless enough to gain control of it.

Money and corruption are ruining the land, crooked politicians betray the working man, pocketing the profits and treating us like sheep, and we're tired of hearing promises that we know they'll never keep.

Power is always a corrupting influence.

Yes, citizens, Iturbide was a traitor, a hypocrite and an impious man who destroyed the assembly in which the people had deposited their sovereignty in order to appropriate it all to himself

I am more and more convinced that man is a dangerous creature, and that power whether vested in many or few is ever grasping, and like the grave, cries, 'Give, give.'

Not a single Arab ruler is a willing participant in democratic reform. Their regimes are festooned with opportunists attached to their financial and political privileges.

In a free government, the few, finding their schemes and views of interest borne down by the many, to gain the power they cannot constitutionally obtain, always endeavor to get it by cunning and corruption, conscious at the same time that usurpation, when once begun, the safety of the usurper consists only in grasping the whole.

when greed and fear are linked to power, you have a dangerous mix. We see that in political life. In part of the world, the mix of greed and fear means that those who get power become reluctant to give it back. One of the many things I like and admire in our democracies are the norms that make our leaders hand over power when voters tell them to

I'm not an expert on politics, but there's a bunch of bad people at the top who care about lining their own pockets before creating a society that looks after the vulnerable.

Where annual elections end, there slavery begins ... Humility, patience, and moderation, without which every man in power becomes a ravenous beast of prey.

There are always people willing to commit unspeakable human atrocity in exchange for a little power and privilege.

Politicians as a class are dangerous, that people who are seeking power over us are not, by definition, our friends.

Corruption is just another form of tyranny.

Clever tyrants are never punished.

If monarchy is corrupting - and it is - wait till you see what overt empire does to us.

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

The big tyrants never face justice.

Unlimited power corrupts the possessor.

Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy.

Unfortunately our nation, nay, our world, is run by evil morons.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.

For there is no defense for a man who, in the excess of his wealth, has kicked the great altar of Justice out of sight.