George Ayittey Quotes

Every one of the world's dictatorships can and does claim to be acting in the name of the people.

In domestic as in political tyranny, the case of absolute monsters chiefly illustrates the institution by showing that there is scarcely any horror which may not occur under it if the despot pleases

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

Dictators are allergic to reform, and they are cunning survivors. They will do whatever it takes to preserve their power and wealth, no matter how much blood ends up on their hands. They are master deceivers and talented manipulators who cannot be trusted to change.

Dictators always look good until the last ten minutes.

The whole administrative, judicial, and legislative machinery obeys a single will, the caprice of General Porfirio Diaz, who during his long administration has shown that the principal motive that guides him is to maintain himself in power and at any cost.

To trample democracy with one’s feet and to give power to a single man over almost eighty million people is so terrible that one can very probably tremble over the events which will come here.

I am inclined to believe dictators. Not to is dangerous.

Some of the defendants say that dictatorship can be good if there is a good dictator. But I say that a man cannot stay good if he becomes a dictator. Authoritarianism is a system that destroys man's morality. If you take a saint and give him power, he will change into a Hitler or a devil.

Every dictatorship creates thousands of smaller dictators who live on for decades.

Joseph Stalin was a supreme egotist and sadist, capable of sacrificing everything and anyone for the sake of his own power and glory.

President Maliki: The appetite has grown with the eating. He has become a real dictator.

Erdogon has become so paranoid, so power-hungry, he doesn't even allow institutions to flourish. It has become a one-man show.

That's how dictators get started.

Colonel Qaddafi's tyranny was absolutist, monarchical, and personal. The problem with such dictatorships is that as long as the tyrant lives, he reigns and terrorizes.

Despotism increases in severity with the number of despots; the responsibility is more divided, and the claims are more numerous.

Africa has more dictators per capita than any other continent.

Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who posses it; and this I know, my lords: that where law ends, tyranny begins.

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

I've played so many historical characters because most horrible dictators are short, fat, middle-aged men.

Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people.

This is the worst administration since Caligula.

Dictators are interesting, no?

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

Dictators are ludicrous characters, and, you know, in my career and in my life, I've always enjoyed sort of inhabiting these ludicrous, larger-than-life characters that somehow exist in the real world.