Daniel Ellsberg Quotes

Authority has always attracted the lowest elements in the human race. All through history mankind has been bullied by scum.

The protection of the masses has in all times been the pretense of tyranny - the plea of monarchy, of aristocracy, of special privilege of every kind. The slave owners justified slavery as protecting the slaves.

Absolute power turns its possessors not into a God but an anti-God. For God turned clay into men, while the absolute despot turns men into clay.

There is nothing more corrupting, nothing more destructive of the noblest and finest feelings of our nature, than the exercise of unlimited power.

All men would be tyrants if they could.

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

A slave government is an oligarchy; and one, too, of the most arbitrary and criminal character.

The love of domination and an uncontrolled lust of arbitrary power have prevailed among all nations and perhaps in proportion to the degrees of civilization.

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

… the tools of despotism and corruption

If ... America is to become an empire, there is very little chance that it can avoid becoming a virtual dictatorship as well.

Politics without responsibility IS fascism.

Tyrants are but the spawn of Ignorance, Begotten by the slaves they trample on.

Absolute power can only be supported by error, ignorance and prejudice.

It is the old practice of despots to use a part of the people to keep the rest in order.

Power not only corrupts he who wields the power but those who submit to it. Those who grovel at the feet of power betray their fellows to hide themselves behind the cloak of submission. It is an evil thing.

When man has nothing but his will to assert--even his good-will--it is always bullying. Bolshevism is one sort of bullying, capitalism another: and liberty is a change of chains.

If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual.

Our authorities leave us no doubt that the trust lodged with the oligarchy was sometimes abused, but it certainly ought not to be regarded as a mere usurpation or engine of tyranny.

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

The world will not accept dictatorship or domination.

I think very poorly of United Russia. United Russia is the party of corruption, the party of crooks and thieves.

Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy.

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

The average European does not seem to feel free until he succeeds in enslaving and oppressing others.