Paul Valery Quotes

Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression.

It is from weakness that people reach for dictators and concentrated government power. Only the strong can be free. And only the productive can be strong.

Extensive and organized power over large populations does not suffice to make a nation

if despotism were to be established amongst the democratic nations of our days it might assume a different character; it would be more extensive and more mild, it would degrade men without tormenting them.

The people of a nation are enslaved when, together, they are helpless to institute effective change, when the people serve the government more than the government serves them.

Standing armies are the oppressive instruments for governing the people.

The arbitrary rule of a just and enlightened prince is always bad. His virtues are the most dangerous and the surest form of seduction: they lull a people imperceptibly into the habit of loving, respecting, and serving his successor, whoever that successor may be, no matter how wicked or stupid.

Resolv'd to ruin or to rule the state..

Despotic governments do not recognize the precious human component of the state, seeing its citizens only as a faceless, mindless -- and helpless -- mass to be manipulated at will. It is as though people were incidental to a nation rather than its very life-blood.

Every State is a despotism, be the despot one or many.

The ancients understood the regulation of power better than the regulation of liberty.

There's a certain amount of tyranny in all of us to some extent, and in some people it's much more developed than in others. It's a different balance which makes us all different.

The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance.

So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly arise and make them miserable.

Power over others is weakness disguised as strength.

Powerlessness corrupts: absolute powerlessness corrupts absolutely

Now in the whole of Europe there are only two parties: France for the freedom of peoples against all the rulers, and all the monarchs against France for despotism and old traditions.

The one without a sword gets humiliated.

The king of England doth lay but his little finger upon his subjects when other princes and states do lay their heavy loins upon their people.

When a few free states, separately insufficient for their own defense, are hemmed in on all sides by military or feudal monarchs, who hate and despise freedom even in a neighbor, those states have no chance for preserving liberty and its blessings but by a federal union.

Put not your trust and confidence in kings and princes.

… the tools of despotism and corruption

There is no force greater than the state force.

In Turkey, public opinion is nil and the people always obey any effective executive force, and obey nothing else…. The perpetuation of Turkish rule is the perpetuation of infamy.

The means of defense against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.