Jean Racine Quotes

Tyranny knows no restraint of appetite.

I shall be an autocrat, that's my trade; and that good Lord will forgive me, that's his.

At times it is necessary for a country to have, for a time, some form or other of dictatorial power..

Absolute power is absolute power, no matter what it's called.

If I ruled supreme, there would be big problems.

There is no King, who, with sufficient force, is not always ready to make himself absolute.

The progress of despotism tends to disappoint its own purpose.

The possession of unlimited power will make a despot of almost any man. There is a possible Nero in the gentlest human creature that walks.

Absolute power, as we have always known, corrupts absolutely; it corrupts because it does not do the trick for the individual. Reality always creeps in--the reality of our helplessness and our mortality; the reality that, despite our reach for the stars, a creaturely fate awaits us.

Any excuse will serve a tyrant.

I hold it to be the most monstrous proposition ever uttered within the Senate that conquering a country like Mexico, the President can constitute himself a despotic ruler without the slightest limitation on his power. If all this be true, war is indeed dangerous!

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

The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.

For ten years Caesar ruled with an iron hand. Then with a wooden foot, and finally with a piece of string.

Any government, that is its own judge of, and determines authoritatively for the people, what are its own powers over the people, is an absolute government of course. It has all the powers that it chooses to exercise. There is no other or at least no more accurate definition of a despotism than this.

I would not like a king who could obey.

Despotism isn't nearly as bad as it's cracked up to be.

All executive power --- from the reign of ancient kings to the rule of modern dictators --- has the outward appearance of efficiency

[Ronald Reagan resembles:] a Turkish pasha, passively letting his subjects serve him.

Emperor Napoleon is nothing but an ordinary king who tramples on human rights.

... all of our human experience shows that no one with absolute power can be trusted to give it up even in part.

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

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.

The people are so secure under the sultan's reign that no one fears his agents.

The Shah is a nut!