Simon Sebag Montefiore Quotes
Mr. Putin presents himself as a czar - and like any czar, he fears revolution above all else.
Montefiore, Simon Sebag. "Putin's Imperial Adventure in Syria." The New York Times, 9 Oct. 2015.
FDR was a marvelous judge of men and their character. De Gaulle could not separate himself from France and pushed the French Republic towards one man rule (himself) as much as anyone since Napoleon Bonaparte.
Soon he had the power of a dictator but he didn’t force his will on the vast majority of the Cubans. His decrees made all the wealthy and the cronies of the dictator Batista outraged and most of them left Cuba. He was a dynamic demagogue and the people handed him dictatorial powers which he did not reject. He was so popular that he was the only leader in the Americas who would give 4 hour speeches and move through the streets without any bodyguards until the United States and dissident expatriates tried to assassinate him. With all that popularity, none the less he would not allow open criticism of his regime and jailed many political opponents. So he indeed became a dictator but never needed the machine gun to maintain power.
Arguing the need to limit the power of the legislature:
Prevented by the Military from ever taking office. She was commenting on recent attacks against minority Muslims by the majority Buddhists and one of the major reasons she claimed was the lack of trust in the Muslim community that had developed during the period of military dictatorship.
Description of the Mexican Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) which ruled Mexico for 71 straight years.
Honore Gabriel Victor Requiti. The French King had just opened the French National Assembly which contained deputies (delegates) from the clergy, the nobility and the people. The King had made what some deputies thought was a very constructive and responsible speech opening the assembly. Mirabeau observed that as long as there was an absolute monarch in place, even a benign one. It was the presence of a monarch itself that was evil.
Belafonte was on stage with Hugo Chavez, the autocratic president of Venezuela and a patent demagogue who constantly attacked Bush and the American government. Other than an entertainer who knows little about politics making an over the top attack on the president this quotation is ironic because he was at the time on the stage with and supporting one of the two most autocratic dictators of the Western Hemisphere—Hugo Chavez. In that context, the accusation was as absurd as it can get.
Simon Jonathan Sebag Montefiore is a British historian, television presenter and author of popular history books and novels.
