Jean Rostand Quotes

Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a god.

Authority poisons everybody who takes authority on himself.

The tyrant is only the slave turned inside out.

Under the rule of a repressive whole, liberty can be made into a powerful instrument of domination.

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.

All men would be tyrants if they could.

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

Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts... perhaps the fear of a loss of power.

Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.

Tyrants are seldom free; the cares and the instruments of their tyranny enslave them.

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.

There is no more contemptible poison than power over one's fellow men.

I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false-face for the urge to rule it.

Power corrupts; but absolute power is really neat.

… the tools of despotism and corruption

Who holds all power must fear all things.

The silence of peoples is something kings should study.

There are no tyrants where there are no slaves.

To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false pretenses, they call empire and where they make a desert they call it peace.

There are few minds to which tyranny is not delightful.

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.

Power is always right, weakness always wrong. Power is always insolent and despotic.

Whether it comes from a despotic sovereign or an elected president, from a murderous general or a beloved leader, I see power as an inhuman and hateful phenomen. To the same degree that I do not understand power, I do understand those who oppose power, who criticize power, who contest power, especially those who rebel against power imposed by brutality.

Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying themselves, or, more generally, in the acquisition of power.