Mary McCarthy Quotes

In all tyrannical governments the supreme magistracy, or the right both of making and of enforcing the laws, is vested in one and the same man, or one and the same body of men; and whenever these two powers are united together, there can be no public liberty.

… we cannot conceive of the authority of a despot who knows all his subjects on sight.

For 73 years a totalitarian regime ruled the country. Totalitarian regime.

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

Dictatorship: A system of government where everything that isn't forbidden is obligatory.

The army and the government needs a dictator.

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.

Spineless politics do not change the mind of a tyrant.

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

If you took the most ardent revolutionary, vested him in absolute power, within a year he would be worse than the Tsar himself.

How did an allegedly free people spawn a vast, rampant cuttlefish of dominion with its tentacles in every orifice of the body politic?

Totalitarianism, if not fought against, could triumph anywhere.

When Tarquin the Proud was asked what was the best mode of governing a conquered city, he replied only by beating down with his staff all the tallest poppies in his garden.

How is it possible to live in world where people can rule millions of others? It's incredible! It's like we've gone back to the 12th century. That's what happens when you decapitate intelligentsia and repeatedly traumatize and brutalize a country for decades on end: you do not get virtue. Victims do not make nice people.

Degeneracy follows every autocratic system of violence, for violence inevitably attracts moral inferiors. Time has proven that illustrious tyrants are succeeded by scoundrels.

Tyrants always condemn and seek to replace the market process with government coercion because tyrants do not trust that people behaving voluntarily will do what the tyrants think they should do.

Tyranny seldom announces itself...In fact, a tyranny may exist without an individual tyrant. A whole government, even a democratically elected one, may be tyrannical.

Despotism often presents itself as the repairer of all the ills suffered, the support of just rights, defender of the oppressed, and founder of order.

Tyranny is like the electric wiring in an old house. A tyrant dies, the new tyrant takes possession, and all he has to do is drop the switch.

Despotism is unjust to everybody, including the despot, who was probably made for better things.

As political and economic freedom diminishes, sexual freedom tends correspondingly to increase. And the dictator will do well to encourage that freedom...it will help to reconcile his subjects to the servitude which is their fate.

A wicked tyrant is better than a wicked war.

I believe that no people ever yet groaned under the heavy yoke of slavery but when they deserved it.

[It is a basic principle of a tyrant] to unarm his people of weapons, money and all means whereby they resist his power.

We must reject dictatorship in whatever form it takes - and especially when it rears its head in our own midst on the bench.