Stendhal Quotes

Watch out for the man who talks of putting things in order. Putting things in order always means getting other people under your control.

When you're convinced that you're right and you believe that you have the license to do anything because you're right, you can be bossy and you can be dangerous. You can be oppressive. You can be a tyrant.

Have you any idea how much tyrants fear the people they oppress?

It is also in the interests of a tyrant to make his subjects poo...the people are so occupied with their daily tasks that they have no time for plotting.

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

Any excuse will serve a tyrant.

Authority poisons everybody who takes authority on himself.

Power is domination, control, and therefore a very selective form of truth which is a lie.

All men would be tyrants if they could.

You carry forever the fingerprint that comes from being under someone's thumb.

The world is full of little dictators trying to run your life.

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

The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny.

Well, when you look at a lot of science fiction novels they're asking questions about power. There are questions about what it means to have power and what are the long-term consequences of power.

Fear is the foundation of most governments.

The need to exert power, when thwarted in the open fields of life, is the more likely to assert itself in trifles.

Religions are the cradles of despotism.

Power is what men seek and any group that gets it will abuse it.

Power is always dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best.

Power is an instrument of fatal consequence. It is confined no more readily than quicksilver, and escapes good intentions as easily as air flows through mesh.

Power over others is weakness disguised as strength.

Power intoxicates men. It is never voluntarily surrendered. It must be taken from them.

Power tends to get confused with repression.

Anyone obsessed with power sees enemies everywhere.

The tyrant is only the slave turned inside out.