Elizabeth Cady Stanton Quotes

Fear must rule in a despotism.

They (who) seek to establish systems of government based on the regimentation of all human beings by a handful of individual rulers … call this a new order. It is not new and it is not order.

If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual.

Secrecy is the freedom tyrants dream of.

Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.

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.

The world will not accept dictatorship or domination.

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

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

One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship.

... the perfect dictatorship.

A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.

Oppressive government is more terrible than tigers.

… so long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.

this monster, this Colossus of Despotism ... a deep laid scheme to enslave us.

Whatever crushes individuality is despotism.

The era of individualism, liberalism and democracy, of humanitarianism and freedom, is nearing its end. The masses will accept with resignation the victory of the Caesars, the strong men, and will obey them. Life will descend to a level of general uniformity, a new kind of primitivism, and the world will be better for it.....

Rule with an iron first will inevitably come to an end.

if despotism were to be established amongst the democratic nations of our days it might assume a different character; it would be more extensive and more mild, it would degrade men without tormenting them.

The people always have some champion who they set over them and nurse into greatness …. This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears, he is a protector.

We have tended to be comfortable with authoritarian regimes.

The political lives of tyrants play out human affairs with a special intensity: the death of a democratic leader long after his retirement is a private matter, but the death of a tyrant is always a political act that reflects the character of his power.

I would be opposed to any kind of totalitarian control.

Dictators fall when they're overconfident; they stay in power when they're paranoid.

It is the old practice of despots to use a part of the people to keep the rest in order.