Van Jones Quotes

We have tended to be comfortable with authoritarian regimes.

Despotism increases in severity with the number of despots; the responsibility is more divided, and the claims are more numerous.

You look at the greatest villains in human history, the fascists, the autocrats, they all wanted people to kneel before them because they don't love themselves enough.

I've played so many historical characters because most horrible dictators are short, fat, middle-aged men.

Every dictator is an enemy of freedom, an opponent of law.

Backward is just not a natural direction for Americans to look - historical ignorance remains a national characteristic.

I've met quite a few dictators up close and personal in my life.

It is from weakness that people reach for dictators and concentrated government power. Only the strong can be free. And only the productive can be strong.

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

The government of a single person is no assurance of a stable and tranquil government.

Only the history of free peoples is worth our attention; the history of men under a despotism is merely a collection of anecdotes.

The more a regime claims to be the embodiment of liberty the more tyrannical it is likely to be.

The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands of others the submissiveness of sheep.

In an absolute government there can be no... equiponderant parties. The despot is the government.

One Hundred and Seventy Three Despots would surely be as oppressive as one.

In domestic as in political tyranny, the case of absolute monsters chiefly illustrates the institution by showing that there is scarcely any horror which may not occur under it if the despot pleases

Enormous monarchies are probably destructive to human nature in their progress, in their continuance and even in their own downfall.

Government by one man: He is called a lord if he inclines to a good and common end; a tyrant if he is inclined to pursue bad or merely personal ends.

An oppressive government is worse than a man-eating tiger.

To trample democracy with one’s feet and to give power to a single man over almost eighty million people is so terrible that one can very probably tremble over the events which will come here.

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

We are a slack people but deeply destructive … I think that a constitutional regime would mean the end of Russia. We need a despot!

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

It is a favorite maxim of despotick power, that mankind are not made to govern themselves.

I am not a dictator, and I do not think I will become one. I will not maintain power with a machine gun.