Jonathan Swift Quotes
Though we cannot prolong the period of a commonwealth beyond the decree of heaven, or the date of its nature, any more than human life beyond the strength of the seminal virtue, yet we may manage a sickly constitution, and preserve a strong one.
Jonathan Swift, 1667-1745, Irish Satirist and Protestant Cleric, Dean, Dublin Cathedral, Quoted in S. Austin Allibone, Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay, 1880
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
This is a remarkably accurate prediction of a process that has rapidly accelerated to a point that would surprise most people of the 18th century except de Condorcet.
She was found guilty of treason because she had passed out leaflets criticizing the Nazi regime on a university campus. The non violent resistance tactics were so threatening to the Nazi German regime that Sophia and other members were executed by beheading as a particularly harsh example.
This president served his terms as allowed by the Constitution but then moved to change the constitution so that he could be the dictator as perpetual president. The purpose of constitutions is to limit and control the day to day political process and processes of reform. This stands the purpose of a constitution on its head. Modern totalitarian states almost all have constitutions. However where they differ from democracies is that the dictatorships ignore their constitutions, constantly suspend them in “emergencies” or change them at will to serve the interests of the ruling authorities. See {622125} for a Supreme Court Justice’s view of this kind of situation.
Jonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet and Anglican cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, hence his common sobriquet, "Dean Swift".
