Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes

The record of Arab regimes is disgraceful and outrageous … worse than that of the occupier or the colonialist.

Every kind and degree of evil of which mankind are susceptible may be inflicted on them by their government.

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

The only greater [evil] than separation... [is] living under a government of discretion.

Every one of the world's dictatorships can and does claim to be acting in the name of the people.

The worst evils which mankind has ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments.

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

A government that can at pleasure accuse, shoot, and hang men, as traitors, for the one general offence of refusing to surrender themselves and their property unreservedly to its arbitrary will, can practice any and all special and particular oppressions it pleases.

We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.

I hate Iran. I hate the Iranian government. It's a cruel and evil government.

Oppressive government is more terrible than tigers.

Most governments are designed for the purposes of oppression and personal ambition.

Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression.

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

Stalin is too brutal. His powers should be taken away from him.

If the national government falls into the hands of sufficiently unprincipled men, they can do terrible things before any one can stop them.

In Belarus, the government is a kind of presidential monarchy with no checks, no balances, and no rule of law.

In more than half the nations of our world, torture certifies that the form of government is tyranny. Only tyranny, no matter how camouflaged, needs and employs torturers. Torture has no ideology.

Those who suppress freedom always do so in the name of law and order.

Under dictatorship, the people in prison are always superior to the people who put them there.

The chief evil is unlimited government, and nobody is qualified to wield unlimited power.

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.

Throughout history government has served as a vehicle for the organization of hatred and oppression, benefiting no one except those who are ambitious and ruthless enough to gain control of it.

It can't happen here is always wrong: a dictatorship can happen anywhere.

Government is waging war against the people.