Autocratic Rule Quotes

I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.

I began life as an absolute monarchist - on condition, of course, that I be that monarch.

Know, sir, that the first place in the empire is mine. From God I hold my power and my crown, and I depute them to no man--I alone reign in Austria.

The arbitrary rule of a just and enlightened prince is always bad. His virtues are the most dangerous and the surest form of seduction: they lull a people imperceptibly into the habit of loving, respecting, and serving his successor, whoever that successor may be, no matter how wicked or stupid.

Pol Pot is very charming. ... His face, his behavior is very polite, but he is very, very cruel. Pol Pot does not believe in God but he thinks that heaven, destiny, wants him to guide Cambodia in the way he thinks it the best for Cambodia, that is to say, the worst. Pol Pot is mad, you know, like Hitler.

General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, and other military chieftains, have by force of arms, overthrown the federal institutions of Mexico, and dissolved the social compact which existed between Texas and the other members of the Mexican Confederacy

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

Lust of power; the subjugation of inoffensive and law-abiding neighbors; autocratic aggrandizement, is the cause of this war. In its cause the allies have been guiltless.

The uprising in Egypt was initiated by the young generation. The uprising achieved two things. One is it made the lives of dictators impossible. Today, if you are looking for a safe job, don't become a dictator.

One of Ivan the Terrible's mistakes was to overlook the five great feudal families. If he had annihilated those five families, there would definitely have been no Time of Troubles. But Ivan the Terrible would execute someone and then spend a long time repenting and praying. God got in his way in this matter. He ought to have been still more decisive!

One must never compromise with tyrants. One can only strike at kings through the head. Nothing can be expected from European kings except by force of arms. I vote for the death of the tyrant.

Bureaucracy, the rule of no one, has become the modern form of despotism.

A political revolution must proceed simultaneously with the nationalist revolution. When we overthrow the Manchu regime, we will achieve not only a nationalist revolution against the Manchus but also a political revolution against monarchy. They are not to be carried out at two different times.

Even the worst dictator, there is not a single one of them who would say "Oh yes, I violate human rights." They all claim "oh no, we respect human rights" even when they are doing the most egregious things.

The peculiar danger of executive power is that it executes.

The real fight isn't left or right but between forces of democracy across the spectrum and the forces of tyranny.

Dictators always look good until the last ten minutes.

Any time there is a coup you start with the assumption that the home government missed it …. Why should we know better than the government that’s being overthrown?

We do not believe in government through the voting booth. The Spanish national will was never freely expressed through the ballot box.

The Arab monarchies, especially Jordan and Morocco, are more legitimate than the false republics, with their stolen elections, regime-dominated courts and rubber-stamp parliaments.

No merely legislative body could control a single, concentrated Executive ….

I am often accused of interfering in the private lives of citizens. Yes, if I did not, had I not done that, we wouldn't be here today. And I say without the slightest remorse, that we wouldn't be here, we would not have made economic progress, if we had not intervened on very personal matters - who your neighbour is, how you live, the noise you make, how you spit, or what language you use. We decide what is right. Never mind what the people think.

A unity of the Executive would be necessary in order to promote dispatch; -that a plurality of Persons would never do. When I was in Holland the States general were obliged to give up their power to a French Man to direct their military operations…. However power is always increasing on the part of the Executive

Constitutional Government in Naples is hopeless. What would suit us, would be an enlightened despotism—such a Government as Murat's might have ripened into had he stayed. We owe him nearly all the progress that we have made during the last three or four centuries. He gave us open legal procedure, the abolition of privileges, the diminution of ecclesiastical property, and the few roads which we possess. Now all is going backwards

The people are difficult to govern: It is because those in authority are too fond of action [change].