Meredith Nicholson Quotes

The worst government is the most moral.

A general presumption that Icings will govern well, is not a sufficient security to the People... those who subjected themselves to the will of a man were governed by a beast.

Our authorities leave us no doubt that the trust lodged with the oligarchy was sometimes abused, but it certainly ought not to be regarded as a mere usurpation or engine of tyranny.

Military dictatorship, you can focus on it, you can fight it directly. It's a band of power-driven people.

The great men of power who seek to change the nations they belong to usually are pretty terrible people.

Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who posses it; and this I know, my lords: that where law ends, tyranny begins.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.

This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.

Any number of scoundrels, having money enough to start with, can establish themselves as a 'government'; because, with money, they can hire soldiers, and with soldiers extort more money; and also compel general obedience to their will.

This is the worst administration since Caligula.

The people are good; the government is not good.

Power tends to corrupt if you're there too long.

The rule of several bad men does not last long, and easily decays to the rule of a single tyrant.

No state has been so plagued by its rulers as when power has fallen into the hands of some dabbler in philosophy or literary addict.

The very name of a politician, a statesman, is sure to cause terror and hatred; it has always connected with it the ideas of treachery, cruelty, fraud, and tyranny…

Cruel leaders are replaced only to have new leaders turn cruel!

… the mortal enemy of liberty

That's how dictators get started.

Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms.

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

If monarchy is corrupting - and it is - wait till you see what overt empire does to us.

An oppressive government is more to be feared than a tiger.

Enlightened despots are mythical creatures; real despots seem more interested in stealing money or installing their sons after them.

Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.

Nothing crushes freedom as substantially as a tank.