Politics and Power

Society is well governed when its people obey the magistrates, and the magistrates obey the law.

I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.

The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.

Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class.

States are as the men, they grow out of human characters.

A state arises, as I conceive, out of the needs of mankind; no one is self-sufficing, but all of us have many wants.

When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing more to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.

For the introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state; since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions.

No one ever teaches well who wants to teach, or governs well who wants to govern.

Excess of liberty, whether it lies in state or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery.

Excess generally causes reaction, and produces a change in the opposite direction, whether it be in the seasons, or in individuals, or in governments.

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

The wisest have the most authority.

Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men.

The measure of a man is what he does with power.

There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands.

Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.

Authority is never without hate.

The mob is the mother of tyrants.

Beware lest in your anxiety to avoid war you obtain a master.

There is one safeguard known generally to the wise, which is an advantage and security to all, but especially to democracies as against despots - suspicion.

The best protection for the people is not necessarily to believe everything people tell them.

Excessive dealings with tyrants are not good for the security of free states.