A Quote by Plato

Democracy passes into despotism.

Plato

Quote Topics

Government Democracy Despotism Passes

Quote Author

Plato
Greek - Philosopher
427 BC - 347 BC

[O]ur sages in the great [constitutional] convention... intended our government should be a republic which differs more widely from a democracy than a democracy from a despotism. The rigours of a despotism often... oppress only a few, but it is the very essence and nature of a democracy, for a faction claiming to oppress a minority, and that minority the chief owners of the property and truest lovers of their country.

Fisher Ames

[the framers of the Constitution] intended our government should be a republic, which differs more widely from a democracy than a democracy from a despotism.

Fisher Ames

Democracy has two excesses to avoid: the spirit of inequality, which leads to an aristocracy, or to the government of a single individual; and the spirit of extreme equality, which conducts it to despotism, as the despotism of a single individual finishes by conquest.

Baron de Montesquieu

Despotism subjects a nation to one tyrant; democracy, to many.

Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington

Despotism may be able to do without religion, but democracy cannot.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.

Alexander Hamilton

Monarchy hardens into despotism. Aristocracy contracts into oligarchy. Democracy expands into the supremacy of numbers.

Lord Acton

If there is one fact we really can prove, from the history that we really do know, it is that despotism can be a development, often a late development and very often indeed the end of societies that have been highly democratic. A despotism may almost be defined as a tired democracy. As fatigue falls on a community, the citizens are less inclined for that eternal vigilance which has truly been called the price of liberty; and they prefer to arm only one single sentinel to watch the city while they sleep.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Liberty has never lasted long in a democracy, nor has it ever ended in anything better than despotism.

Fisher Ames

We are now forming a republican government. Real liberty is never found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.

Alexander Hamilton

So long as war is the main business of nations, temporary despotism - despotism during the campaign - is indispensable.

Walter Bagehot

It is quite possible that we will soon come to live under some sort of global despotism, enlightened or not. This is not a nice prospect. And there is only one way of avoiding that this happens: to establish a global democracy. And it is not too late to strive for such a democracy, of a straightforward populist nature, where people on the globe elect a world parliament, which in turn elects a world government.

Torbjorn Tannsjo

Is not liberty the destruction of all despotism - including, of course, legal despotism?

Frederic Bastiat

The despotism of will in ideas is styled plan, project, character, obstinacy; its despotism in desires is called passion.

Antoine Rivarol

The faith in reason insists that the poverty of democracy offers a greater hope for mankind than the prosperity that attaches itself to aristocracy or despotism.