“The tongue is the soft weapon that kills subtly.”
“There are three kinds of constitution, and an equal number of deviation-forms--perversions, as it were, of them. The constitutions are monarchy, aristocracy, and thirdly that which is based on a property qualification, which it seems appropriate to call timocratic, though most people are wont to call it polity. The best of these is monarchy, the worst timocracy. The deviation from monarchy is tyranny; for both are forms of one-man rule, but there is the greatest difference between them; the tyrant looks to his own advantage, the king to that of his subjects. For a man is not a king unless he is sufficient to himself and excels his subjects in all good things; and such a man needs nothing further; therefore he will not look to his own interests but to those of his subjects; for a king who is not like that would be a mere titular king. Now tyranny is the very contrary of this; the tyrant pursues his own good. And it is clearer in the case of tyranny that it is the worst deviation-form; but it is the contrary of the best that is worst. Monarchy passes over into tyranny; for tyranny is the evil form of one-man rule and the bad king becomes a tyrant. Aristocracy passes over into oligarchy by the badness of the rulers, who distribute contrary to equity what belongs to the city-all or most of the good things to themselves, and office always to the same people, paying most regard to wealth; thus the rulers are few and are bad men instead of the most worthy. Timocracy passes over into democracy; for these are coterminous, since it is the ideal even of timocracy to be the rule of the majority, and all who have the property qualification count as equal. Democracy is the least bad of the deviations;”
Source: Nicomachean Ethics
“Widespread intellectual and moral docility may be convenient for leaders in the short term, but it is suicidal for nations in the long term.”
Source: Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium
“Many political and religious doctrines have followed one another throughout history, but the modus operandi with which new dictators take and maintain power remains esentially the same: to terrorize the people and keep them in the dark.”
Source: SO MAN CREATED GOD IN HIS OWN IMAGE: The Science of Happiness
“It's through media that dehumanizing ideas are spread and reproduced. That's why totalitarians out a premium on destroying freedom of the press.”
Source: On Inhumanity: Dehumanization and How to Resist It
“It's through media that dehumanizing ideas are spread and reproduced. That's why totalitarians puts a premium on destroying freedom of the press.”
Source: On Inhumanity: Dehumanization and How to Resist It
“La tiranía siempre fracasa cuando a la gente no le queda nada mas que perder que sus vidas”
Source: Darkdawn
“If people are basically selfish -and they are- then asking them to work hard yet earn no more than their unproductive neighbor is asking more than they'll rarely give. But we already know that; communism has failed.”
Source: The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are - The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology
“Когда говорить правду стало невозможно (поскольку это каралось смертью), пришлось ее маскировать. В еврейской народной традиции маской отчаяния служит танец. А здесь маской правды сделалась ирония. Потому что на нее слух тирана обычно не настроен.”
Source: The Noise of Time
“Коль скоро тирания так преуспела в разрушении, что ей стоит разрушить заодно и любовь, умышленно или походя? Тирания требует любви к партии, к государству, к Великому Вождю и Рулевому, к народу. Но от таких великих, благородных, бескорыстных, безусловных «любовей» отвлекает любовь к единственному человеку, буржуазная и волюнтаристская. И в нынешней обстановке людям постоянно угрожает опасность не сохранить себя целиком. Если их последовательно терроризировать, они мутируют, съеживаются, усыхают – все это приемы выживания.”
Source: The Noise of Time