(as of 2021-09-28)
“I understood the infamous spiritual terror which
this movement exerts, particularly on the bourgeoisie, which is neither
morally nor mentally equal to such attacks; at a given sign it unleashes
a veritable barrage of lies and slanders against whatever adversary
seems most dangerous, until the nerves of the attacked persons break
down . . . This is a tactic based on precise calculation of all human
weaknesses, and its result will lead to success with almost mathematical
certainty . . .
I achieved an equal understanding of the importance of physical terror
toward the individual and the masses . . . For while in the ranks of
their supporters the victory achieved seems a triumph of the justice of
their own cause, the defeated adversary in most cases despairs of the
success of any further resistance."
--- Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, page 43-44
quoted, William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, chapter 1, note 49
Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When
change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is
set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as
among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the
past are condemned to repeat it.
--- George
Santayana - Reason in Common Sense
I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat. --- Will Rogers
famous
passage from Lord Acton in 1887:
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts
absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise
influence and not authority: still more when you super-add the tendency
or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy
than that the office sanctifies the holder of it." ---Lord
Acton, 1887
"Every Communist must grasp the truth: Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." --- Mao Tse Tung, the bloodiest dictator in world history.
"All history is only one long story to this effect: Men have struggled for power over their fellow men in order that they might win the joys of earth at the expense of others, and might shift the burdens of life from their own shoulders upon those of others." --- Classical liberal and social scientist William Graham Sumner.
"The impulse of power is to turn every variable into a constant, and give to commands the inexorableness and relentlessness of laws of nature. Hence absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others the submissiveness of sheep. The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its anti-humanity." --- Longshoreman and philosopher Eric Hoffer.
"The intoxication with power is worse than drunkenness with liquor and such, for he who is drunk with power does not come to his senses before he falls." --- From The Mahābhārata, a Sanskrit epic poem, said to be the longest poem in world literature.
"The most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity." --- Fantasy author J. R. R. Tolkien in a 1943 letter to his son Christopher.
"Power will intoxicate the best hearts, as wine the strongest heads. No man is wise enough, nor good enough to be trusted with unlimited power." --- English cleric Charles Caleb Colton.
"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested
in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power.
What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different
from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All
the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and
hypocrites…We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of
relinquishing it. 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. The object of
persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object
of power is power." – Novelist George Orwell in his book 1984.