We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.
--
Letter to Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette (2 April 1790).Thomas Jefferson
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And even should the cloud of barbarism and despotism again obscure the science and libraries of Europe, this country remains to preserve and restore light and liberty to them. In short, the flames kindled on the fourth of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them.
Thomas Jefferson
The revolutionary government is the despotism of liberty against tyranny.
Georg Buchner
The government in a revolution is the despotism of liberty against tyranny.
Maximilien Robespierre
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.
George Washington
[Translated]: The tree of liberty only grows when watered by the blood of tyrants.
Bertrand Barere de Vieuzac
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