WIST Quotations

Montesquieu -- Spirit of Laws [The Spirit of the Laws; De l’esprit des lois], Book 19, ch. 27 (1748) [tr. Nugent (1750)]

Dave — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 00:54:09 +0000

A free nation may have a deliverer; a nation enslaved can have only another oppressor. For whoever is able to dethrone an absolute prince has a power sufficient to become absolute himself.

[Une nation libre peut avoir un libérateur; une nation subjuguée ne peut avoir qu’un autre oppresseur. Car tout homme qui a assez de force pour chasser celui qui est déja le maître absolu dans un état, en a assez pour le devenir lui-même.]

Charles-Lewis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) French political philosopher
Spirit of Laws [The Spirit of the Laws; De l’esprit des lois], Book 19, ch. 27 (1748) [tr. Nugent (1750)]
(Source)

(Source (French)). Other translations:

A free nation can have a liberator; a subjugated nation can only have another oppressor. For any man who has enough strength to drive out the one who is already the absolute master in a state has enough to become one himself.
[tr. Cohler/Miller/Stone (1989)]

A free nation can have a liberator; a subjugated nation can only have another oppressor. For any man who has enough force to drive out him who is already the absolute master in a state has enough to become the master himself.
[tr. Stewart (2018)]

Baldwin, James -- Speech (1965-02-17), Opening Comments, “The American Dream is at the Expense of the American Negro,” debate with William F. Buckley, Jr., Cambridge University, England

Dave — Thu, 16 Jan 2025 13:28:52 +0000

I suggest that what has happened to white Southerners is in some ways, after all, much worse than what has happened to Negroes there because Sheriff Clark in Selma, Alabama, cannot be considered — you know, no one can be dismissed as a total monster. I’m sure he loves his wife, his children. I’m sure, you know, he likes to get drunk. You know, after all, one’s got to assume he is visibly a man like me. But he doesn’t know what drives him to use the club, to menace with the gun and to use the cattle prod. Something awful must have happened to a human being to be able to put a cattle prod against a woman’s breasts, for example. What happens to the woman is ghastly. What happens to the man who does it is in some ways much, much worse.

James Baldwin (1924-1987) American novelist, playwright, activist
Speech (1965-02-17), Opening Comments, “The American Dream is at the Expense of the American Negro,” debate with William F. Buckley, Jr., Cambridge University, England
(Source)

(Source (Video))

Orwell, George -- Burmese Days, ch. 5 (1934)

Dave — Wed, 21 Aug 2024 19:36:03 +0000

It is a stifling, stultifying world in which to live. It is a world in which every word and every thought is censored. In England it is hard even to imagine such an atmosphere. Everyone is free in England; we sell our souls in public and buy them back in private, among our friends. But even friendship can hardly exist when every white man is a cog in the wheels of despotism. Free speech is unthinkable. All other kinds of freedom are permitted. You are free to be a drunkard, an idler, a coward, a backbiter, a fornicator; but you are not free to think for yourself. Your opinion on every subject of any conceivable importance is dictated for you by the pukka sahibs’ code.

George Orwell (1903-1950) English journalist, essayist, writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
Burmese Days, ch. 5 (1934)
(Source)

Of the life of the Englishman John Flory, the protagonist, in Burma, part of the 1920s British Raj. Orwell's first novel, it was based on his own experiences as a police officer in that part of the word. The pukka sahibs were the "excellent fellows," i.e., the European (white) colonialists of the region.

Voltaire -- Philosophical Dictionary, “Tyranny” (1764) [tr. Gay (1962)]

Dave — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 10:38:49 +0000

I fear that in this world one must be either hammer or anvil.

Voltaire (1694-1778) French writer [pseud. of Francois-Marie Arouet]
Philosophical Dictionary, “Tyranny” (1764) [tr. Gay (1962)]
(Source)

Alt. trans.: "In this world we run the risk of having to choose between being either the anvil or the hammer." [Baskin (1961)]