Republics Quotes

An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.

The slightest acquaintance with history shows that powerful republics are the most warlike and unscrupulous of nations.

Debt is the fatal disease of republics, the first thing and the mightiest to undermine governments and corrupt the people.

As in Athens, the right to participate was restricted to men, just as it was also in all later democracies and republics until the twentieth century.

Luxury ruins republics; poverty, monarchies.

Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners.

Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them.

Republics end through luxury; monarchies through poverty.

Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.

In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.

Like all of Latin America, Mexico after independence in 1821 turned its back on a triple heritage: on the Spanish heritage, because we were newly liberated colonies, and on our Indian and black heritages, because we considered them backward and barbaric. We looked towards France, England and the U.S., to become progressive democratic republics.

There is no question but that the laws and principles which Solon laid down both foreshadowed and prepared the way for all republics of later ages, including our own.