Sublime

despotically over

“The mission of the tyrant,” says Aristotle, “is to protect the people against the rich; he has always commenced by being a demagogue, and it is the essence of tyranny to oppose the aristocracy.”

La Guardia was a bullying petty tyrant to subordinates—not only to his secretaries, who came to dread the rasp of his buzzers summoning them into his office, and would sit sobbing at their desks when they came out, but also to his commissioners, the nonpartisan, nonpolitical experts of whose presence in his administration he was constantly

He wasn’t satisfied merely to defeat people who opposed his wishes. He had to try to destroy them, too.

He’d like to occupy a throne room surrounded by experts in flattery; while in a dungeon beneath, unknown to the world, would be a bunch of able slaves doing his work and producing the things that, to the public, would represent the brilliant accomplishment of his mind. He’s a fool, but worse he is a puking baby.

Everywhere these tyrants, with more or less violence, had the same policy. A tyrant of Corinth one day asked advice concerning government of a tyrant of Miletus. The latter, in reply, struck off the heads of grain that were higher than the others. Thus their rule of conduct was to cut down the high heads, and to strike at the aristocracy, while

Je ne vois personne aujourd'hui qui, entendant parler de Néron, ne tremble au seul nom de ce vilain monstre, de cette sale peste du monde. Il faut pourtant dire qu'après la mort, aussi dégoûtante que sa vie, de ce boutefeu, de ce bourreau, de cette bête sauvage, ce fameux peuple romain en éprouva tant de déplaisir, se rappelant ses jeux et ses