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laughing with their friends, and, when they
diverted themselves with writing their Laws and the Politics, they did it as
an amusement. That part of their life was the least philosophic and the
least serious; the most philosophic was to live simply and quietly. If they
wrote on politics, it was as if laying down rules for a lunatic asylum; and
if they presented the appearance of speaking of a great matter, it was
because they knew that the madmen, to whom they spoke, thought they were
kings and emperors. They entered into their principles in order to make
their madness as little harmful as possible.

332. Tyranny consists in the desire of universal power beyond its scope.

There are different assemblies of the strong, the fair, the sensible, the
pious, in which each man rules at home, not elsewhere. And sometimes they
meet, and the strong and the fair foolishly fight as to who shall be master,
for their mastery is of different kinds. They do not understand one another,
and their fault is the desire to rule everywhere. Nothing can effect this,
not even might, which is of no use in the kingdom of the wise, and is only
mistress of external actions.

Tyranny--... So these expressions are false and tyrannical: "I am fair,
therefore I must be feared. I am strong, therefore I must be loved. I am...

Tyranny is the wish to have in one way what can only be had in another. We
render different duties to different merits; the duty of love to the
pleasant; the duty of fear to the strong; duty of belief to the learned.

We must render these duties; it is unjust to refuse them, and unjust to as