From Crooks and Liars:
A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side. –Aristotle
If I’ve learned anything in my years on the internet, it’s that you shouldn’t believe everything you read. So I went looking for some sort of verification of this quote. I found the quote itself in many places, but my cursory search didn’t turn up any attribution that said precisely where in Aristotle’s writings to look for it.
Aristotle’s works are out of copyright, so I looked for complete texts online. I found one collection at MIT, and felt this quote was likely to be from Politics. (I found another translation here.)
There was no verbatim match. He wrote in Greek, so I searched for individual words from the quote, and finally found it, in Politics, Book V, Chapter XI.
Aristotle discusses two kinds of tyrants: those who rule by terror, and those who pretend to care about the welfare of their subjects. The quote is about the second kind — the benevolent tyrant. (He distinguishes tyrants from kings who actually do care about the welfare of their subjects.)
This quote, from the beginning of the chapter, is also interesting:
[R]oyalty is preserved by the limitation of its powers. The more restricted the functions of kings, the longer their power will last unimpaired…
I can’t help thinking that Bush and Rove, if they ever read Aristotle, skipped over some parts.
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