Simon Sebag Montefiore said this quote

“ Stalin was always exceptional, even from childhood. We have relied on Trotsky’s unrecognizably prejudiced portrait for too long. The truth was different. Trotsky’s view tells us more about his own vanity, snobbery and lack of political skills than about the early Stalin. ”

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But to her, libraries were like hotels: secret villages inhabited by passing strangers from a thousand different worlds brought together just for a few hours.

~ Simon Sebag Montefiore

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Who is fit to be elected?' asked Napoleon. 'A Caesar, an Alexander only comes along once a century, so that election must be a matter of chance.

~ Simon Sebag Montefiore

Simon Sebag Montefiore Aristocracy Autocracy Chance Chronology Democracy Dynasty Election History Napoleon Politics Romantic Individual Russia

Power is always personal: any study of a Western democratic leader today reveals that, even in a transparent system with its short periods in office, personalities shape administrations. Democratic leaders often rule through trusted retainers instead of official ministers. In any court, power is as fluid as human personality.

~ Simon Sebag Montefiore

Simon Sebag Montefiore Aristocracy Autocracy Chronology Dynasty History Politics Russia

Very few politicians, who have chosen a political career, can fulfill the aspirations and survive the strains of an elevated office that in a monarchy was filled so randomly. Each tsar had to be simultaneously dictator and supreme general, high priest and Little Father. They required all the qualities listed by the sociologist Max Weber: the personal gift of grace, the virtue of legality, and the authority of the eternal yesterday.

~ Simon Sebag Montefiore

Simon Sebag Montefiore Legitimacy Magnetism Max Weber Politics Sociology Tradition