Quotes and Sayings about Tyranny
"For somehow this disease inheres in tyranny, never to trust one's friends."
- Aeschylus
(Related: Trust, Disease, Friends, Tyranny)
"Death is softer by far than tyranny."
- Aeschylus
(Related: Death, Tyranny)
"It is an essential tenet of our whole representative form of government, the idea that there should not be some tyranny which makes it so nobody can even have a chance to vote."
- Todd Akin
(Related: Government, Idea, Chance, Tyranny, Vote)
"While we are under the tyranny of Priests, it will ever be their interest, to invalidate the law of nature and reason, in order to establish systems incompatible therewith."
- Ethan Allen
(Related: Nature, Interest, Law, Order, Reason, Tyranny, Will)
"Political tyranny is nothing compared to the social tyranny and a reformer who defies society is a more courageous man than a politician who defies Government."
- B. R. Ambedkar
(Related: Government, Society, Man, Nothing, Tyranny)
"I shall earnestly and persistently continue to urge all women to the practical recognition of the old Revolutionary maxim. Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God."
- Susan B. Anthony
(Related: Women, God, Maxim, Obedience, Old, Tyranny)
"Under conditions of tyranny it is far easier to act than to think."
- Hannah Arendt
(Related: Act, Tyranny)
"No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our history has determined the very existence of politics, the cause of freedom versus tyranny."
- Hannah Arendt
(Related: History, Politics, Beginning, Cause, Existence, Fact, Freedom, Tyranny)
"You may talk of the tyranny of Nero and Tiberius; but the real tyranny is the tyranny of your next-door neighbor."
- Walter Bagehot
(Related: May, Talk, Tyranny)
"The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, of the phantom of God. As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth."
- Mikhail Bakunin
(Related: God, Earth, First, Heaven, Theology, Tyranny, Will)
"The desire for liberty has also made itself felt as struggle against domestic tyranny or arbitrary rule."
- Emily Greene Balch
(Related: Desire, Liberty, Struggle, Tyranny)
"I have an almost complete disregard of precedent, and a faith in the possibility of something better. It irritates me to be told how things have always been done. I defy the tyranny of precedent. I go for anything new that might improve the past."
- Clara Barton
(Related: Faith, Possibility, Past, Tyranny)
"As freedom-loving people across the globe hope for an end to tyranny, we will never forget the enormous suffering of the Holocaust."
- Bob Beauprez
(Related: People, Hope, End, Forget, Freedom, Suffering, Tyranny, Will)
"Tyranny and anarchy are never far apart."
- Jeremy Bentham
(Related: Anarchy, Tyranny)
"The Framers of the Constitution knew that free speech is the friend of change and revolution. But they also knew that it is always the deadliest enemy of tyranny."
- Hugo Black
(Related: Change, Friend, Constitution, Enemy, Free speech, Revolution, Tyranny)
"They know the importance of their mission and of America's commitment to combating and defeating terrorism abroad, and they know that they are making a real difference in bringing freedom to a part of the world that has known only tyranny."
- John Boehner
(Related: America, Commitment, Difference, Freedom, Importance, Mission, Terrorism, Tyranny, World)
"We might not object to the statement that Lear deserved to suffer for his folly, selfishness and tyranny; but to assert that he deserved to suffer what he did suffer is to do violence not merely to language but to any healthy moral sense."
- Andrew Coyle Bradley
(Related: Folly, Language, Selfishness, Sense, Tyranny, Violence)
"Tyranny Absolves all faith; and who invades our rights, However his own commence, can never be But an usurper."
- Henry Brooke
(Related: Faith, Rights, Tyranny)
"The revolutionary government is the despotism of liberty against tyranny."
- Georg Buchner
(Related: Government, Liberty, Tyranny)
"Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny."
- Edmund Burke
(Related: Laws, Tyranny)
"The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny."
- Edmund Burke
(Related: Tyranny)
"To give pain is the tyranny; to make happy, the true empire of beauty."
- Samuel Butler
(Related: Beauty, Pain, Tyranny)
"Men and women whose early youth was shaped in the ordeal of the Great Depression showed the values formed in that crucible when tyranny threatened a world."
- Steve Buyer
(Related: Men, Women, Values, Depression, Tyranny, World, Youth)
"From a generation that came of age during the Great Depression, millions of our country's best and bravest took up arms in a worldwide struggle against tyranny."
- Steve Buyer
(Related: Age, Country, Depression, Struggle, Tyranny)
"I often wish... that I could rid the world of the tyranny of facts. What are facts but compromises? A fact merely marks the point where we have agreed to let investigation cease."
- Bliss Carman
(Related: Fact, Facts, Investigation, Tyranny, World)
"Great minds are to make others great. Their superiority is to be used, not to break the multitude to intellectual vassalage, not to establish over them a spiritual tyranny, but to rouse them from lethargy, and to aid them to judge for themselves."
- William Ellery Channing
(Related: Superiority, Spiritual, Tyranny)
"What I find very interesting about the mutual funds managers is that here are people who are the new masters of the universe. They're managing billions, yet they're subject to this quiet daily tyranny of numbers."
- Ron Chernow
(Related: People, Managers, Numbers, Quiet, Tyranny, Universe)
"It is the besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion for law. This is the usual form in which the masses of men exhibit their tyranny."
- James F. Cooper
(Related: Men, Law, Opinion, Public, Public opinion, Tyranny, Vice)
"It is a besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion for law. This is the usual form in which masses of men exhibit their tyranny."
- James F. Cooper
(Related: Men, Law, Opinion, Public, Public opinion, Tyranny, Vice)
"Treachery is noble when aimed at tyranny."
- Pierre Corneille
(Related: Treachery, Tyranny)
"The hope and change the Democrats had in mind was nothing more than a retread of the failed and discredited socialist policies that have been the enemy of freedom for centuries all over the world. I fear America is teetering towards tyranny."
- Jim DeMint
(Related: Change, Fear, Hope, America, Democrats, Enemy, Freedom, Mind, Nothing, Tyranny, World)
"We all want peace. Unfortunately, there are times when peace must be defended by fighting terror and tyranny."
- James H. Douglas
(Related: Peace, Fighting, Terror, Tyranny, Want)
"The 5th Amendment is an old friend and a good friend. one of the great landmarks in men's struggle to be free of tyranny, to be decent and civilized."
- William O. Douglas
(Related: Men, Friend, Old, Struggle, Tyranny)
"There are only two roads, victory for the working class, freedom, or victory for the fascists which means tyranny. Both combatants know what's in store for the loser."
- Buenaventura Durruti
(Related: Victory, Class, Freedom, Tyranny)
"A good deal of tyranny goes by the name of protection."
- Crystal Eastman
(Related: Name, Protection, Tyranny)
"I have no desire to go in for tyranny or to play the part of King Charles. I hate tyranny in any field of human activity."
- Charles Edison
(Related: Desire, Hate, Play, Tyranny)
"From behind the Iron Curtain, there are signs that tyranny is in trouble and reminders that its structure is as brittle as its surface is hard."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
(Related: Iron curtain, Trouble, Tyranny)
"The act of voting by ordinary Iraqis in the face of extreme danger confirms President Bush's belief that people around the globe, when given a chance, will choose liberty and democracy over enslavement and tyranny."
- John Ensign
(Related: People, Belief, Act, Chance, Danger, Democracy, Extreme, Liberty, President, Tyranny, Voting, Will)
"In the first 50 years of the filibuster, it was used only 35 times. But the last Congress alone had 112 cloture motions filed, plus threats of more. This is the tyranny of the minority."
- Peter Fenn
(Related: Congress, First, Minority, Tyranny, Years)
"Where the law ends tyranny begins."
- Henry Fielding
(Related: Law, Tyranny)
"Democratic forms of government are vulnerable to mass prejudice, the so-called tyranny of the majority."
- Maggie Gallagher
(Related: Government, Majority, Prejudice, Tyranny)
"Tens of thousands of brave Americans died to break the chains of British tyranny so that the principles of our Declaration of Independence could take fold and flourish in the birth of a new nation."
- Jim Gerlach
(Related: Americans, Independence, Nation, Principles, Tyranny)
"Revolution is engendered by an indignation with tyranny, yet is itself pregnant with tyranny."
- William Godwin
(Related: Revolution, Tyranny)
"In my opinion, the most significant works of the twentieth century are those that rise beyond the conceptual tyranny of genre; they are, at the same time, poetry, criticism, narrative, drama, etc."
- Juan Goytisolo
(Related: Poetry, Time, Criticism, Drama, Opinion, Tyranny)
"It's not tyranny we desire; it's a just, limited, federal government."
- Alexander Hamilton
(Related: Government, Desire, Tyranny)
"I am confident that in the end freedom and democracy will prevail over terror and tyranny. We will win this war on terror - and when we do Americans, the British, Iraqis, and people around the world will be more secure."
- Doc Hastings
(Related: War, People, Americans, Democracy, End, Freedom, Terror, Tyranny, Will, World)
"Our heroes are fighting to bring stability to the Middle East, and they have put pressure on all of the tyrannies of the Middle East. They have taken a stand against tyranny, against terrorists, and for the prospect of decent societies throughout that region."
- Orrin Hatch
(Related: Fighting, Heroes, Pressure, Stability, Tyranny)
"The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it."
- John Hay
(Related: Tyranny)
"There is a secret pride in every human heart that revolts at tyranny. You may order and drive an individual, but you cannot make him respect you."
- William Hazlitt
(Related: Heart, May, Order, Pride, Respect, Tyranny)
"When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how holy the motives."
- Robert A. Heinlein
(Related: Government, Church, End, Forbidden, May, Motives, Oppression, Result, Tyranny)
"If you don't understand that you work for your mislabeled 'subordinates,' then you know nothing of leadership. You know only tyranny."
- Dee Hock
(Related: Work, Leadership, Nothing, Tyranny)
"Fear of death has been the greatest ally of tyranny past and present."
- Sidney Hook
(Related: Death, Fear, Past, Present, Tyranny)
"The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny."
- David Hume
(Related: Patriotism, Power, Popularity, Road, Tyranny)
"And why do we, who say we oppose tyranny and demand freedom of speech, allow people to go to prison and be vilified, and magazines to be closed down on the spot, for suggesting another version of history."
- David Icke
(Related: History, People, Freedom, Prison, Speech, Tyranny)
"It's good that the first half of the speech emphasized freedom, because George W. Bush has been the global champion for freedom. As he said, if we don't fight tyranny it will not leave us alone in peace."
- Ernest Istook
(Related: Peace, Fight, First, Freedom, Speech, Tyranny, Will)
"When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty."
- Thomas Jefferson
(Related: Government, People, Fear, Liberty, Tyranny)
"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
- Thomas Jefferson
(Related: God, Man, Mind, Tyranny)
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent."
- Thomas Jefferson
(Related: People, Conscience, Gain, Needs, Tyranny)
"Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day."
- Thomas Jefferson
(Related: People, Body, Dawn, Day, Evil, Mind, Spirits, Tyranny, Will)
"Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny."
- Thomas Jefferson
(Related: Experience, Government, Power, Time, Tyranny)
"Seventy years ago this November, Vladimir Lenin created the modern totalitarian state, transforming simpler forms of tyranny into history's most sophisticated apparatus of rule by terror."
- Michael Johns
(Related: History, State, Terror, Tyranny, Years)
"The restriction of religion to private life therefore does not necessarily threaten the vital interests of the majority religion, if there is one, and it protects minority religions from tyranny of the majority."
- Phillip E. Johnson
(Related: Life, Religion, Majority, Minority, Tyranny)
"Tyranny or slavery, born of selfishness, are the two educational methods of parents; all gradations of tyranny or slavery."
- Franz Kafka
(Related: Parents, Selfishness, Slavery, Tyranny)
"In fact, our monthly trade deficit figure is so huge it equals the entire annual budget of our Department of Veterans Affairs. Veterans fought to make us free from foreign tyranny, but the new tyranny is taking a different form."
- Marcy Kaptur
(Related: Fact, Trade, Tyranny, Veterans)
"America is just the country that how all the written guarantees in the world for freedom are no protection against tyranny and oppression of the worst kind. There the politician has come to be looked upon as the very scum of society."
- Peter Kropotkin
(Related: Society, America, Country, Freedom, Oppression, Protection, Tyranny, World)
"The terrorist attacks of September 11th and the courageous actions of our armed forces in Afghanistan and Iraq remind us that friends of tyranny and enemies of freedom still exist."
- Carl Levin
(Related: Actions, Afghanistan, Enemies, Freedom, Friends, Iraq, Tyranny)
"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive."
- C. S. Lewis
(Related: May, Tyranny, Victims)
"Freedom is never easily won, but once established, freedom lasts, spreads and chokes out tyranny."
- Trent Lott
(Related: Freedom, Tyranny)
"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home."
- James Madison
(Related: Home, Danger, Defense, Tyranny)
"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."
- James Madison
(Related: Enemy, Fighting, Land, Oppression, Tyranny, Will)
"A modern democracy is a tyranny whose borders are undefined; one discovers how far one can go only by traveling in a straight line until one is stopped."
- Norman Mailer
(Related: Democracy, Traveling, Tyranny)
"Our authorities leave us no doubt that the trust lodged with the oligarchy was sometimes abused, but it certainly ought not to be regarded as a mere usurpation or engine of tyranny."
- Henry James Sumner Maine
(Related: Trust, Doubt, Tyranny)
"Power in defense of freedom is greater than power in behalf of tyranny and oppression."
- Malcolm X
(Related: Power, Defense, Freedom, Oppression, Tyranny)
"It is the American vice, the democratic disease which expresses its tyranny by reducing everything unique to the level of the herd."
- Henry Miller
(Related: American, Disease, Tyranny, Vice)
"I can remember when Democrats believed that it was the duty of America to fight for freedom over tyranny."
- Zell Miller
(Related: America, Democrats, Duty, Fight, Freedom, Tyranny)
"The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy."
- Charles de Montesquieu
(Related: Apathy, Democracy, Public, Tyranny, Welfare)
"There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice."
- Charles de Montesquieu
(Related: Justice, Law, Name, Tyranny)
"Knowledge is power. Information is power. The secreting or hoarding of knowledge or information may be an act of tyranny camouflaged as humility."
- Robin Morgan
(Related: Power, Knowledge, Act, Humility, Information, May, Tyranny)
"Any ideal system is its own worst enemy, and as soon as you start to implement these visions of grandeur, they just fall apart and turn into a complete tyranny."
- Ben Nicholson
(Related: Enemy, Tyranny, Visions)
"There are historic situations in which refusal to defend the inheritance of a civilization, however imperfect, against tyranny and aggression may result in consequences even worse than war."
- Reinhold Niebuhr
(Related: War, Civilization, Aggression, Consequences, Inheritance, May, Result, Tyranny)
"In most of history, societies have not been free. It's a very rare society that is free. The default condition of human societies is tyranny."
- Michael Novak
(Related: Society, History, Tyranny)
"We don't consider the battle has ended in Afghanistan... The battle has begun and its fires are picking up. These fires will reach the White House, because it is the center of injustice and tyranny."
- Mohammed Omar
(Related: Afghanistan, Battle, Injustice, Tyranny, Will)
"Taxation without representation is tyranny."
- James Otis
(Related: Taxation, Tyranny)
"Every man may reign secure in his petty tyranny, and spread terror and desolation around him, until the trump of the Archangel shall excite different emotions in his soul."
- James Otis
(Related: Soul, Emotions, Man, May, Terror, Tyranny)
"He that rebels against reason is a real rebel, but he that in defence of reason rebels against tyranny has a better title to Defender of the Faith, than George the Third."
- Thomas Paine
(Related: Faith, Reason, Tyranny)
"Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst."
- Thomas Paine
(Related: Religion, Mankind, Tyranny)
"Tyranny is always better organized than freedom."
- Charles Peguy
(Related: Freedom, Tyranny)
"Let's win the peace and democracy the good people of Iraq so richly deserve after decades of tyranny."
- Mike Pence
(Related: Peace, People, Democracy, Iraq, Tyranny)
"Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who posses it; and this I know, my lords: that where law ends, tyranny begins."
- William Pitt
(Related: Power, Law, Tyranny)
"Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy."
- Plato
(Related: Democracy, Tyranny)
"Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty."
- Plato
(Related: Democracy, Dictatorship, Extreme, Liberty, Slavery, Tyranny)
"Half a world away nations that once lived under oppression and tyranny are now budding democracies due in large part to America 's leadership and the sacrifices of our military."
- Bob Riley
(Related: Leadership, America, Military, Nations, Now, Oppression, Tyranny, World)
"There are three things in the world that deserve no mercy, hypocrisy, fraud, and tyranny."
- Frederick William Robertson
(Related: Fraud, Hypocrisy, Mercy, Tyranny, World)
"It's the tyranny of an oligarchy that I'm concerned about."
- Pat Robertson
(Related: Tyranny)
"But if there's an erosion at home, you know, Thomas Jefferson warned about a tyranny of an oligarchy and if we surrender our democracy to the tyranny of an oligarchy, we've made a terrible mistake."
- Pat Robertson
(Related: Home, Mistake, Democracy, Surrender, Tyranny)
"The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant."
- Maximilien Robespierre
(Related: People, Freedom, Lies, Tyranny)
"In the laws of the land, she has no rights; in government she has no voice. And in spite of another principle recognized in this Republic, namely, that 'taxation without representation is tyranny,' she is taxed without being represented."
- Ernestine Rose
(Related: Government, Being, Rights, Land, Laws, Tyranny, Voice)
"One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny."
- Bertrand Russell
(Related: Opinion, Prison, Public, Public opinion, Respect, Starvation, Tyranny)
"Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate."
- Bertrand Russell
(Related: Capitalism, Exercise, Liberty, Principles, Tyranny)
"Tyrants are seldom free; the cares and the instruments of their tyranny enslave them."
- George Santayana
(Related: Tyranny)
"There is no greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of the law and in the name of justice."
- Charles de Secondat
(Related: Justice, Law, Name, Tyranny)
"My optimism is not based primarily on the successful march of democracy in recent times but rather is based on the experience of having lived in a fear society and studied the mechanics of tyranny that sustain such a society."
- Natan Sharansky
(Related: Experience, Society, Fear, Successful, Optimism, Democracy, March, Tyranny)
"Beauty is a short-lived tyranny."
- George Bernard Shaw
(Related: Beauty, Tyranny)
"A primary function of art and thought is to liberate the individual from the tyranny of his culture in the environmental sense and to permit him to stand beyond it in an autonomy of perception and judgment."
- Beverly Sills
(Related: Art, Environmental, Thought, Perception, Culture, Judgment, Sense, Tyranny)
"Beauty is a short-lived tyranny."
- Socrates
(Related: Beauty, Tyranny)
"A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny."
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
(Related: War, State, Tyranny)
"Communism is the death of the soul. It is the organization of total conformity - in short, of tyranny - and it is committed to making tyranny universal."
- Adlai E. Stevenson
(Related: Death, Soul, Communism, Conformity, Tyranny)
"In a world without the law of God, you have chaos, oppression, tyranny, and everyone doing what is right in their own eyes."
- Randall Terry
(Related: God, Chaos, Eyes, Law, Oppression, Right, Tyranny, World)
"The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination."
- Voltaire
(Related: Government, Assassination, Tyranny)
"Ultimately, freedom and democracy are stronger than fear and tyranny."
- Gijs de Vries
(Related: Fear, Democracy, Freedom, Tyranny)
"For centuries, the world has heard the oppressed, the downtrodden and the vulnerable cry out for their freedoms, for their rights and for a chance to emerge from the shadows of the tyranny and bloodshed that they had lived with."
- Ginny B. Waite
(Related: Chance, Rights, Shadows, Tyranny, World)
"I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever."
- George C. Wallace
(Related: Feet, Now, Tomorrow, Tyranny)
"Those are serious questions of war and peace, of freedom or tyranny, whether or not there is ever going to be a hope of us instilling some democratic systems in a part of the world that frankly is breeding hate and destruction directed right at us."
- Zach Wamp
(Related: War, Peace, Hope, Breeding, Destruction, Freedom, Hate, Questions, Right, Tyranny, World)
"To set up as a standard of public morality a notion which can neither be defined nor conceived is to open the door to every kind of tyranny."
- Simone Weil
(Related: Morality, Open, Public, Tyranny)
"Let this circumstance of our constitution therefore be directed to this noble purpose, and then all the objections urged against it by jealous tyranny and affrighted superstition will vanish."
- Adam Weishaupt
(Related: Purpose, Circumstance, Constitution, Superstition, Tyranny, Will)
"In summary, the Romans were opposed to tyranny in any form; and the feature of government to which they gave the most thought was an elaborate system of checks and balances."
- Robert Welch
(Related: Government, Thought, Tyranny)
"Peace without justice is tyranny."
- William Allen White
(Related: Peace, Justice, Tyranny)
"There is no week nor day nor hour when tyranny may not enter upon this country, if the people lose their roughness and spirit of defiance."
- Walt Whitman
(Related: People, Country, Day, Defiance, May, Spirit, Tyranny)
"The twentieth century may tell us that we have nothing to be complacent about in the recent history of humankind; but it also tells us that there is nothing inevitable about tyranny."
- Rowan D. Williams
(Related: History, May, Nothing, Tyranny)
"Do we exert our own liberties without injury to others - we exert them justly; do we exert them at the expense of others - unjustly. And, in thus doing, we step from the sure platform of liberty upon the uncertain threshold of tyranny."
- Frances Wright
(Related: Injury, Liberty, Tyranny)
"For reforms ameliorate the situation of the working class, they lighten the weight of the chains labour is burdened with by capitalism, but they are not sufficient to crush capitalism and to emancipate the workers from their tyranny."
- Clara Zetkin
(Related: Capitalism, Class, Tyranny, Weight, Workers)