Best 276 quotes in «tyranny quotes» category

The idea [passing the 17th amendment] benefited from a unique political and cultural atmosphere that consumed a nation during the late 19th and early 20th centuries-a progressive populism promoting simultaneously radical egalitarianism and centralized authoritarianism.

The inflated ego of the tyrant is a curse to himself and his world – no matter how his affairs may prosper. Self-terrorized, fear-haunted, alert at every hand to meet and battle back the anticipated aggressions of his environment, which are primarily the reflections of the uncontrollable impulses to acquisition within himself. The giant of self-achieved independence is the world’s messenger of disaster, even though, in his mind, he may entertain himself with humane intentions.

The knowledge of his or her state of serfdom never set a slave free, though a good start it is. It is actually finding the way to be free is what does it. - On Freedom

The liberation from ignorance and tyranny was a long war, because the oppressors always had the advantage. They smooth-talked the masses with lies and promises.

The means of defence agst. foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home.

The men and women who forged this nation [USA] were straight-up maniacs about freedom. It was just about the only thing they cared about, so they jammed it into everything. This is understandable, as they were breaking away from a monarchy. But it's also a little bonkers, since one of the things they desired most desperately was freedom of religion, based on the premise that Europe wasn't religious enough and that they needed the freedom to live by non-secular laws that were more restrictive than that of any government, including provisions for the burning of suspected witches.

[T]he mob is the most ruthless of tyrants;

Then said I, Wisdom is better than strength: Nevertheless the poor woman's wisdom is despised, and her words are not heard. The words of wise women are heard in quiet more than the cry of she that rules among fools. Wisdom is better than weapons of war: and hatred much good. If the spirit of the ruler rise up against you, leave not your place; For yielding pacifies great offences. There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, as an error which proceeds from the ruler: Folly is set in great dignity, and the rich sit in low places.

The people’s silence is a tyrant’s greatest advocate. The less captives talked, the less they knew; the less they knew, the more they feared; and the more they feared, the more easily others could manipulate them to their own ends, the more easily the captives could be controlled.

The only men ruthless enough to fight against tyranny were themselves inclined to it.

The only way we can eliminate despots in this world, is not to be peaceful about it, for that has been the case for many people that has caused the upheaval of such tyranny, nor we should turn the other way, but we must take appropriate actions to eliminate the thriving forces of such darkness in our world.

... [T]he other lesson history has taught us - that tyranny and oppression are no match for compassion ... that the fanatical shouts of the bullies of the world are invariably silenced by the unified voices of decency that rise up to meet them.

The only way to ensure democracy functions correctly is to question its governance constantly. Fail to do so and you may awake to find yourself living in a police state.

The paralysis of potential is essential to the manufacturing of victims.

There is a tyranny in the womb of every Utopia.

There are people who thirst for blood like tigers. Any man who has once tasted this unlimited power over the blood, over the body and spirit of a human creature like himself, a creature created in the same image and subject to the same law of Christ; any man who has tasted this power, this boundless opportunity to humiliate most bitterly another being made in the image of God — becomes the servant instead of the master of his own emotions. Tyranny is a habit. It can and does eventually develop into a disease. I believe that the best of men may grow coarse, degrade to the level of a beast by sheer force of habit. Blood and power intoxicate one, they develop callousness and lust. The greatest perversions grow finally acceptable and even delicious to mind and heart. The man and the citizen perish in the tyrant for ever and the return to human dignity, remorse and spiritual rebirth becomes scarcely possible to him. Besides, the example and mere possibility of arbitrary power are contagious; they are indeed a great temptation. A society which regards such things calmly is already corrupt at the roots.

There is almost always some one political force, furthermore, that manifests an invincible tendency to overreach or absorb the others, and so to destroy a juridical equilibrium that has gradually been established. That is true both of political forces of a material characters, such as wealth and military power, and of forces of moral character, such as the great currents of religion or thought. Each of such current claims to monopolize truth and justice, and all types of exclusivity and bigotry, whether Christian or Mohammedan, whether sacred or rationalistic, whether inspired by the infallibility of the pope or by the infallibility of democracy, are equally pernicious from this point of view. Every country, every epoch, has its own peculiar current of ideas and beliefs, which being the strongest current, bears down upon the political mechanism and tends to subvert it. Quite generally the harm that has been done by weakening currents, which are going, or have gone, out of fashion, is appreciated very well, and the deep wounds that they have inflicted on the sens of justice are stigmatized with horror, meanwhile the similar harm that the current in rising vogue has done, or is threatening to do, is not discerned or else condoned or, at the most, feebly viewed with alarm. Men cry aloud and proclaim liberty has been won, that the storm is over. Actually the storm has changed direction, or, if one may use the metaphor, merely changed shaped and color.

There are always a few, Claire, who like being told what to do instead of being required to think. And those are the ones you should fear. That goes equally for humans, I'm afraid. Critical thinking has become a sadly rare skill these days.

There is no difference between the principles, policies and practical results of socialism—and those of any historical or prehistorical tyranny. Socialism is merely democratic absolute monarchy—that is, a system of absolutism without a fixed head, open to seizure of power by all corners, by any ruthless climber, opportunist, adventurer, demagogue or thug.

There is now the capacity to make tyranny total in America. Only law ensures that we never fall into that abyss—the abyss from which there is no return.

The roots of tyranny and freedom trace back to long before recorded history, and are etched in our genes.

The Second Amendment is timeless for our Founders grasped that self-defense is three-fold: every free individual must protect themselves against the evil will of the man, the mob and the state.

The social contract known as 'The Constitution' has been null and void since the last person who signed it, died. Even then, it was only ever applicable to the men who signed it. That's how contracts work.

The ship told you a guilty system recognises no innocents. I’d say it does. It recognises the innocence of a young child, for example, and you saw how they treated that. In a sense it even recognises the “sanctity” of the body… but only to violate it. Once again, Gurgeh, it all boils down to ownership, possession; about taking and having.

These definitions coincide with the terms which, since Greek antiquity, have been used to define the forms of government as the rule of man over man—of one or the few in monarchy and oligarchy, of the best or the many in aristocracy and democracy, to which today we ought to add the latest and perhaps most formidable form of such dominion, bureaucracy, or the rule by an intricate system of bureaux in which no men, neither one nor the best, neither the few nor the many, can be held responsible, and which could be properly called the rule by Nobody. Indeed, if we identify tyranny as the government that is not held to give account of itself, rule by Nobody is clearly the most tyrannical of all, since there is no one left who could even be asked to answer for what is being done. It is this state of affairs which is among the most potent causes for the current world-wide rebellious unrest.

The very memory that there was any opposition at all to Christianity faded. The idea that philosophers might have fought fiercely, with all they had, against Christianity was – is – passed over. The memory that many were alarmed at the spread of this violently intolerant religion fades from view. The idea that many were not delighted but instead disgusted by the sight of burning and demolished temples was – is – brushed aside. The idea that intellectuals were appalled – and scared – by the sight of books burning in pyres, is forgotten. Christianity told the generations that followed that their victory over the old world was celebrated by all, and the generations that followed believed it.

The telephone was not his favorite object, and more than once he had considered getting rid of his. What he disliked most of all was its tyranny. Not only did it have the power to interrupt him against his will, but inevitably he would give in to its command.

The tyranny of this dictatorship isn't primarily the fault of Big Business, nor of the demagogues who do their dirty work. It's the fault of Doremus Jessup! Of all the conscientious, respectable, lazy-minded Doremus Jessups who have let the demagogues wriggle in, without fierce enough protest. "A few months ago I thought the slaughter of the Civil War, and the agitation of the violent Abolitionists who helped bring it on, were evil. But possibly they had to be violent, because easy-going citizens like me couldn't be stirred up otherwise. If our grandfathers had had the alertness and courage to see the evils of slavery and of a government conducted by gentlemen for gentlemen only, there wouldn't have been any need of agitators and war and blood. "It's my sort, the Responsible Citizens who've felt ourselves superior because we've been well-to-do and what we thought was 'educated,' who brought on the Civil War, the French Revolution, and now the Fascist Dictatorship. It's I who murdered Rabbi de Verez. It's I who persecuted the Jews and the Negroes. I can blame no Aras Dilley, no Shad Ledue, no Buzz Windrip, but only my own timid soul and drowsy mind. Forgive, O Lord! "Is it too late?

The tyrant’s formula for every genocide since the beginning of time: differentiate, divide, destroy.

The whole conception of man already endowed with a mind capable of conceiving civilization setting out to create it is fundamentally false. Man did not simply impose upon the world a pattern created by his mind. His mind is itself a system that constantly changes as a result of his endeavor to adapt himself to his surroundings. It would be an error to believe that, to achieve a higher civilization, we have merely to put into effect the ideas now guiding us. If we are to advance, we must leave room for a continuous revision of our present conceptions and ideals which will be necessitated by further experience. We are as little able to conceive what civilization will be, or can be, five hundred or even fifty years hence as our medieval forefathers or even our grandparents were able to foresee our manner of life today.

They [feminists] share the instinct for tyranny and destruction - and they are filled with self-loathing. In the end, leftist feminists yearn to submit to, and submerge themselves within, a despotic monolith. Because they despise their own society and are bent on its destruction, they cannot concede that adversarial cultures may be more evil, because that would legitimize their own host society - and they can't allow that. It would rob them of the moral indignation -- and the identity of being victims -- that lies at the foundation of their politics of hate.

The worst kind of tyrant was the one who once had been the victim.

This is written in the night. In war the dark is on nobody's side, in love the dark confirms that we are together.

This is why it is not true that culture can be, even temporarily, suspended in order to make way for a new culture. Man’s unbroken testimony as to his suffering and his nobility cannot be suspended; the act of breathing cannot be suspended. There is no culture without legacy, and we cannot and must not reject anything of ours, the legacy of the West. Whatever the works of the future may be, they will bear the same secret, made up of courage and freedom, nourished by the daring of thousands of artists of all times and all nations. Yes, when modern tyranny shows us that, even when confined to his calling, the artist is a public enemy, it is right. But in this way tyranny pays its respects, through the artist, to an image of man that nothing has ever been able to crush. My conclusion will be simple. It will consist of saying, in the very midst of the sound and the fury of our history: “Let us rejoice.

Those who don't know history are destined to be tyrannized by it

To be sure, I am not speaking about Christian equality, whose real name is equity; but about this democratic and social equality, which is nothing but the canonization of envy and the chimera of jealous ineptitude. This equality was never anything but a mask which could not become reality without the abolition of all merit and virtue.

Tiranos sao eleitos e depostos. Leis sao passadas e repelidas. Nacoes surgem e caem. A liberdade do individuo e' eterna

To stop oppression, you will first end the tyranny of the oppressors.

Today the aggressor is the shepherd of peace, and the beaten and hunted are the troublemakers of the world. What's more, there are whole races who believe it!

To have 'order', an atmosphere of 'positivity' must be subtly inserted. When you are mass of maneuver, mediocrity never gives up anything voluntarily without some sort of exchange.

Truth is the greatest enemy of tyrants everywhere.

Tyranny comes in many shapes and forms. It is social, regional, economic, political and foreign.

Tyrannies are perpetuated by diffident men who do not possess the courage to act out their beliefs.

Tyranny anywhere is a threat to freedom everywhere.

Tyranny flourishes in those societies that reject the Reformed Faith. Tyranny is squelched and liberty flourishes in those societies that embrace the Reformed Faith in all its fullness.

Under a tyranny, most friends are a liability. One quarter of them turn “reasonable” and become your enemies, one quarter are afraid to stop and speak, and one quarter are killed and you die with them. But the blessed final quarter keep you alive.

Unchecked Corporate power leads to tyranny just like unchecked Government power.

Universal peace-time conscription was adopted by almost all countries as the basis of their military system. This ensured that wars would grow bigger in scale, longer in duration, and worse in effects. While conscription appeared democratic, it provided autocrats, hereditary or revolutionary, with more effective and comprehensive means of imposing their will, both in peace and war. Once the rule of compulsory service in arms was established for the young men of a nation, it was an obvious and easy transition to the servitude of the whole population. Totalitarian tyranny is the twin of total warfare —which might aptly be termed a reversion to tribal warfare on a larger scale.

We are not involved in this struggle only because we think that we will dismantle this system in the course of our life. We hope Cameroon changes tomorrow. But if it doesn’t, we will be happy to know that we made the ground fertile for the next generation that will end the rot in this country, and then establish the “NEW CAMEROON".” Dr. Samuel F. Tchwenko

We just can't trust the American people to make those types of choices.... Government has to make those choices for people.