Tyranny Quotes - Page 13

• It is the nature of tyranny and rapacity never to learn moderation from the ill-success of first oppressions; on the contrary, all oppressors, all men thinking highly of the methods dictated by their nature, attribute the frustration of their desires to the want of sufficient rigor.

  Edmund Burke

  Frustration, Men, Thinking

  Edmund Burke (1999). “The Portable Edmund Burke”, p.381, Penguin

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• The very name of a politician, a statesman, is sure to cause terror and hatred; it has always connected with it the ideas of treachery, cruelty, fraud, and tyranny.

  Edmund Burke

  Names, Ideas, Hatred

  Edmund Burke (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Edmund Burke (Illustrated)”, p.33, Delphi Classics

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• To demand that another love what one loves is tyranny enough, but to demand that another hate what one hates, is even worse.

  Margaret Mead

  Hate, Love Is, Demand

  Margaret Mead, Margaret Mary Caffrey, Patricia A. Francis (2006). “To Cherish the Life of the World: Selected Letters of Margaret Mead”, p.122, Basic Books

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• the most sacred business of judges is not to ratify the will of the majority but to protect the minority from its tyranny.

  Anna Quindlen

  Justice, Judging, Majority

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• tyranny and injustice always produce cunning and falsehood.

  Maria Edgeworth

  Injustice, Produce, Cunning

  Maria Edgeworth, Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1825). “Works”, p.8

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• none can be Tyrants but Cowards.

  Mary Astell

  Tyrants, Coward

  Mary Astell (2002). “A Serious Proposal to the Ladies”, p.247, Broadview Press

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• Laughter takes the tyranny of the lies we are told and told and told and it blows them apart.

  Kate Clinton

  Laughter, Lying, Blow

  Kate Clinton (2012). “What the L?”, p.1979, Bywater Books

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• the greater the bureaucratization of public life, the greater will be the attraction of violence. In a fully developed bureaucracy there is nobody left with whom one can argue, to whom one can represent grievances, on whom the pressures of power can be exerted. Bureaucracy is the form of government in which everybody is deprived of political freedom, of the power to act; for the rule by Nobody is not no-rule, and where all are equally powerless we have a tyranny without a tyrant.

  Hannah Arendt

  Government, Tyrants, Political

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• Where no individual in a community is denied his rights, the mass are the more perfectly protected in theirs; for whenever any class is subject to fraud or injustice, it shows that the spirit of tyranny is at work, and no one can tell where or how or when the infection will spread.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Rights, Class, Community

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan Brownell Anthony, Ann Dexter Gordon (1997). “The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: In the school of anti-slavery, 1840 to 1866”, p.410, Rutgers University Press

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• it was the United States which first established general suffrage for men upon the two principles that 'taxation without representation is tyranny' and that governments to be just should 'derive their consent from the governed.' The unanswerable logic of these two principles is responsible for the extension of suffrage to men and women the world over. In the United States, however, women are still taxed without 'representation' and still live under a government to which they have given no 'consent.

  Carrie Chapman Catt

  Men, Two, Justice

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• The indifference of men, far more than their tyranny, is the torment of women.

  Jules Michelet

  Men, Indifference, Torment

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• In more than half the nations of our world, torture certifies that the form of government is tyranny. Only tyranny, no matter how camouflaged, needs and employs torturers. Torture has no ideology.

  Martha Gellhorn

  Our World, Government, Needs

  Martha Gellhorn (1988). “The View from the Ground”, p.356, Atlantic Monthly Press

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• Of all the tyrannies which have usurped power over humanity, few have been able to enslave the mind and body as imperiously as drug addiction.

  Freda Adler

  Addiction, Drug, Humanity

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• Fear has always been the driving force behind all dictators' repression.

  Marjane Satrapi

  Driving, Dictator, Force

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• People who disagree with His Excellency, the President for Life and 'Chief of Chiefs,' are frequently found to be the victims of car crashes (their bodies mysteriously riddled with bullets); or dead in their beds of heart attacks (their bodies mysteriously riddled with bullets); or the recipients of some not-quite-fresh seafood (their bodies mysteriously riddled with bullets).

  Alexandra Fuller

  Heart, Car, People

  Alexandra Fuller (2002). “Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood”, p.215, Random House

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• All the nations of the earth are crying out for liberty and equality. Away, away with tyranny and oppression!

  Maria W. Stewart

  Equality, Liberty, Earth

  Maria W. Stewart, Marilyn Richardson (1987). “Maria W. Stewart, America's First Black Woman Political Writer: Essays and Speeches”, p.9, Indiana University Press

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• If the world knew how to use freedom without abusing it, tyranny would not exist.

  Tehyi Hsieh

  Liberty, Use, World

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• Power, when invested in the hands of knaves or fools, generally is the source of tyranny.

  Charlotte Charke

  Power, Hands, Fool

  Charlotte CHARKE (1826). “A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Charlotte Charke, youngest daughter of Colley Cibber ... Written by herself. With a portrait”

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• It is an illusion to suppose that a Dictator makes himself; at most he seizes an opportunity made for him by passive, stupid, incompetent, and above all, unsatisfied and fearful men.

  Susan Stebbing

  Stupid, Opportunity, Men

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• These, then, are the four kinds of royalty. First the monarchy of the heroic ages; this was exercised over voluntary subjects, but limited to certain functions; the king was a general and a judge, and had the control of religion The second is that of the barbarians, which is a hereditary despotic government in accordance with law. A third is the power of the so-called Aesynmete or Dictator; this is an elective tyranny. The fourth is the Lacedaemonian, which is in fact a generalship, hereditary and perpetual.

  Aristotle

  Kings, Government, Law

  Aristotle (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Aristotle (Illustrated)”, p.3028, Delphi Classics

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• In the Laws it is maintained that the best constitution is made up of democracy and tyranny, which are either not constitutions at all, or are the worst of all. But they are nearer the truth who combine many forms; for the constitution is better which is made up of more numerous elements. The constitution proposed in the Laws has no element of monarchy at all; it is nothing but oligarchy and democracy, leaning rather to oligarchy.

  Aristotle

  Law, Government, Democracy

  Aristotle, Stephen Everson (1996). “Aristotle: The Politics and the Constitution of Athens”, p.42, Cambridge University Press

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• Of old, the demagogue was also a general, and then democracies changed into tyrannies. Most of the ancient tyrants were originally demagogues. They are not so now, but they were then; and the reason is that they were generals and not orators, for oratory had not yet come into fashion.

  Aristotle

  Fashion, Tyrants, Government

  Aristotle, (2014). “Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume 2: The Revised Oxford Translation”, p.2072, Princeton University Press

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• Just as a royal rule, if not a mere name, must exist by virtue of some great personal superiority in the king, so tyranny, which is the worst of governments, is necessarily the farthest removed from a well-constituted form; oligarchy is little better, for it is a long way from aristocracy, and democracy is the most tolerable of the three.

  Aristotle

  Kings, Names, Government

  Aristotle (2013). “The Essential Aristotle”, p.299, Simon and Schuster

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• While the Romans languished under the ignominious tyranny of eunuchs and bishops, the praises of Julian were repeated with transport in every part of the empire, except in the palace of Constantius.

  Edward Gibbon

  History, Bishops, Empires

  Edward Gibbon (2016). “THE HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE (All 6 Volumes): From the Height of the Roman Empire, the Age of Trajan and the Antonines - to the Fall of Byzantium; Including a Review of the Crusades, and the State of Rome during the Middle Ages”, p.988, e-artnow

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• all social relations exist and grow in the human mind. That one despot can rule over a million other men rests absolutely on their state of mind. They believe that he does; let them change their minds, and he does not.

  Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  Believe, Men, Perception

  Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1904). “Human Work”, p.39, Rowman Altamira

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