Tyranny Quotes - Page 14

• All whom war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies, Despair, law, chance, hath slain.

  John Donne

  War, Law, Soul

  'Holy Sonnets' (1609) no. 4 (in J. Carey's edition, OUP, 1990)

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• A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a people who mean to be free.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Character, Mean, Tyrants

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence 1771 - 1779, the Summary View, and the Declaration of Independence”, p.212, Cosimo, Inc.

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• A tyrant is the worst disease, and the cause of all others.

  William Blake

  Tyrants, Disease, Causes

  William Blake (1977). “The Portable William Blake”, p.380, Penguin

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• The history of his present majesty, is a history of unremitting injuries and usurpationsall of which have in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world, for the truth of which we pledge a faith yet unsullied by falsehood.

  Thomas Jefferson

  World, Majesty, Facts

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence 1771 - 1779, the Summary View, and the Declaration of Independence”, p.203, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Unless the people can choose their leaders and rulers, and can revoke their choice at intervals long enough to test their measuresby results, the government will be a tyranny exercised in the interests of whatever classes or castes or mobs or cliques have this choice.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Government, Class, Long

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• Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods. It would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as Freedom should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to tax) but "to bind us in all cases whatsoever," and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious, for so unlimited a power can belong only to God.

  Thomas Paine

  Army, Expression, Heaven

  Thomas Paine (1835). “The Political Writings of Thomas Paine: To which is Prefixed a Brief Sketch of the Author's Life”, p.75

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• The very concept of law that protects us from tyranny has been lost. No longer the people's shield, law has become a weapon in the hands of government.

  Paul Craig Roberts

  Government, Hands, Law

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• Unlike all other founders of a religious faith, Christ had no selfishness, no desire of dominance; and His system, unlike all other systems of worship, was bloodless, boundlessly beneficent, and--most marvelous of all--went to break all bonds of body and soul, and to cast down every temporal and every spiritual tyranny.

  Alfred William Howitt

  Spiritual, Religious, Soul

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers". Book by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 60, 1895.

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• Of all injustice, that is the greatest which goes under the name of law, and of all sorts of tyranny the forcing of the letter of the law against the equity, is the most insupportable.

  Roger L'Estrange

  Law, Names, Letters

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• Heap up great wealth in your house, if you wish, and live as a tyrant, but, if the enjoyment of these things be lacking, I would not buy the rest for the shadow of smoke as against happiness.

  Sophocles

  Tyrants, House, Wish

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• Take away from the courts, if it could be taken away, the power to issue injunctions in labor disputes, and it would create a privileged class among the laborers and save the lawless among their number from a most needful remedy available to all men for the protection of their business interests against unlawful invasion.... The secondary boycott is an instrument of tyranny, and ought not to be made legitimate.

  William Howard Taft

  Taken, Men, Class

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• The worst of all States is the democratic State.

  Pierre Corneille

  Democracy, Despotism, States

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• It [appears] that however certain forms of government are better calculated than others to protect individuals in the free exercise of their natural rights, and are at the same time themselves better guarded against degeneracy, yet experience [has] shown that, even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Exercise, Rights, Government

  Thomas Jefferson (1943). “Thomas Jefferson: selections from his writings edited, with an introduction”

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• What tyranny could exceed a tyranny that dictates to the human heart?

  June Jordan

  Heart, Sexuality, Humans

  June Jordan (2009). “Some of Us Did Not Die: New and Selected Essays”, p.92, Basic Books

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• I would recommend a free commerce both of matter and mind. I would let men enter their own churches with the same freedom as their own houses; and I would do it without a homily or graciousness or favor, for tyranny itself is to me a word less odious than toleration.

  Walter Savage Landor

  Men, House, Mind

  Walter Savage Landor (1876). “Dialogues of sovereigns and statesmen”, p.90

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• A great deal of the furniture of ancient tyranny is torn to rags; the rest is entirely out of fashion.

  Edmund Burke

  Fashion, Rags, Furniture

  Edmund Burke (1834). “The Works of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke: With a Biographical and Critical Introduction, and Portrait After Sir Joshua Reynolds”, p.126

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• 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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• 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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• truth ... is the first casualty of tyranny.

  Barbara Grizzuti Harrison

  Truth, Firsts, Casualties

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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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• Government began in tyranny and force, began in the feudalism of the soldier and bigotry of the priest; and the ideas of justice and humanity have been fighting their way, like a thunderstorm, against the organized selfishness of human nature.

  Wendell Phillips

  Fighting, Government, Ideas

  Wendell Phillips (1864). “Speeches, Lectures, and Letters”, p.14

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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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• 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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• 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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• 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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