Tyranny Quotes - Page 15

• 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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• Ego trips by coteries of self-exalting people are treated in the media as idealism, rather than the petty tyranny it is.

  Thomas Sowell

  Self, Media, People

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• In action, in desire, we must submit perpetually to the tyranny of outside forces; but in thought, in aspiration, we are free, free from our fellowmen, free from the petty planet on which our bodies impotently crawl, free even, while we live, from the tyranny of death.

  Bertrand Russell

  Desire, Body, Action

  Bertrand Russell (2016). “Why I Am Not a Christian”, p.35, Lulu Press, Inc

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• There is no Jesus without Judas, no Martin Luther King, Jr., without the Klan; no Ali without Joe Frazier; no freedom without tyranny. No wisdom exists that does not include perspective. Relativity is the greatest gift.

  Chris Crutcher

  Jesus, Kings, Perspective

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• The thin and precarious crust of decency is all that separates any civilization, however impressive, from the hell of anarchy or systematic tyranny which lie in wait beneath the surface .

  Aldous Huxley

  Lying, Civilization, Waiting

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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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• The Founders understood that democracy was important, but if you didn't filter it through a republican system you'd be just as likely to end up with a tyranny of the majority as you would with a healthy society. Don't worry, I won't quote the Federalist Papers, but trust me, it's in there.

  Jonah Goldberg

  Worry, Healthy, Democracy

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• We must teach our children that the preservation of liberty, and of an order of society conducive to human dignity, requires that a free people retain the moral and material means to discipline its own government, should the temptation to tyranny take root.

  Alan Keyes

  Children, Mean, Government

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• Thus, cases of injustice, and oppression, and tyranny, and the most extravagant bigotry, are in constant occurrence among us every day. It is the custom to trumpet forth much wonder and astonishment at the chief actors therein setting at defiance so completely the opinion of the world; but there is no greater fallacy; it is precisely because they do consult the opinion of their own little world that such things take place at all, and strike the great world dumb with amazement.

  Charles Dickens

  Dumb, Words Of Wisdom, Injustice And Oppression

  Charles Dickens (2006). “Nicholas Nickleby: Easyread Edition”, p.2, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• Seek knowledge and teach it to people. Learn dignity and tranquillity, and be humble towards those from whom you learn knowledge and be humble towards those to whom you teach it, and do not be tyrannical scholar otherwise your knowledge cannot be established because of your tyranny.

  Umar

  Humble, People, Dignity

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• The harshest tyranny is that which acts under the protection of legality and the banner of justice.

  Baron de Montesquieu

  Justice, Protection, Banner

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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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• 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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• How is the soul profited by the strife of Hector, the arguments of Plato, the poems of Virgil, or the elegies of Ovid, who, with others like them, are now gnashing their teeth in the prison of the infernal Babylon, under the cruet tyranny of Pluto?

  Honorius Augustodunensis

  Plato, Scary, Soul

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• Every sacred book, successively, has been accepted in the faith that it was to be the final resting-place of the sojourning soul;but after all, it was but a caravansary which supplied refreshment to the traveler, and directed him farther on his way to Isphahan or Bagdat. Thank God, no Hindoo tyranny prevailed at the framing of the world, but we are freemen of the universe, and not sentenced to any caste.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Freedom, Book, Soul

  Henry David Thoreau, Bradford Torrey, Franklin Benjamin Sanborn (1906). “The Writings of Henry David Thoreau ....”

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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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• Tyrants forego all respect for humanity in proportion as they are sunk beneath it. Taught to believe themselves of a different species, they really become so, lose their participation with their kind, and in mimicking the god dwindle into the brute.

  William Hazlitt

  Believe, Tyrants, Humanity

  William Hazlitt (1848). “The Miscellaneous Works”, p.181

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• flight from tyranny does not of itself insure a safe asylum, far less a happy home.

  Herman Melville

  Home, Doe, Safe

  Herman Melville (2009). “Billy Budd and Other Tales”, p.251, Penguin

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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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• 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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• The worst of all States is the democratic State.

  Pierre Corneille

  Democracy, Despotism, States

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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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