Tyranny Quotes - Page 16

• 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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• 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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• Rome has betrayed itself. It knew the truth and chose violence, it knew humaneness and it chose tyranny.

  Friedrich Durrenmatt

  Betrayal, Rome, Betrayed

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• In Russia, whatever be the appearance of things, violence and arbitrary rule is at the bottom of them all. Tyranny rendered calm by the influence of terror is the only kind of happiness which this government is able to afford its people.

  Marquis de Custine

  Russia, Government, People

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• The checks and balances is a way to prevent government from either devolving into an autocratic tyranny or an autocratic mob mentality.

  Beau Willimon

  Government, Balance, Way

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• If you are too weak to give yourselves your own law, then a tyrant shall lay his yoke upon you and say: "Obey! Clench your teeth and obey!" And all good and evil shall be drowned in obedience to him.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Law, Tyrants, Evil

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• It is not our frowning battlements...or the strength our gallant and disciplined army? These are not our reliance against a resumption of tyranny in our fair land... Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Army, Men, Land

  "Lincoln on Democracy" by Abraham Lincoln, G. S. Boritt, Fordham University Press, (p. 128), September 1, 2004.

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• Where laws end, tyranny begins.

  William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham

  Law, Ends, Total War

  William Pitt (1st earl of Chatham.) (1839). “Correspondence, ed. by [W.S. Taylor and J.H. Pringle] the executors of his son John, earl of Chatham”, p.387

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• So, instead of spending my strength quarreling with the hand, I would strike for the heart of that great tyranny.

  Jane Swisshelm

  Strength, Money, Women

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• Montesquieu well knew, and justly admired, the happy constitution of this country [Great Britain], where fixed and known laws equally restrain monarchy from tyranny and liberty from licentiousness.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Country, Law, Liberty

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• He who disguises tyranny, protection, or even benefits under the air and name of friendship reminds me of the guilty priest who poisoned the sacramental bread.

  Nicolas Chamfort

  Friendship, Air, Names

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• Tyranny is like the electric wiring in an old house. A tyrant dies, the new tyrant takes possession, and all he has to do is drop the switch.

  John le Carre

  Tyrants, House, Possession

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• Most fatal, most hateful of all things is bullying.... Sensual bullying of course is fairly easily detected. What is more dangerous is ideal bullying. Bullying people into what is ideally good for them.

  D. H. Lawrence

  Education, Bullying, People

  D.H. Lawrence (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence (Illustrated)”, p.8067, Delphi Classics

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• Pharisaism, obtuseness and tyranny reign not only in the homes of merchants and in jails; I see it in science, in literature, and among youth. I consider any emblem or label a prejudice.... My holy of holies is the human body, health, intellect, talent, inspiration, love and the most absolute of freedoms, the freedom from force and falsity in whatever forms they might appear.

  Anton Chekhov

  Freedom, Inspiration, Home

  Letter to Alexei Pleshcheev, October 4, 1888.

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• Political correctness is just tyranny with manners. I wish for you the courage to be unpopular. Popularity is history's pocket change. Courage is history's true currency.

  Charlton Heston

  Political, Wish, Pockets

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• All government, all exercise of power, no matter in what form, which is not based in love and directed by knowledge, is a tyranny.

  Anna Brownell Jameson

  Exercise, Government, Matter

  Anna Brownell Jameson (1877). “A commonplace book of thoughts, memories and fancies, original and selected”, p.54

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• The lust of dominion innovates so imperceptibly that we become complete despots before our wanton abuse of power is perceived; the tyranny first exercised in the nursery is exhibited in various shapes and degrees in every stage of our existence.

  Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann

  Lust, Abuse, Degrees

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• Conquest, tyranny, treachery, and the clash of cultures bring about corrupt societies, and so does old age. Sometimes the five faces of corruption are visible at the same time.

  Robert Payne

  Age, Faces, Doe

  Robert Payne (1975). “The Corrupt Society: From Ancient Greece to Present-Day America”, Praeger Publishers

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• Instead of that liberty which takes root and growth in the progress of reason, if recovered by mere force or accident, it becomes with an unprepared people a tyranny still of the many, the few, or the one.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Roots, People, Growth

  Thomas Jefferson, J. Jefferson Looney (2004). “The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: 1 October 1814 to 31 August 1815”, p.262, Princeton University Press

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• The sin of all time has been the exercise of assumed powers. This is the essence of tyranny.

  Victoria Woodhull

  Exercise, Essence, Sin

  Victoria Claflin Woodhull (1872). “A Speech on the Great Social Problem of Labor & Capital Delivered at Cooper Institute, New York City ... May 8, 1871, Before the Labor Reform League”, p.32

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