Tyranny Quotes - Page 2

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  The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, Democracies Have, Government

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.29, Vintage

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• Politics is a pendulum whose swings between anarchy and tyranny are fueled by perennially rejuvenated illusions.

  Albert Einstein

  Swings, Politics, Anarchy

  Albert Einstein (2013). “Albert Einstein, The Human Side: Glimpses from His Archives”, p.38, Princeton University Press

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• The Framers of the Constitution knew that free speech is the friend of change and revolution. But they also knew that it is always the deadliest enemy of tyranny.

  Hugo Black

  Friendship, Enemy, Speech

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• The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.

  James Madison

  Freedom, War, Mean

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• Sad will be the day when the American people forget their traditions and their history, and so longer remember that the country they love, the institutions they cherish, and the freedom they hope to preserve, were born from the throes of armed resistance to tyranny, and nursed in the rugged arms of fearless men.

  Roger Sherman

  Love, Sad, Country

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• The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it.

  John Hay

  Tyrants, Evil, Liberty

  John Hay (1871). “Castilian Days”, p.28

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• Fear of death has been the greatest ally of tyranny past and present.

  Sidney Hook

  Inspirational, Death, Past

  Sidney Hook (2002). “Sidney Hook on Pragmatism, Democracy, and Freedom: The Essential Essays”, Pyr Books

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• Those who take oaths to politically powerful secret societies cannot be depended on for loyalty to a democratic republic.

  John Quincy Adams

  Loyalty, Powerful, Secret

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• Tyrants have always some slight shade of virtue; they support the laws before destroying them.

  Voltaire

  Law, Tyrants, Support

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  To disarm the people... was the best and most effectual way to enslave them.

  George Mason

  Strength, Peace, Gun

  George Mason's address to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 14, 1788.

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• Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry.

  Unknown

  Government, Liberty, Libertarian

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• A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Moving, Tyrants, World Government

  Speaking to the Roman Senate, as recorded by Sallust in The Catiline War (c. 40 b.c.). This quotation is a favorite of CIA counterintelligence officers.

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• Any appeasement of tyranny is treason.

  William Allen White

  Tyrants, Appeasement, Treason

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• It's not tyranny we desire; it's a just, limited, federal government.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Patriotic, Government, Desire

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  Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Trust, Time, Democracies Have

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.235, Cambridge University Press

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• The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

  Desmond Tutu

  Memorial Day, Peace, Freedom

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• I have sworn upon the altar of God Eternal, hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Change, Religious, Men

  Letter to Benjamin Rush, 23 Sept. 1800

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• There are three things in the world that deserve no mercy, hypocrisy, fraud, and tyranny.

  Frederick William Robertson

  Hypocrisy, Three, World

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• Modern toleration is really a tyranny. It is a tyranny because it is a silence.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Silence, Modern, Toleration

  Illustrated London News, 10 Oct. 1908

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• A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins.” Benjamin Franklin

  Benjamin Franklin

  Education, Wisdom, Freedom

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• Knowledge is power. Information is power. The secreting or hoarding of knowledge or information may be an act of tyranny camouflaged as humility.

  Robin Morgan

  Peace, Knowledge, Humility

  Robin Morgan (2014). “The Word of a Woman: Feminist Dispatches”, p.121, Open Road Media

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• Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst.

  Thomas Paine

  Christian, Religious, Atheist

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• Ultimately, freedom and democracy are stronger than fear and tyranny.

  Gijs de Vries

  Tyrants, Democracy, Stronger

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• Tis time to fear when tyrants seem to kiss.

  William Shakespeare

  War, Kissing, Tyrants

  1607 Pericles. Pericles, sc.2, l.84.

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• No tyrant need fear till men begin to feel confident in each other.

  Aristotle

  Men, Tyrants, Needs

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