Tyrants Quotes - Page 27

• The admiration of power in others is as common to man as the love of it in himself; the one makes him a tyrant, the other a slave.

  William Hazlitt

  Men, Power, Common

  William Hazlitt (1819). “Political essays, with sketches of public characters”, p.163

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  House, Wish, Shadow

  4 Copy quote

• The nation is in a death-struggle. It must either become one vast slaveocracy of petty tyrants, or wholly the land of the free.

  Angelina Grimke

  War, Struggle, Land

  23 Copy quote

• The end of despots is always odd?exhilarating to those who suffered their tyrannies, and to those who hold despotism in contempt, and anti-climatic at the same time, the discovery that these tyrants were petty, frightened men after all.

  Fouad Ajami

  Spring, Men, Discovery

  5 Copy quote

• We take a fancy to something: and scarcely have we thoroughly taken a fancy to it when that tyrant in us calls out: "Give me thatin sacrifice"--and we give it.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Taken, Sacrifice, Giving

  5 Copy quote

• To our strongest impulse, to the tyrant in us, not only our reason but also our conscience yields.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Yield, Reason, Impulse

  6 Copy quote

• Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of husbands. Remember all men would be tyrants if they could.

  Abigail Adams

  Wedding, Husband, Women

  Letter to John Adams, 31 Mar. 1776 See Defoe 2

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• Idealism is the despot of thought, just as politics is the despot of will.

  Mikhail Bakunin

  Idealism And Realism, Ideals, Despots

  Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin (1953). “The Political Philosophy of Bakunin: Scientific Anarchism”, Free Pr

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• The first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that the end justifies the means.

  Georges Bernanos

  Mean, Deception, Alive

  Georges Bernanos (1955). “Last essays”

  66 Copy quote

  Show source

• The slightest acquaintance with history shows that powerful republics are the most warlike and unscrupulous of nations.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Peace, Powerful, War

  Ambrose Bierce (1912). “The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce ...: Antepenultimata”

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• When we make college more affordable, we make the American dream more achievable.

  William J. Clinton

  Dream, Knowledge, College

  Clinton, William J. (2000). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton, 2000-2001”, p.89, Best Books on

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• I consider myself to be a man of principle. But, what man does not? Even the cutthroat, I have noticed, considers his actions "moral" after a fashion. Perhaps another person, reading of my life, would name me a religious tyrant. He could call me arrogant. What is to make that man's opinion any less valid than my own? I guess it all comes down to one fact: In the end, I'm the one with the armies.

  Brandon Sanderson

  Religious, Fashion, Reading

  Brandon Sanderson (2011). “Mistborn Trilogy”, p.27, Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• What began the change was the very writing itself. Let no one lightly set about such a work. Memory, once waked, will play the tyrant.

  C. S. Lewis

  Memories, Writing, Play

  C. S. Lewis (1980). “Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold”, p.259, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Lacy had warned me about Drew the first day of school. Apparently the two of them had gone to some summer camp together––blah, blah, I didn't really listen to teh details––and Drew had been just as much a tyrant there. ~Sadie Kane, about Lacy and Drew of Aphrodite cabin.

  Rick Riordan

  Summer, School, Two

  11 Copy quote

• The poor ego has a still harder time of it; it has to serve three harsh masters, and it has to do its best to reconcile the claims and demands of all three...The three tyrants are the external world, the superego, and the id.

  Sigmund Freud

  Ego, Three, World

  "New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-analysis". Book by Sigmund Freud, transl. by James Strachey, "The Anatomy of the Mental Personality" (Lecture 31), 1933.

  64 Copy quote

  Show source

• Truth is a tyrant-the only tyrant to whom we can give our allegiance. The service of truth is a matter of heroism.

  John F. Kennedy

  Truth, Science, Giving

  31 Copy quote

• Whether the authorities be invaders or merely local tyrants, the effect of such [gun control] laws is to place the individual at the mercy of the state, unable to resist.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Gun, Law, Mercy

  10 Copy quote

• To say that subjects in general are not proper judges (of the law) when their governors oppress them and play the tyrant, and when they defend their rights ...is as great a treason as ever a man uttered.

  Jonathan Mayhew

  Trust, Men, Law

  7 Copy quote

• People might say I'm difficult, but did you ever hear anyone describe a label as 'difficult'? By nature, artists should challenge. When they call you difficult, it is a reflection of the imbalance of power.

  Michelle Shocked

  Artist, Reflection, People

  7 Copy quote

• Scientific societies are as yet in their infancy. It is to be expected that advances in physiology and psychology will give governments much more control over individual mentality than they now have even in totalitarian countries. Fitche laid it down that education should aim at destroying free will, so that, after pupils have left school, they shall be incapable, throughout the rest of their lives, of thinking or acting otherwise than as their schoolmasters would have wished.

  Bertrand Russell

  Country, School, Thinking

  12 Copy quote

• A man like me cannot live without a hobby-horse, a consuming passion - in Schiller's words a tyrant. I have found my tyrant, and in his service I know no limits. My tyrant is psychology. It has always been my distant, beckoning goal and now since I have hit upon the neuroses, it has come so much the nearer.

  Sigmund Freud

  Horse, Passion, Men

  Sigmund Freud, Wilhelm Fliess (1957). “The Origins of Psychoanalysis: Letters, Drafts and Notes to Wilhelm Fliess, 1887-1902”

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• A great nation like the United States has many and varied interests, and we need both to do business with tyrants and to engage constantly in multilateral diplomacy.

  Elliott Abrams

  United States, Needs, Diplomacy

  4 Copy quote

• The president, who finds so much to complain about in other areas of the world, apparently saw nothing wrong in recognizing a Communist regime that has killed more people in its short history of control over the teeming millions of that great country than any other collection of dictators or tyrants in the history of the world.

  Barry Goldwater

  Country, War, People

  11 Copy quote

• It seems to us unwise to have insisted on teaching geometry to the younger Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, in order to make him a good king, but from Plato's point of view it was essential. He was sufficiently Pythagorean to think that without mathematics no true wisdom is possible.

  Bertrand Russell

  Kings, Plato, Teaching

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “History of Western Philosophy: Collectors Edition”, p.95, Routledge

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is outrageous that the Queen has invited royal tyrants to celebrate her diamond jubilee.

  Peter Tatchell

  Queens, Diamond Jubilee, Royal

  "Guess who's coming to dinner? Anger over Queen's jubilee bash guest list" by Caroline Davies, www.theguardian.com. May 17, 2012.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source