Quotes About Tyranny

It is harder to maintain the balance of freedom than it is to endure the weight of tyranny.

Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down.

Five or six hundred heads cut off would have assured your repose, freedom and happiness.

In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority.

The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within.

It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority.

Freedom is not possible without authority - otherwise it would turn into chaos and authority is not possible without freedom - otherwise it would turn into tyranny.

Power in defense of freedom is greater than power in behalf of tyranny and oppression, because power, real power, comes from our conviction which produces action, uncompromising action.

I would not be beholden to a tyrant, for his acts of tyranny. For it is but usurpation in him to save, as their rightful lord, the lives of men over whom he has no title to reign.

To begin with unlimited freedom is to end with unlimited despotism.

The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppose.

Discipline without freedom is tyranny; freedom without discipline is chaos.

In a land of freedom we are held hostage by the tyranny of political correctness.

Anywhere, anytime ordinary people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same: freedom, not tyranny; democracy, not dictatorship; the rule of law, not the rule of the secret police.

Tyranny and despotism can be exercised by many, more rigorously, more vigorously, and more severely, than by one.

The tyrant claims freedom to kill freedom, and yet keep it for himself.

Despotism sits nowhere so secure as under the effigy and ensigns of freedom.

The conjunction of ruling and dreaming generates tyranny.

The hardest task needs the lightest hand or else its completion will not lead to freedom but to a tyranny much worse than the one it replaces.

Anarchy is the sure consequence of tyranny; for no power that is not limited by laws can ever be protected by them.

Democratic institutions form a system of quarantine for tyrannical desires.

I can remember when Democrats believed that it was the duty of America to fight for freedom over tyranny.

Intellectual and cultural freedom is the most important single precondition for the breakdown of the kinds of tyrannical and totalitarian systems that periodically threaten us.

Conquerors never, never conquer a nation to bring freedom. They brought control.