Quotes About Tyranny

No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets.

The distrust of wit is the beginning of tyranny.

Surely it is no accident that the most thorough of tyrannies appeared in Europe's most thoroughly scientific and industrialized nation. If we allow our own country to become as densely populated, overdeveloped and technically unified as modern Germany we may face a similar fate.

Caligula wished that the Roman people had but one neck that he might cut it off, and as I read this letter I am afraid that for a moment I was capable of wishing the same thing concerning the laboring class of America.

Tyranny," said Solon, "is a fair field, but it has no outlet." A subtle, as well as a noble saying; it implies that he who has once made himself the master of the state has no option as to the means by which he must continue his power. Possessed of that fearful authority, his first object is to rule, and it becomes a secondary object to rule well.

Sixth, after the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny, they hope to see established a peace which will afford to all nations the means of dwelling in safety within their own boundaries, and which will afford assurance that all the men in all the lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want.

Sic semper tyrannis [Thus always to tyrants].

There always appears, on the ruins of tyranny, a man taller than the others, a man that everyone sees, that everyone listens to and this one is the master of rubble.

democracy can make common cause with tyranny quite well, for along with a "manly and lawful passion for equality … there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." It

Tyranny, he once remarked, was a delightful place, but there was no way out of it.

Brutus was high-minded, an intellectual who took ideas seriously. He saw the assassination of Caesar as a sacrifice rather than a political act. He was a man with "a singularly gentle nature," who feared civil war almost (although not quite) as much as tyranny.

My mother made the courageous decision to flee a tyrannized Cuba in the 1950s and bring her children to the United States, where I was born.

Evil claims to be natural, and this is the heart of its deceit. Sin rarely declares itself as sin, and the sinner tends to claim some high motive and some pink-and-white complexion for each decay. Each enslavement to sin calls itself a new form of liberation as it tightens its chains. Rare is the tyrant who does not cloak his extravagant selfishness in the titles of altruism and affected goodwill.

She never remembered seeing familiarly anything but the dark faces of her Ayah and the other native servants, and as they always obeyed her and gave her her own way in everything, because the Mem Sahib would be angry if she was disturbed by her crying, by the time she was six years old she was as tyrannical and selfish a little pig as ever lived.

Constitutions become the ultimate tyranny, Paul said. They're organized power on such a scale as to be overwhelming. The constitution is social power mobilized and it has no conscience. It can crush the highest and the lowest, removing all dignity and individuality. It has an unstable balance point and no limitations.

Monarchies have some good features beyond their star qualities. They can reduce the size and parasitic nature of the management bureaucracy. They can make speedy decisions when necessary. They fit an ancient human demand for a parental (tribal/feudal) hierarchy where every person knows his place. It is valuable to know your place, even if that place is temporary. It is galling to be held in place against your will. This is why I teach about tyranny in the best possible way—by example.

In their passion for sameness, the tyrants made themselves more and more powerful. All others grew correspondingly weaker and weaker. New bureaus and directorates, odd ministries, leaped into existence for the most improbable purposes. These became the citadels of a new aristocracy, rulers who kept the giant wheel of government careening along, spreading destruction, violence, and chaos wherever they touched.

Governments can be useful to the governed only so long as inherent tendencies toward tyranny are restrained.

Governments can be useful to the governed only so long as inherent tendencies toward tyranny are restrained...be exceedingly careful about the powers you delegate to any government.

The trouble with some kinds of warfare (and be certain the Tyrant knew this, because it is implicit in his lesson) is that they destroy all moral decency in susceptible types. Warfare of these kinds will dump the destroyed survivors back into an innocent population that is incapable of even imagining what such returned soldiers might do.

The tyranny of the minority cloaked in the mask of the majority," Odrade called it, her voice exultant. "Downfall of democracy. Either overthrown by its own excesses or eaten away by bureaucracy.

Constitutions become the ultimate tyranny," Paul said. "They're organized power on such a scale as to be overwhelming. The constitution is social power mobilized and it has no conscience. It can crush the highest and the lowest, removing all dignity and individuality. It has an unstable balance point and no limitations. I, however, have limitations. In my desire to provide an ultimate protection for my people, I forbid a constitution.

Constitutions become the ultimate tyranny," Paul said.