TYRANNY QUOTES VI

quotations about tyrants and tyranny

The belief that democracy can liberate a world bound by tyranny is not far-fetched or wrong. The problem lies in implementation.

KATALINA PETERSON

"For speech contest, Beaumont students tackle dilemma of democracy in the Middle East", The Record Gazette, April 20, 2017


Tyranny produces two results, exactly opposite in character, and which are symbolized in those two great types of the slave in classical times -- Epictetus and Spartacus. The one is hatred with its evil train, the other meekness with its Christian graces.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

A Daughter of Eve

Tags: Honoré de Balzac


It is easier to repress the advances of tyranny at first, than to destroy it when once established.

SOLON

attributed, Day's Collacon


As usurpation is the exercise of power which another has a right to, so tyranny is the exercise of power beyond right, which nobody can have a right to.

JOHN LOCKE

Second Treatise of Civil Government

Tags: John Locke


Clever tyrants are never punished; they have always some slight shade of virtue: they support the laws before destroying them.

VOLTAIRE

Mérope

Tags: Voltaire


It is better to have one tyrant than a hundred; one may demand two-thirds of all you possess; the hundred will pick you to the bone.

THEODORE DWIGHT

attributed, Day's Collacon


Is there no tyrant but the crowned one?

JOSEPH CHENIER

Caius Gracchus


Constitutions become the ultimate tyranny.... 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.

FRANK HERBERT

Dune Messiah

Tags: Frank Herbert


Whenever kingship approaches tyranny it is near its end, for by this it becomes ripe for division, change of dynasty, or total destruction, especially in a temperate climate ... where men are habitually, morally and naturally free.

NICOLE ORESME

De Moneta


Some of the cruelest tyrants in history were motivated by noble ideals, or made choices that they would call 'hard but necessary steps' for the good of their nation. We're all the hero of our own story.

JIM BUTCHER

Turn Coat


All hereditary government is in its nature tyranny. An heritable crown, or an heritable throne, or by what other fanciful name such things may be called, have no other significant explanation than that mankind are heritable property. To inherit a government, is to inherit the people, as if they were flocks and herds.

THOMAS PAINE

The Rights of Man

Tags: Thomas Paine


Have you any idea how much tyrants fear the people they oppress? All of them realize that, one day, amongst their many victims, there is sure to be one who rises against them and strikes back!

J. K. ROWLING

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Tags: J. K. Rowling


It is not to avoid cold or hunger that tyrants cover themselves with blood; and states decree the most illustrious rewards, not to him who catches a thief, but to him who kills an usurper.

ARISTOTLE

Politics

Tags: Aristotle


The power of art to outlast tyranny is very great. Authoritarian regimes may, for a short time, control the present, but we control the future. And that's what we have to remember -- that we have to keep creating that work that will tell the future what the present is like.

SALMAN RUSHDIE

"Rushdie Emphasizes the 'Power of Art to Outlast Tyranny'", Princeton Alumni Weekly, May 11, 2017

Tags: Salman Rushdie


It is, in fact, far easier to act under conditions of tyranny than it is to think.

HANNAH ARENDT

The Human Condition

Tags: Hannah Arendt


It is better to have one king than many tyrants.

CECILE RENARD

attributed, Day's Collacon