Quotes about tyranny

"Death is softer by far than tyranny."

Aeschylus on tyranny   

"In every tyrant's heart there springs in the end this poison, that he cannot trust a friend."

Aeschylus on tyranny
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"Tyranny and anarchy are never far apart."

Bentham, Jeremy on tyranny   

"The most insupportable of tyrannies is that of inferiors."

Bonaparte, Napoleon on tyranny   

"No totalitarians, no wars, no fears, famines or perils of any kind can really break a man's spirit until he breaks it himself by surrendering. Tyranny has many dread powers, but not the power to rule the spirit."

Brightman, Edgar Sheffield on tyranny   

"The tyrant grinds down his slaves and they don't turn against him, they crush those beneath them."

Bronte, Emily on tyranny   

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"Tyrants seldom want pretexts."

Burke, Edmund on tyranny   

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"Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle."

Burke, Edmund on tyranny   

"If we must have a tyrant, let him at least be a gentleman who has been bred to the business, and let us fall by the axe and not by the butcher's cleaver."

Byron, Lord on tyranny   

"There is a secret pride in every human heart that revolts at tyranny. You may order and drive an individual, but you cannot make him respect you."

Hazlitt, William on tyranny
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"So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, the Caesars and Napoleons will arise to make them miserable."

Huxley, Aldous on tyranny   

"Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God."

Jefferson, Thomas on tyranny
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"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

Jefferson, Thomas on tyranny
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"No government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it. There is a remedy in human nature against tyranny, that will keep us safe under every form of government."

Johnson, Samuel on tyranny   

"A police state finds that it cannot command the grain to grow."

Kennedy, John F. on tyranny   

"The tyrant dies and his rule is over, the martyr dies and his rule begins."

Kierkegaard, Søren on tyranny   

"Tyranny is yielding to the lust of the governing."

Moulton, Lord on tyranny   

"Tyranny is always better organized than freedom."

Peguy, Charles on tyranny   

"The people always have some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness. This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector."

Plato on tyranny   

"Like Cato, give his little senate laws, and sit attentive to his own applause."

Pope, Alexander on tyranny   

"Rulers, who neither see, nor feel, nor know, but leech-like to their fainting country cling, till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow, -- a people starved and stabbed in the untilled field..."

Shelley, Percy Bysshe on tyranny   

"There is no week nor day nor hour when tyranny may not enter upon this country, if the people lose their roughness and spirit of defiance."

Whitman, Walt on tyranny   

"The worst form of tyranny the world has ever known the tyranny of the weak over the strong. It is the only tyranny that lasts."

Wilde, Oscar on tyranny
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