Quotes on Tyrants

The flag of our stately battles, not struggles of wrath and greed, _x000D_ Its stripes were a holy lesson, its spangles a deathless creed: _x000D_ 'T was red with the blood of freemen and white with the fear of the foe; _x000D_ And the stars that fight in their courses 'gainst tyrants its symbols know.

They've got something they do it with, I think it's called a mocracy, and it means everyone in the whole country can say who the new Tyrant is. One man ... one vet. ... Everyone has ... the vet. Except for women, of course. And children. And criminals. And slaves. And stupid people. And people of foreign extraction. And people disapproved of for, er, various reasons. And lots of other people. But everyone apart from them. It's a very enlightened civilization.

Against the persecution of a tyrant the godly have no remedy but prayer.

Neither a life of anarchy nor a life under a despot should you praise. To all that lies in the middle has a god given excellence.

There has never been a humane communist regime. Marxism is inherently totalitarian. It recognizes no moral limits on the state. It’s the most convenient ideology for aspiring tyrants; it also retains its appeal for intellectuals, who have proved equally skillful at rationalizing abuses of power and at exculpating themselves.

Hold firm to your vision but don't be a tyrant on set.

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

The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant.

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

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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.

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

Like the effect of advertising upon the customer, the methods of political propaganda tend to increase the feeling of insignificance of the individual voter.

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.

A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.

If there is no struggle, there is no progress....This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

The strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast; ambition, avarice, vanity, the honorable or venal love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace.

It is heroic to prepare for war with a tyrant power. Patriots will always win the admiration of mankind for daring to meet the bloodshed of battle for their country's liberty. But the patriot who is willing to go to that sacrifice will be the first to condemn the aimless and secret shedding of blood in time of peace.

Slavery discourages arts and manufacturing ...[and] every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant.

Debt is the fatal disease of republics, the first thing and the mightiest to undermine governments and corrupt the people.

That's what tyrants do, I guess. They make you covet their attention; they make you confuse attention for mercy.