Tyranny Quotes

When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty.
Thomas Jefferson

Government, Fear, Liberty

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
Thomas Jefferson

Time, Power, Best

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.
C. S. Lewis

Good, May, Victims

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

God, Mind, Against

Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.
Thomas Jefferson

Mind, Evil, Body

Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.
Plato

Democracy, Liberty, Slavery

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.
James Madison

Enemy, Fighting, Land

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.
Socrates

When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how holy the motives.
Robert A. Heinlein

Government, End, May

One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.
Bertrand Russell

Respect, Opinion, Keep

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.
George Bernard Shaw

Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.
Bertrand Russell

Liberty, Exercise, Capitalism

It's not tyranny we desire; it's a just, limited, federal government.
Alexander Hamilton

Government, Desire, Federal

I do not deny that I planned sabotage. I did not plan it in a spirit of recklessness nor because I have any love of violence. I planned it as a result of a calm and sober assessment of the political situation that had arisen after many years of tyranny, exploitation and oppression of my people by the whites.
Nelson Mandela

Love, Political, After

Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy.
Plato

Democracy, Naturally, Arises

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.
Walt Whitman

May, Country, Lose

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
Edmund Burke

Good, Conscience, Silent

Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.
Edmund Burke

Bad, Worst, Laws

The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.
Voltaire

Best, Government, Benevolent

He that rebels against reason is a real rebel, but he that in defence of reason rebels against tyranny has a better title to Defender of the Faith, than George the Third.
Thomas Paine

Faith, Real, Reason

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

Freedom, Secret, Lies

Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst.
Thomas Paine

Religion, Worst, Mankind

There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.
Charles de Montesquieu

Justice, Law, Name

From behind the Iron Curtain, there are signs that tyranny is in trouble and reminders that its structure is as brittle as its surface is hard.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

Hard, Trouble, Behind

The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.
James Madison

Home, Become, Against

The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.
Charles de Montesquieu

Democracy, Dangerous, Public

The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny.
Edmund Burke

Multitude, Multiplied

I have an almost complete disregard of precedent, and a faith in the possibility of something better. It irritates me to be told how things have always been done. I defy the tyranny of precedent. I go for anything new that might improve the past.
Clara Barton

Faith, Past, Done

Great minds are to make others great. Their superiority is to be used, not to break the multitude to intellectual vassalage, not to establish over them a spiritual tyranny, but to rouse them from lethargy, and to aid them to judge for themselves.
William Ellery Channing

Great, Spiritual, Judge

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.
William Hazlitt

Respect, Heart, Human

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