Tyranny Quotes - Page 10

• When justices seize authority from the other branches of the federal government, as well as state and local governments, under the rubric of judicial review, that’s tyranny.

  Mark Levin

  Government, Justice, Judicial Review

  "Men in Black". Interview with Kathryn Lopez, www.nationalreview.com. February 1, 2005.

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• Conservatism is the antidote to tyranny precisely because its principles are the founding principles.

  Mark Levin

  Principles, Politics, Antidote

  Mark R. Levin (2009). “Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto”, p.19, Simon and Schuster

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• We all want peace. Unfortunately, there are times when peace must be defended by fighting terror and tyranny.

  James H. Douglas

  Fighting, Want, Terror

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• The right of a nation to kill a tyrant, in cases of necessity, can no more be doubted, than to hang a robber, or kill a flea. But killing one tyrant only makes way for worse, unless the people have sense, spirit and honesty enough to establish and support a constitution guarded at all points against the tyranny of the one, the few, and the many.

  John Adams

  Honesty, Tyrants, People

  John Adams (2015). “The Works of John Adams Vol. 6: Defence of the Constitution IV, Discourses on Davila”, p.110, Jazzybee Verlag

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• The body of People may with Respect resist intolerable Tyranny.

  John Locke

  People, Body, May

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• To rail and rant against tyranny is to manifest inferiority, for there is no tyranny but ignorance; to be conscious of one's powers is to lose consciousness of tyranny. Self government is not a remote aim. It is an intimate and inescapable fact. To govern oneself is a natural imperative, and all tyranny is the miscarriage of self government. The first requisite of freedom is to accept responsibility for the lack of it.

  E.C. Riegel

  Ignorance, Miscarriage, Responsibility

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• The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity.

  Jacob Burckhardt

  Essence, Denial, Complexity

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

  Frank Herbert

  Government, Long, Tendencies

  Frank Herbert (2008). “God Emperor of Dune”, p.255, Penguin

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• What draws men and women together is stronger than the brutality and tyranny which drive them apart.

  Millicent Fawcett

  Men, Together, Stronger

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• The purpose of education is to free the student from the tyranny of the present.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Purpose, Students, Purpose Of Education

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• 'Rugged individualism' has meant all the 'individualism' for the masters, while the people are regimented into a slave caste to serve a handful of self-seeking 'supermen.' America is perhaps the best representative of this kind of individualism, in whose name political tyranny and social oppression are defended and held up as virtues; while every aspiration and attempt of man to gain freedom and social opportunity to live is denounced as 'un-American' and evil in the name of that same individuality.

  Emma Goldman

  Men, Opportunity, America

  "The Individual, Society and the State". Book by Emma Goldman (p. 112), 1937.

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• I have seen the rise and fall of Nazi tyranny, the subsequent cold war and the nuclear nightmare that for fifty years haunted the dreams of children everywhere. During that time my generation defeated totalitarianism. As a result, your world is poised for better tomorrows. What will you do on your journey?

  Ronald Reagan

  Dream, Children, War

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

  Edmund Burke

  Kings, Tyrants, Principles

  'Reflections on the Revolution in France' (1790) p. 116

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• It is a besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion for law. This is the usual form in which masses of men exhibit their tyranny.

  James F. Cooper

  Freedom, Men, Democracies Have

  "The American Democrat: Or, Hints on the Social and Civic Relations of the United States of America". Book by James Fenimore Cooper, 1838.

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• The hope and change the Democrats had in mind was nothing more than a retread of the failed and discredited socialist policies that have been the enemy of freedom for centuries all over the world. I fear America is teetering towards tyranny.

  Jim DeMint

  America, Mind, Enemy

  "Come Together" by Hendrik Hertzberg, www.newyorker.com. March 8, 2010.

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• No one is an unjust villain in his own mind. Even - perhaps even especially those who are the worst of us. Some of the cruelest tyrants in history were motivated by noble ideals, or made choices they would call "hard but necessary" for the good of their nation. We're all the hero of our own story.

  Jim Butcher

  Hero, Tyrants, Choices

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• Seditious libel is the doctrine that flourished in England during and after the Star Chamber. It is the hallmark of closed societies throughout the world. Under it, criticism of government is viewed as defamation and punished as a crime.

  Harry Kalven

  Stars, Government, Criticism

  Harry Kalven (1989). “A Worthy Tradition: Freedom of Speech in America”, HarperCollins

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• The fact is that certain themes cannot be celebrated in words, and tyranny is one of them. No one ever wrote a good book in praise of the Inquisition.

  George Orwell

  Book, Facts, Praise

  George Orwell, Keith Gessen (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.265, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Now the trumpet summons us again - not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a call to battle, though embattled we are; but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, 'rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation', a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease and war itself.

  John F. Kennedy

  War, Struggle, Twilight

  Inaugural Address, 20 Jan. 1961. The words in quotation marks are from the Bible, Romans 12:12.

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• The rifle is a weapon. Let there be no mistake about that. It is a tool of power, and thus dependent completely upon the moral stature of its user. It is equally useful in securing meat for the table, destroying group enemies on the battlefield, and resisting tyranny. In fact, it is the only means of resisting tyranny, since a citizenry armed with rifles simply cannot be tyrannized.

  Jeff Cooper

  Mistake, Mean, Gun

  Jeff Cooper (2002). “Art of the Rifle: Special Colour Edition”, p.8, Paladin Press

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• My excellent colleagues have forgotten these bitter lessons of history. The prospect of tyranny may not grab the headlines the way vivid stories of gun crime usually do. But few saw the Third Reich coming until it was too late. The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed only for those exceptionally rare circumstances when all other rights have failed. A free people can only afford to make this mistake once.

  Alex Kozinski

  Freedom, Mistake, Failure

  "United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit". openjurist.org. May 6, 2003.

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• It is indeed probable that more harm and misery have been caused by men determined to use coercion to stamp out a moral evil than by men intent on doing evil.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Men, Thinking, Tyrants

  "The Constitution of Liberty". Book by Friedrich Hayek. Part II: "Freedom and the Law". Chapter 9: "Coercion and the State", 1960.

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• Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Men, Careers, Tyrants

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (2015). “The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution”, p.10, Coventry House Publishing

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• If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Government, People, Use

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1842). “The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788”, p.144

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• Civilization after civilization, it is the same. The world falls to tyranny with a whisper. The frightened are ever keen to bow to a perceived necessity, in the belief that necessity forces conformity, and conformity a certain stability. In a world shaped into conformity, dissidents stand out, are easily branded and dealt with. There is no multitude of perspectives, no dialogue. The victim assumes the face of the tyrant, self-righteous and intransigent, and wars breed like vermin. And people die.

  Steven Erikson

  War, Fall, Self

  "Midnight Tides". Book by Steven Erikson, 2004.

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