Tyranny Quotes - Page 24

• Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of the day; but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers (adminstrators) too plainly proves a deliberate, systematic plan of reducing us to slavery.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Government, Liberty, Slavery

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• The mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Freedom, Grace, Liberty

  Letter to Roger C.Weightman, 24 June 1826.

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• The nation is sick; trouble is in the land, confusion all around...But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. And I see God working in this period of the twentieth century. Something is happening in our world. The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled today, whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; or Memphis, Tennessee, the cry is always the same: 'We want to be free.'

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  New York, Stars, Dark

  I've Been to the Mountaintop, delivered 3 April 1968, Mason Temple (Church of God in Christ Headquarters), Memphis, Tennessee

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• 'Useful,' and 'necessity' was always 'the tyrant's plea'.

  C. S. Lewis

  Freedom, Tyrants, Liberty

  C. S. Lewis (2014). “God in the Dock”, p.333, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

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• Attempting to satisfy the passions that rage inside us and the longings that motivate us, we invent spirituality, lean on political solutions, create new villains, turn our backs on Jesus, and blame a thousand tyrannies- but we never come to terms with the source of the problem deep within the heart and inclination of every human being.

  Ravi Zacharias

  Jesus, Passion, Heart

  Ravi Zacharias (2010). “Has Christianity Failed You?”, p.41, Zondervan

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• Control is not leadership; management is not leadership; leadership is leadership is leadership. If you seek to lead, invest at least 50% of your time leading yourself-your own purpose, ethics, principles, motivation, conduct. Invest at least 20% leading those with authority over you and 15% leading your peers. If you don't understand that you work for your mislabeled 'subordinates,' then you know nothing of leadership. You know only tyranny.

  Dee Hock

  Motivation, Discipline, Over You

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• I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, Believe, Men

  "Why Liberty?". Chicago Tribune, January 30, 1927.

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• The right to vote is a consequence, not a primary cause, of a free social system - and its value depends on the constitutional structure implementing and strictly delimiting the voters' power; unlimited majority rule is an instance of the principle of tyranny.

  Ayn Rand

  Majority Rule, Liberty, Principles

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.522, Penguin

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• Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed.

  Barry Goldwater

  Heaven, Liberty, Doe

  Speech Accepting the Republican Presidential Nomination, delivered 16 July 1964, San Francisco

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• The question is not what anybody deserves. The question is who is to take on the God-like role of deciding what everybody else deserves. You can talk about 'social justice' all you want. But what death taxes boil down to is letting politicians take money from widows and orphans to pay for goodies that they will hand out to others, in order to buy votes to get re-elected. That is not social justice or any other kind of justice.

  Thomas Sowell

  Hands, Order, Deserve You

  Thomas Sowell (2013). “Controversial Essays”, p.59, Hoover Press

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• Try this thought experiment. Pretend you're a tyrant. Among your many liberty-destroying objectives are extermination of blacks, Jews and Catholics. Which would you prefer, a United States with political power centralized in Washington, powerful government agencies with detailed information on Americans and compliant states or power widely dispersed over 50 states, thousands of local jurisdictions and a limited federal government?

  Walter E. Williams

  Powerful, Agency, Government

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• A tyranny based on ... deception and maintained by terror must inevitably perish from the poison it generates within itself.

  Albert Einstein

  Deception, Liberty, Poison

  Albert Einstein (2011). “Essays in Humanism”, p.96, Open Road Media

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• Resistance to tyranny is service to God.

  James Madison

  Liberty, Libertarian, Resistance

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• The ideal tyranny is that which is ignorantly self-administered by its victims. The most perfect slaves are, therefore, those which blissfully and unawaredly enslave themselves.

  Donald James

  Self, Perfect, Historical

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• To expect that the intricacies of science will be pierced by a careless glance, or the eminences of fame ascended without labour, is to expect a peculiar privilege, a power denied to the rest of mankind; but to suppose that the maze is inscrutable to diligence, or the heights inaccessible to perseverance, is to submit tamely to the tyranny of fancy, and enchain the mind in voluntary shackles.

  Samuel Johnson

  Perseverance, Mind, Privilege

  Samuel Johnson (1820). “The Rambler”, p.197

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• I belonged to a small minority of boys who were lacking in physical strength and athletic prowess. ... We found our refuge in science. ... We learned that science is a revenge of victims against oppressors, that science is a territory of freedom and friendship in the midst of tyranny and hatred.

  Freeman Dyson

  Revenge, Science, Boys

  "Brilliant Light" by Oliver Sacks, www.newyorker.com. December 20, 1999.

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• The longest tyranny that ever sway'd
  Was that wherein our ancestors betray'd
  Their free-born reason to the Stagirite [Aristotle],
  And made his torch their universal light.
  So truth, while only one suppli'd the state,
  Grew scarce, and dear, and yet sophisticate.

  John Dryden

  Truth, Light, Torches

  John Dryden, John Sargeaunt (1929). “The Poems of John Dryden, Ed., with an Introduction and Textual Notes”

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• It is impossible to read the history of the petty republics of Greece and Italy without feeling sensations of horror and disgust at the distractions with which they were continually agitated, and at the rapid succession of revolutions by which they were kept in a state of perpetual vibration between the extremes of tyranny and anarchy . . . great improvement . . . were either not known at all, or imperfectly known to the ancients.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Education, Feelings, Republic

  "The 100 best nonfiction books: No 81 - The Federalist Papers by 'Publius' (1788)" by Robert McCrum, www.theguardian.com. August 21, 2017.

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• Whenever a man believes that he has the exact truth from God, there is in that man no spirit of compromise. He has not the modesty born of the imperfections of human nature; he has the arrogance of theological certainty and the tyranny born of ignorant assurance. Believing himself to be the slave of God, he imitates his master, and of all tyrants the worst is a slave in power.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Believe, Men, Tyrants

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.444, Library of Alexandria

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• The Old Testament filled this world with tyranny and injustice, and the New gives us a future filled with pain for nearly all of the sons of men. The Old Testament describes the hell of the past, and the New the hell of the future.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Pain, Son, Past

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.474, Library of Alexandria

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• What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! Who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment & death itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment ... inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Men, Compassion, Rose

  Letter to Jean Nicholas Demeunier, 24 Jan. 1786

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• The freedom to kill is not a true freedom, but a tyranny that reduces human beings to slavery.

  Pope Benedict XVI

  Abortion, Slavery, True Freedom

  "Pope vows to defend Catholic church's 'pro-life' doctrine" by John Hooper, www.theguardian.com. May 8, 2005.

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• Mr. President, passage of this bill will visit the heel of oppression on all the people, vitiate their constitutional shield against tyranny, and materially hasten the destruction of the best design for self-government yet devised by the minds of men. Its passage will mark one of the darkest days in history

  Strom Thurmond

  Men, Self, People

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• The most effectual means of preventing the perversion of power into tyranny are to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give them knowledge of those facts which history exhibits, that possessed thereby of the experience of other ages and countries, they may be enabled to know ambition under all its shapes, and prompt to exert their natural powers to defeat its purposes.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Ambition, Mean

  Thomas Jefferson, Andrew M. Allison (1983). “The Real Thomas Jefferson”, Natl Center for Constitutional

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• Most codes extend their definitions of treason to acts not really against one's country. They do not distinguish between acts against the government, and acts against the oppressions of the government. The latter are virtues, yet have furnished more victims to the executioner than the former. Real treasons are rare; oppressions frequent. The unsuccessful strugglers against tyranny have been the chief martyrs of treason laws in all countries.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Real, Government

  Thomas Jefferson (1861). “Correspondence”, p.353

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