Tyranny Quotes - Page 26

• Force is the weapon of the weak.

  Ammon Hennacy

  Peace, War, Weapons

  51 Copy quote

• On the whole, dialogue is the most difficult thing, without any doubt. It's very difficult, unfortunately. You have to detach yourself from the notion of a lifelike quality. You see, actually lifelike, tape-recorded dialogue like this has very little to do with good novel dialogue. It's a matter of getting that awful tyranny of mimesis out of your mind, which is difficult.

  John Fowles

  Writing, Doubt, Mind

  6 Copy quote

• Some of mankind's most terrible misdeeds have been committed under the spell of certain magic words or phrases.

  James Bryant Conant

  Tyrants, Political, Magic

  7 Copy quote

• What will people say-in these words lies the tyranny of the world, the whole destruction of our natural disposition, the oblique vision of our minds. These four words hold sway everywhere.

  Berthold Auerbach

  Lying, People, Mind

  10 Copy quote

• Law is often the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Law, Tyrants, Inalienable Rights

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.224, Cambridge University Press

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Tyranny has perhaps oftener grown out of the assumptions of power, called for, on pressing exigencies, by a defective constitution, than out of the full exercise of the largest constitutional authorities.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Exercise, Constitution, Assumption

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1831). “The Federalist on the New Constitution”, p.98

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I had always hoped that the younger generation receiving their early impressions after the flame of liberty had been kindled in every breast . . . would have sympathized with oppression wherever found, and proved their love of liberty beyond their own share of it.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Flames, Liberty, Receiving

  Thomas Jefferson (1977). “The Portable Thomas Jefferson”, p.431, Penguin

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Nevertheless, to the persecution and tyranny of his cruel ministry we will not tamely submit - appealing to Heaven for the justice of our cause, we determine to die or be free . . . .

  Joseph Warren

  Patriotic, Justice, Heaven

  20 Copy quote

• A government which lays taxes on the people not required by urgent public necessity and sound public policy is not a protector of liberty, but an instrument of tyranny. It condemns the citizen to servitude.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Government, People, Presidential

  61 Copy quote

• What bitter anguish would not the people of Athens have often escaped if their government had contained so provident a safeguard against tyranny of their own passions? Popular liberty might then have escaped the indelible reproach of decreeing to the same citizens the hemlock on one day and statutes the next.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Passion, Government, People

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay, Henry Barton Dawson (1864). “The Fœderalist: A Collection of Essays, Written in Favor of the New Constitution, as Agreed Upon by the Fœderal Convention, September 17, 1787. Reprinted from the Original Text. With an Historical Introduction and Notes”, p.439, New York : C. Scribner ; London : Sampson Low

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follow that, and in its turn wretchedness and oppression.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Horse, Team, Taxation

  9 Copy quote

• The danger from legislative usurpations, which, by assembling all power in the same hands, must lead to the same tyranny as is threatened by executive usurpations.

  James Madison

  Hands, Danger, Assembling

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (2016). “The Federalist Papers and the Constitution of the United States: The Principles of the American Government”, p.267, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The inference to which we are brought is that the causes of faction cannot be removed and that relief is only to be sought in the means of controlling its effects.

  James Madison

  Mean, Relief, Causes

  James Madison, John Jay (1847). “The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788”, p.35

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• The smaller the society, the fewer probably will be the distinct parties and interests composing it; the fewer the distinct parties and interests, the more frequently will a majority be found of the same party; . . . the more easily will they concert and execute their plans of oppression.

  James Madison

  Party, Majority, Oppression

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1842). “The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788”, p.47

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Extend the sphere and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have common motive to invade the rights of other citizens.

  James Madison

  Party, Rights, Majority

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1852). “The Federalist, on the New Constitution: Written in 1788”, p.55

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• The awful discretion, which a court of impeachments must necessarily have, to doom to honor or to infamy the most confidential and the most distinguished characters of the community, forbids the commitment of the trust to a small number of persons.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Character, Commitment, Small Numbers

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (2003). “The Federalist: With Letters of Brutus”, p.319, Cambridge University Press

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• [T]he man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, that to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of reappearing tyranny and oppression.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Block, Struggle, Men

  11 Copy quote

• Bills of attainder, ex-post facto laws and laws impairing the obligation of contracts are contrary to the first principles of the social compact, and to every principle of sound legislation.

  James Madison

  Law, Sound, Principles

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1842). “The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788”, p.207

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is the Soviet Union that runs against the tide of history . . . . [It is] the march of freedom and democracy which will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history, as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people.

  Ronald Reagan

  Running, Self, Expression

  Address to British Parliament, delivered 8 June 1982, Royal Gallery at the Palace of Westminster, London

  52 Copy quote

  Show source

• Its authors meant it to be... a stumbling block to those who in after times might seek to turn a free people back into the hateful paths of despotism. They knew the proneness of prosperity to breed tyrants, and they meant when such should re-appear in this fair land and commence their vocation they should find left for them at least one hard nut to crack.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Block, Nuts, Land

  Abraham Lincoln (2008). “Speeches and Letters of Abraham Lincoln(1832-1865) (EasyRead Super Large 20pt Edition)”, p.139, ReadHowYouWant.com

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Despotism can do without faith but freedom cannot.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Despotism, Can Do

  Alexis de Tocqueville (2012). “Democracy in America”, p.282, University of Chicago Press

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• The common excuse for those bringing misfortune on others is that they desire their good.

  Luc de Clapiers

  War, Tyrants, Desire

  7 Copy quote

• The bad thing of war is, that it makes more evil people than it can take away.

  Immanuel Kant

  War, Evil People, Bad Things

  27 Copy quote

• ... resistance to tyranny is man's highest ideal.

  Emma Goldman

  Responsibility, Men, Resistance

  Emma Goldman (2015). “Anarchism and Other Essays”, p.81, Library of Alexandria

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Temperament lies behind mood; behind will, lies the fate of character. Then behind both, the influence of family the tyranny of culture; and finally the power of climate and environment; and we are free, only to the extent we rise above these.

  John Burroughs

  Lying, Character, Fate

  8 Copy quote