Tyranny Quotes - Page 40

• The National Security Agency’s capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide. If a dictator ever took over, the N.S.A. could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back.

  Frank Church

  Fighting, Agency, People

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• As it was 189 years ago, so today the cause of America is a revolutionary cause. And I am proud this morning to salute you as fellow revolutionaries. Neither you nor I are willing to accept the tyranny of poverty, nor the dictatorship of ignorance, nor the despotism of ill health, nor the oppression of bias and prejudice and bigotry. We want change. We want progress. We want it both abroad and at homeand we aim to get it.

  Lyndon B. Johnson

  Morning, Ignorance, Bias And Prejudice

  Johnson, Lyndon B. (1967). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1966”, p.830, Best Books on

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• The poor suffer twice at the rioter's hands. First, his destructive fury scars their neighborhood; second, the atmosphere of accommodation and consent is changed to one of hostility and resentment.

  Lyndon B. Johnson

  Hands, Suffering, Atmosphere

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• Tyranny may creep in under the outward forms of traditional law.

  Joseph Sobran

  Law, Liberty, May

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• The important task rarely must be done today, or even this week...But the urgent task calls for instant action...The momentary appeal of these tasks seems irresistible and important, and they devour our energy. But in the light of time's perspective, their deceptive prominence fades; with a sense of loss we recall the vital tasks we pushed aside. We realize we've become slaves to the tyranny of the urgent.

  Charles Hummel

  Motivational, Loss, Light

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• Ebola haunted Zaire because of corruption and political repression. The virus had no secret powers, nor was it unusually contagious. For centuries Ebola had lurked in the jungles of central Africa. Its emergence into human populations required the special assistance of humanity's greatest vices : greed, corruption, arrogance, tyranny, and callousness.

  Laurie Garrett

  Ebola, Greed, Political

  Laurie Garrett (2003). “Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health”, p.53

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• The term 'just war' is an internal contradiction. War is inherently unjust, and the great challenge of our time is how to deal with evil, tyranny and oppression without killing huge numbers of people.

  Howard Zinn

  War, Numbers, People

  Howard Zinn (2011). “Terrorism and War”, p.19, Seven Stories Press

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• Anarcho-capitalism, in my opinion, is a doctrinal system which, if ever implemented, would lead to forms of tyranny and oppression that have few counterparts in human history. There isn't the slightest possibility that its (in my view, horrendous) ideas would be implemented, because they would quickly destroy any society that made this colossal error. The idea of 'free contract' between the potentate and his starving subject is a sick joke, perhaps worth some moments in an academic seminar exploring the consequences of (in my view, absurd) ideas, but nowhere else.

  Noam Chomsky

  Errors, Views, Ideas

  "On Anarchism". Interview with Tom Lane, chomsky.info. December 23, 1996.

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• To achieve the extirpation of Nazi tyranny there are no lengths of violence to which we will not go.

  Winston Churchill

  Violence, Nazi, Achieve

  "Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War". Book by Patrick J Buchanan, p. 396, 2008.

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• Side by side ... the British and French peoples have advanced to rescue ... mankind from the foulest and most soul-destroying tyranny which has ever darkened and stained the pages of history. Behind them ... gather a group of shattered States and bludgeoned races: the Czechs, the Poles, the Norwegians, the Danes, the Dutch, the Belgians -- upon all of whom the long night of barbarism will descend, unbroken even by a star of hope, unless we conquer, as conquer we must; as conquer we shall.

  Winston Churchill

  Stars, Night, Race

  Arm Yourselves and Be Ye Men of Valour, BBC Radio Broadcast 19 May 1940

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• The body was the slave of the vortex; but the slave has become the master; and we must free ourselves from that tyranny. It is this stuff [ indicating her body ], this flesh and blood and bone and all the rest of it, that is intolerable. Even prehistoric man dreamed of what he called an astral body, and asked who would deliver him from the body of this death.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Men, Blood, Vortex

  George Bernard Shaw (2015). “The Collected Works of George Bernard Shaw: Plays, Novels, Articles, Letters and Essays: Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion, The New York Times Articles on War, Memories of Oscar Wilde and more”, p.4038, e-artnow

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• Another writer asserts that the tyranny of man over woman has its roots, after all, in his nobler feelings; his love, his chivalry, and his desire to protect woman in the barbarous periods of pillage, lust, and war. But wherever the roots may be traced, the results at this hour are equally disastrous to woman. Her best interests and happiness do not seem to have been consulted in the arrangements made for her protection. She has been bought and sold, caressed and crucified at the will and pleasure of her master.

  Susan B. Anthony

  Women, War, Roots

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Gage, Harriot Stanton Blatch, Ida H. Harper (2017). “THE HISTORY OF WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE - Complete 6 Volumes (Illustrated): Everything You Need to Know about the Biggest Victory of Women’s Rights and Equality in the United States – Written By the Greatest Social Activists, Abolitionists & Suffragists”, p.7, e-artnow

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• Aristocracy is kept up by family tyranny and injustice.

  Thomas Paine

  Aristocracy, Injustice

  Thomas Paine (1791). “Rights of Man: Being an Answer to Mr. Burke's Attack on the French Revolution”, p.74

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• Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed

  Walter E. Williams

  Men, Independence, Unalienable Rights

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• Naked I came into the world, but brush strokes cover me, language raises me, music rhythms me. Art is my rod and staff, my resting place and shield, and not mine only, for art leaves nobody out. Even those from whom art has been stolen away by tyranny, by poverty, begin to make it again. If the arts did not exist, at every moment, someone would begin to create them, in song, out of dust and mud, and although the artifacts might be destroyed, the energy that creates them is not destroyed.

  Jeanette Winterson

  Song, Art, Dust

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• Few intellectual tyrannies can be more recalcitrant than the truths that everybody knows and nearly no one can defend with any decent data (for who needs proof of anything so obvious). And few intellectual activities can be more salutary than attempts to find out whether these rocks of ages might crumble at the slightest tap of an informational hammer.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Data, Rocks, Intellectual

  Stephen Jay Gould (2011). “Life's Grandeur: The Spread of Excellence From Plato to Darwin”, p.280, Random House

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• The tyranny of necessity grants its slaves three kinds of freedom: opinion free from intellect, entertainment free from art, and orgies free from love.

  Karl Kraus

  Art, Three, Entertainment

  "In These Great Times". Book by Karl Kraus, translated by Harry Zohn, p. 74, 1976.

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• The Crucible became by far my most frequently produced play, both abroad and at home. Its meaning is somewhat different in different places and moments. I can almost tell what the political situation in a country is when the play is suddenly a hit there it is either a warning of tyranny on the way or a reminder of tyranny just past.

  Arthur Miller

  Country, Home, Past

  Arthur Miller (1992). “The Crucible”, p.13, Heinemann

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• There is no tyranny in the world more hateful than that of ideas. Ideas bring ideophobia, and the consequence is that people begin to persecute their neighbors in the name of ideas. I loathe and detest all labels, and the only label that I could now tolerate would be that of ideoclast or idea breaker.

  Miguel de Unamuno

  Names, Ideas, People

  Miguel de Unamuno (2015). “Selected Works of Miguel de Unamuno, Volume 3: Our Lord Don Quixote”, p.16, Princeton University Press

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• The people will not rest until the Pahlavi rule has been swept away and all traces of tyranny have disappeared. As long as the Shah's satanic power prevails, not a single true representative of the people can possibly be elected.

  Ruhollah Khomeini

  Long, People, Satanic

  Ruhollah Khomeini's response to Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's announcement of elections (August 1978), as quoted in "The Shah's Divided Land", Time Magazine, September 18, 1978.

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• To be a film director is not a democracy, it's really a tyranny. You're the head of the project, for better rather than worse. I write the film and I direct the film, I decide who's going to be in it, I decide on the editing, I put in the music from my own record collection.

  Woody Allen

  Writing, Editing, Democracy

  Interview with Geoff Andrew, www.theguardian.com. September 27, 2001.

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• T's [King James Bible] subject is majesty, not tyranny, and it's political purpose was unifying and enfolding, to elide the kingliness of God with the godliness of kings, to make royal power and divine glory into one invisible garment which could be wrapped around the nation as a whole.

  Adam Nicolson

  Kings, Political, Purpose

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• Tyrannies are overthrown by ideas. Armies are defeated by ideas. Nations, and Time itself, are overmatched by ideas.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Army, Ideas, Defeated

  Henry Ward Beecher (1873). “The Sermons of Henry Ward Beecher in Plymouth Church, Brooklyn”, p.179

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• One is not quite certain that creativeness in the arts, literature, and science functions best in an environment of absolute freedom. Chances are that a relatively mild tyranny stimulates creativeness.

  Eric Hoffer

  Art, Literature, Chance

  "Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook" by Tom Bethell in Harper's Magazine, July 2005.

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• The tyranny that now exists is actual. That which may exist in the future is potential. If we are always to draw back from change with the thought that the change may be for the worse, then there is no hope at all of ever escaping injustice.

  Isaac Asimov

  Escaping, Tyrants, May

  Isaac Asimov (2012). “Prelude to Foundation”, p.392, Spectra

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