Tyrants Quotes - Page 10

• Now you fear punishment and beg for your lives, so I will let you free, if not for any other reason so that you can see the difference between a Greek king and a barbarian tyrant, so do not expect to suffer any harm from me. A king does not kill messengers.

  Alexander the Great

  Kings, Army, Punishment

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• History has a long-range perspective. It ultimately passes stern judgment on tyrants and vindicates those who fought, suffered, were imprisoned, and died for human freedom, against political oppression and economic slavery.

  Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

  Peace, Freedom, Long

  Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (1949). “Labor's Own William Z. Foster: A Communist's Fifty Years of Working-class Leadership and Struggle”, New York : New Century Publishers

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• Whether or not patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, national security can be the last refuge of the tyrant.

  Robert Walker, Baron Walker of Gestingthorpe

  Peace, War, Lasts

  "A gag full of holes". www.theguardian.com. May 11, 2007.

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• The divine right of kings may have been a plea for feeble tyrants, but the divine right of government is the keystone of human progress, and without it governments sink into police, and a nation is degraded into a mob.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Kings, Government, Divine Right

  Benjamin Disraeli (1875). “Collected Edition of the Novels and Tales”, p.9

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• There was promulgation of false propaganda by the administration about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. There was promulgation of false propaganda about Iraq as a base for Al Qaeda.

  Jimmy Carter

  Mass Destruction, Iraq, Weapons

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• Compassion and shame come over one who considers how precarious is the origin of the proudest of living beings: often the smell of a lately extinguished lamp is enough to cause a miscarriage. And to think that from such a frail beginning a tyrant or butcher may be born! You who trust in your physical strength, who embrace the gifts of fortune and consider yourself not their ward but their son, you who have a domineering spirit, you who consider yourself a god as soon as success swells your breast, think how little could have destroyed you!

  Pliny the Elder

  Miscarriage, Son, Thinking

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• The essence of oligarchical rule is not father-to-son inheritance, but the persistence of a certain world-view and a certain way of life, imposed by the dead upon the living. A ruling group is a ruling group so long as it can nominate its successors. The Party is not concerned with perpetuating its blood but with perpetuating itself. Who wields power is not important, provided that the hierarchical structure remains always the same.

  George Orwell

  Father, Son, Persistence

  "1984".

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• When a man is just and firm in his purpose,
  The citizens burning to approve a wrong
  Or the frowning looks of a tyrant
  Do not shake his fixed mind, nor the Southwind.
  Wild lord of the uneasy Adriatic,
  Nor the thunder in the mighty hand of Jove:
  Should the heavens crack and tumble down,
  As the ruins crushed him he would not fear.

  Horace

  Men, Hands, Justice

  Horace, Joseph P. Clancy (1960). “Odes and Epodes”, p.108, University of Chicago Press

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• The tyrant is nothing but a slave turned inside out.

  Herbert Spencer

  Perspective, Slave

  Herbert Spencer (1873). “Social Statics; Or, The Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified, & the First of Them Developed”, p.118

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• I recoil with horror at the ferociousness of man. Will nations never devise a more rational umpire of differences than force? Are there no means of coercing injustice more gratifying to our nature than a waste of the blood of thousands and of the labor of millions of our fellow creatures?

  Thomas Jefferson

  Mean, Men, Blood

  Thomas Jefferson, Barbara B. Oberg, Lyman Henry Butterfield, Charles T. Cullen, John Catanzariti (2003). “The papers of Thomas Jefferson: 1 January 1798 to 31 January 1799”, Princeton Univ Pr

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• The monster has escaped Elba!" "The tyrant has landed at Cannes!" "Bonaparte meets the troops." "Napoleon approaches Paris." "His Imperial Majesty has entered the capital.

  David Frum

  Paris, History, Historical

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• If there is a God who will damn his children forever, I would rather go to hell than to go to heaven and keep the society of such an infamous tyrant.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Children, If There Is A God, Forever

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.217, Library of Alexandria

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• Dictators from the past, tyrants, were not unaware that it is easier to govern and enslave a nation of drinkers than that of abstainers.

  Samael Aun Weor

  Past, Dictator, Easier

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• Every single empire in its official discourse has said that it is not like all the others, that its circumstances are special, that it has a mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order and democracy, and that it uses force only as a last resort. And, sadder still, there always is a chorus of willing intellectuals to say calming words about benign or altruistic empires.

  Edward Said

  Order, Democracy, Special

  Edward W. Said (2014). “Orientalism”, p.21, Vintage

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• I have long been convinced that the idea of liberty is abhorrent to most human beings. What they want is security, not freedom. Thus it seldom causes any public indignation when an enterprising tyrant claps down on one of his enemies. To most men it seems a natural proceeding.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Ideas, Long

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• Herein lies a riddle: How can a people so gifted by God become so seduced by naked power, so greedy for money, so addicted to violence, so slavish before mediocre and treacherous leadership, so paranoid, deluded, lunatic?

  Philip Berrigan

  Lying, People, Naked

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• Every rabbit-nation will find its tyrant! Oppressors are the destiny of coward and submissive nations!

  Mehmet Murat Ildan

  Destiny, Coward, Rabbits

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• I can never forget that one of the most gifted, best educated nations in the world, of its own free will, surrendered its fate into the hands of a maniac.

  Eric Hoffer

  Fate, Hands, World

  Eric Hoffer (1969). “Working and Thinking on the Waterfront: A Journal, June 1958-May 1959”

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• Propaganda replaces moral philosophy.

  Hans Morgenthau

  Philosophy, Moral, Propaganda

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• Virtue cannot dwell with slaves, nor reign O'er those who cower to take a tyrant's yoke.

  William C. Bryant

  Yoke, Reign, Slave

  William Cullen Bryant, “The Ages”

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• I went down on my knees and prayed to Almighty God for light and guidance and one night late it came to me this way. We could not leave (the Philippines) to themselves-they were unfit for self-government-and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain's was. There was nothing left for us to do but take them all and educate the Filipinos, and uplift and Christianize them.

  William McKinley

  Uplifting, Night, Light

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• It is in the nature of imperialism that citizens of the imperial power are always among the last to know-or care-about circumstances in the colonies.

  Bertrand Russell

  Citizens, Care, Lasts

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• Never in these long years have we offered any other prayer but this: Lord, grant to our people peace at home, and grant and preserve to them peace from the foreign foe!

  Adolf Hitler

  Prayer, Home, Years

  Adolf Hitler (1942). “The Speeches of Adolf Hitler: April 1922-August 1939”

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• Liberalism defines government as tyrant father but demands it behave as nurturant mother.

  Camille Paglia

  Mother, Father, Government

  Camille Paglia (2018). “Free Women, Free Men: Sex, Gender, Feminism”, p.28, Canongate Books

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• When sometimes, behind his back, they called him a tyrant, he merely smiled and uttered this profound observation: If some day I turn liberal, they will say I have let them down.

  Emile Zola

  Profound, Sometimes, Observation

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