Tyrants Quotes - Page 30

• Human beings today are surrounded by huge institutions we can never penetrate: the City, the banking system, political and advertising conglomerates, vast entertainment enterprises. They've made themselves user friendly, but they define the tastes to which we conform. They're rather subtle, subservient tyrants, but no less sinister for that.

  J. G. Ballard

  Wall, Cities, Political

  "A User's Guide to the Millennium". Book by J. G. Ballard, 1996.

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• Whoever declares a child to be "delicate" thereby crowns and anoints a tyrant.

  Robertson Davies

  Children, Crowns, Delicate

  Robertson Davies (1996). “The Cunning Man”, Penguin Group USA

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• Your national greatness, swelling vanity; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.

  Frederick Douglass

  Religious, Prayer, Greatness

  What to the Slave is the 4th of July?, delivered 4 July 1852

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• The American polity is infected with a serious imbalance of power between elites and masses, a power which is the principal threat to our democracy.

  Paul Wellstone

  Power, Political, Democracy

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• On a day when all Americans, regardless of party affiliation, are celebrating the growth of freedom and honoring the sacrifices of American and Iraqi troops with elections in Iraq, it's sad that John Kerry has chosen once again to offer vacillation and defeatism. Even after the first free elections in Iraq in more than 50 years John Kerry still believes Iraq is more of terrorist threat than when the brutal tyrant Saddam Hussein was in power and even more remarkably Kerry is now once again for funding our troops, after being for the funding before he was against it.

  Ken Mehlman

  Party, Believe, Sacrifice

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• These individuals are tyrants, and so they hate democracy. They are bigots, zealots, and persecutors, and so they hate Americas freedom tolerance, and respect for all people. The terrorists of Sept. 11 live and flourish in darkness. They cannot survive in the liberating and inspirational sunlight of American freedom and democracy.

  Ted Olson

  Hate, People, Tolerance

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• My dad was a tyrant. He used to physically beat the crap out of us.

  Dennis Wilson

  Dad, Used, Beats

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• Poles understand perhaps better than anyone the consequences of making toothless warnings to brutal tyrants and terrorist regimes.

  Paul Wolfowitz

  Warning, Regimes, Toothless

  "Wolfowitz Praises Poland's Emergence as NATO Leader" by John D. Banusiewicz, archive.defense.gov. October 5, 2004.

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• If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Law, People, Judging

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.82, Rowman & Littlefield

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• If you tremble with indignation at every injustice then you are a comrade of mine.

  Che Guevara

  History, Justice, Tyranny

  Che Guevara, Ernesto Guevara (2009). “Che: The Diaries of Ernesto Che Guevara”, p.182, Ocean Press

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• Slavery discourages arts and manufacturing ...[and] every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant.

  George Mason

  Art, Slavery, Constitution

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• Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break into pieces.

  Etienne de La Boetie

  Freedom, Fall, Hands

  "Discourse on Voluntary Servitude". Book by Etienne de La Boetie, 1576.

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• Any ideal system is its own worst enemy, and as soon as you start to implement these visions of grandeur, they just fall apart and turn into a complete tyranny.

  Ben Nicholson

  Fall, Worst Enemy, Vision

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• My task is not to tyrannize but to destroy tyrants.

  Cesare Borgia

  Tasks

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• Ay, down to the dust with them, slaves as they are! From this hour let the blood in their dastardly veins, That shrunk at the first touch of Liberty's war, Be wasted for tyrants, or stagnate in chains.

  Charles Lamb

  War, Dust, Blood

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• And now, my friend, I am going to expose to you all my weaknesses. All men, I believe, are under a necessity of paying tribute at some time or other to Love, and it is vain to strive to avoid it. I was a philosopher, yet this tyrant of the mind triumphed over all my wisdom; his darts were of greater force than all my reasonings, and with a sweet constraint he led me wherever he pleased.

  Peter Abelard

  Sweet, Believe, Men

  Peter Abelard, Héloïse (2017). “Letters of Abelard and Heloise”, p.40, Litres

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• In Iraq #1 we stayed within U.N. mandates, limited our response, went home after Kuwait was freed - and were censured for allowing Shiites and Kurds to be butchered and not going to Baghdad when the road was open and the dictator tottering. In Iraq #2 we removed the tyrant at less cost than the liberation of Kuwait during the earlier war, stayed on to ensure freedom and fair representation for various groups - and are being castigated for either using too little force to ensure needed order or too much power that stifles indigenous aspirations and turns popular opinion against us.

  Victor Davis Hanson

  War, Home, Kuwait

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• The great masses of men, though theoretically free, are seen to submit supinely to oppression and exploitation of a hundred abhorrent sorts. Have they no means of resistance? Obviously they have. The worst tyrant, even under democratic plutocracy, has but one throat to slit. The moment the majority decided to overthrow him he would be overthrown. But the majority lacks the resolution; it cannot imagine taking the risks.

  H. L. Mencken

  Mean, Men, Risk

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Notes On Democracy”, p.41, Knopf

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• Men are cowards before women until they become tyrants.

  Anthony Trollope

  Men, Coward

  Anthony Trollope (1864). “The Small House at Allington”, p.138

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• Half a world away nations that once lived under oppression and tyranny are now budding democracies due in large part to America 's leadership and the sacrifices of our military.

  Bob Riley

  Leadership, Military, Sacrifice

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• The power of the state is measured by the power that men surrender to it.

  Felix Morley

  Men, Surrender, States

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• I can never acknowledge the right of slavery. I will bow down to no deity however worshipped by professing Christians - however dignified by the name of the Goddess of Liberty, whose footstool is the crushed necks of the groaning millions, and who rejoices in the resoundings of the tyrant's lash, and the cries of his tortured victims.

  Thaddeus Stevens

  Christian, Names, Liberty

  "Shapers of the Great Debate on the Civil War: A Biographical Dictionary". Book by Dan Monroe and Bruce Tap, p. 255, 2005.

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• Be assured, fellow citizens, that in a democracy it is the laws that guard the person of the citizen and the constitution of the state, whereas the despot and the oligarch find their protection in suspicion and in armed guards.

  Aeschines

  Law, Democracy, Citizens

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• Now, I ask you, had you not rather be killed than to be a slave to a tyrant, who takes the life of your mother, wife, and dear little children? Look upon your mother, wife and children, and answer God Almighty; and believe this, that it is no more harm for you to kill a man who is trying to kill you, than it is for you to take a drink of water when thirsty.

  David Walker

  Mother, Children, Believe

  David Walker (2011). “Walker's Appeal, in Four Articles: Together with a Preamble, to the Coloured Citizens of the World, but in Particular, and Very Expressly, to Those of the United States of America”, p.30, Univ of North Carolina Press

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• The revolutionary government is the despotism of liberty against tyranny

  Georg Buchner

  Government, Liberty, Revolutionary

  Georg Buchner, Howard Brenton (2013). “Danton's Death”, p.17, A&C Black

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