Tyrants famous quotes
05-24-2025
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Words are freeborn, and not the vassals of the gruff tyrants of prose to do their bidding only. They have the same right to dance and sing as the dewdrops have to sparkle and the stars to shine.
-- Abraham Coles -
A test of a people is how it behaves toward the old. It is easy to love children. Even tyrants and dictators make a point of being fond of children. But the affection and care for the old, the incurable, the helpless are the true gold mines of a culture.
-- Abraham Joshua Heschel -
Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage and you prepare your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of others, you have lost the genius of your own independence and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
And then, the negro being doomed, and damned, and forgotten, to everlasting bondage, is the white man quite certain that the tyrant demon will not turn upon him too?
-- Abraham Lincoln -
The victor will never be asked if he told the truth.
-- Adolf Hitler -
An evil exists that threatens every man, woman, and child of this great nation. We must take steps to ensure our domestic security and protect our homeland.
-- Adolf Hitler -
We stand for the maintenance of private property... We shall protect free enterprise as the most expedient, or rather the sole possible economic order.
-- Adolf Hitler -
Neither a life of anarchy nor one beneath a despot should you praise; to all that lies in the middle a god has given excellence.
-- Aeschylus -
The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants.
-- Albert Camus -
Force always attracts men of low morality, and I believe it to be an invariable rule that tyrants of genius are succeeded by scoundrels.
-- Albert Einstein -
Modern man no longer regards Nature as in any sense divine and feels perfectly free to behave toward her as an overweening conqueror and tyrant.
-- Aldous Huxley -
The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.
-- Aldous Huxley -
A democracy which makes or even effectively prepares for modern, scientific war must necessarily cease to be democratic. No country can be really well prepared for modern war unless it is governed by a tyrant, at the head of a highly trained and perfectly obedient bureaucracy.
-- Aldous Huxley -
A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.
-- Aldous Huxley -
Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants.
-- Alexander Hamilton -
...great Ambition, unchecked by principle, or the love of Glory, is an unruly Tyrant...
-- Alexander Hamilton -
In adamantine chains shall Death be bound, And Hell's grim tyrant feel th' eternal wound.
-- Alexander Pope -
Still when the lust of tyrant power succeeds, some Athens perishes, or some Tully bleeds.
-- Alexander Pope -
In this, our age of infamy Man's choice is but to be A tyrant, traitor, prisoner: No other choice has he.
-- Alexander Pushkin -
Michael Moore: a man who never without an excuse for keeping murdering tyrants in power. But now he's supporting the man who bombed Milosevic into submission? How about an explanation, Mr Moore?
-- Andrew Sullivan -
Eripuit coelo fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis. He snatched the lightning from the sky and the sceptre from tyrants.
-- Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, Baron de Laune -
Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms.
-- Aristotle -
It is also in the interests of the tyrant to make his subjects poor... the people are so occupied with their daily tasks that they have no time for plotting.
-- Aristotle -
A king ruleth as he ought, a tyrant as he lists, a king to the profit of all, a tyrant only to please a few.
-- Aristotle -
No tyrant need fear till men begin to feel confident in each other.
-- Aristotle -
All three states - the Lacedaemonian, the Cretan, and the Carthaginian - nearly resemble one another, and are very different from any others. Many of the Carthaginian institutions are excellent. The superiority of their constitution is proved by the fact that the common people remains loyal to the constitution; the Carthaginians have never had any rebellion worth speaking of, and have never been under the rule of a tyrant.
-- Aristotle -
Republics end through luxury; monarchies through poverty.
-- Baron de Montesquieu -
There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.
-- Baron de Montesquieu -
The president, who finds so much to complain about in other areas of the world, apparently saw nothing wrong in recognizing a Communist regime that has killed more people in its short history of control over the teeming millions of that great country than any other collection of dictators or tyrants in the history of the world.
-- Barry Goldwater -
Better that right counsels be known to enemies than that the evil secrets of tyrants should be concealed from the citizens. They who can treat secretly of the affairs of a nation have it absolutely under their authority; and as they plot against the enemy in time of war, so do they against the citizens in time of peace.
-- Baruch Spinoza -
Of all wild beasts preserve me from a tyrant; and of all tame a flatterer.
-- Ben Jonson -
Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.
-- Benito Mussolini -
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 -
Man will ultimately be governed by God or by tyrants.
-- Benjamin Franklin -
Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God.
-- Benjamin Franklin -
Why should I trade one tyrant three thousand miles away for three thousand tyrants one mile away?
-- Benjamin Martin -
The method of rule of the tyrant and the oligarch is quite simply to clobber, coerce, or overawe all or most other groups in the interest of their own.
-- Bernard Crick -
The tree of liberty grows only when watered by the blood of tyrants.
-- Bertrand Barere -
L'arbre de la liberté croît lorsqu'il est arrosé du sang de toute espèce de tyrans (The tree of liberty grows only when watered by the blood of tyrants),
-- Bertrand Barere -
In former days, men sold themselves to the Devil to acquire magical powers. Nowadays they acquire those powers from science, and find themselves compelled to become devils. There is no hope for the world unless power can be tamed, and brought into the service, not of this or that group of fanatical tyrants, but of the whole human race, white and yellow and black, fascist and communist and democrat; for science has made it inevitable that all must live or all must die.
-- Bertrand Russell -
Ignorance has always been the weapon of tyrants; enlightenment the salvation of the free.
-- Bill Richardson -
Custom governs the world; it is the tyrant of our feelings and our manners and rules the world with the hand of a despot.
-- Bill Vaughan -
Let's face it. Umpiring is not an easy or happy way to make a living. In the abuse they suffer, and the pay they get for it, you see an imbalance that can only be explained by their need to stay close to a game they can't resist.
-- Bob Uecker -
Wretched men cringe before tyrants who have no power, the victims of their trivial hopes and fears. They do not realise that anger is hopeless, fear is pointless and desire all a delusion. He whose heart is fickle is not his own master, has thrown away his shield, deserted his post, and he forges the links of the chain that holds him.
-- Boethius -
But you can't kill me, Lord Tyrant. I represent that one thing you've never been able to kill, no matter how hard you try. I am hope.
-- Brandon Sanderson -
I killed you once", the Lord Ruler said, turning back to Kelsier. "You tried", Kelsier replied, his voice loud and firm, carrying across the square. "But you can't kill me, Lord Tyrant. I represent that thing you've never been able to kill no matter how hard you try. I am hope.
-- Brandon Sanderson -
A dagger is the noble weapon of Brutus. Everyone understands that tyrants fall to daggers. A bomb is a sordid modern device with many complex working parts. Only engineers understand bombs
-- Bruce Sterling -
How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been: how gloriously different are the saints.
-- C. S. Lewis -
Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.
-- C. S. Lewis -
Lacan is a tyrant who must be driven from our shores. Narrowly trained English professors who know nothing of art history or popular culture think they can just wade in with Lacan and trash everything in sight.
-- Camille Paglia -
We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandate of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them.
-- Carl Levin -
No government which governs by the use of force can survive except by force. There is no going back because force begets force and the perpetrators of crimes live in fear that they might become victims in their turn.
-- Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo -
What I like about a dog it stops people getting after you, they're not going to come round in the night. But they make the place stink because I might want to stay out a few days and when I get back I might want to stay in a few days and a dog can become a tyrant to you.
-- Caryl Churchill -
I would not be beholden to a tyrant, for his acts of tyranny. For it is but usurpation in him to save, as their rightful lord, the lives of men over whom he has no title to reign.
-- Cato the Younger -
My task is not to tyrannize but to destroy tyrants.
-- Cesare Borgia -
Tyrants have not yet discovered any chains that can fetter the mind.
-- Charles Caleb Colton -
People who cannot restrain their own baser instincts, who cannot treat one another with civility, are not capable of self-government... without virtue, a society can be ruled only by fear, a truth that tyrants understand all too well
-- Charles Colson -
I had gradually come, by this time [1839-01], to see that the Old Testament from its manifestly false history of the world, with the Tower of Babel, the rainbow as a sign, etc., etc. and from its attributing to God the feelings of a revengeful tyrant, was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos, or the beliefs of any barbarian.
-- Charles Darwin -
So that this nation may long endure, I urge you to follow in the hallowed footsteps of the great disobedience of history that freed exiles, founded religions, defeated tyrants, and yes, in the hands of an aroused rabble in arms and a few great men
-- Charlton Heston -
If you tremble with indignation at every injustice then you are a comrade of mine.
-- Che Guevara -
The educated ones leave, the ones with the potential to right the wrongs. They leave the weak behind. The tyrants continue to reign because the weak cannot resist. Do you not see that it is a cycle? Who will break that cycle?
-- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie -
Nothing is so loved by tyrants as obedient subjects.
-- Clarence Darrow -
A good deal of tyranny goes by the name of protection.
-- Crystal Eastman -
You can cite a hundred references to show that the biblical God is a bloodthirsty tyrant, but if they can dig up two or three verses that say "God is love" they will claim that you are taking things out of context!
-- Dan Barker -
Each man has an equal social right to multiply his power of motion by all the social factors of civilization. Private property in any of these factors is inconsistent with this fundamental right; it must, obviously, prove a source of economic despotism and industrial slavery.
-- Daniel De Leon -
Nature has left this tincture in the blood, That all men would be tyrants if they could.
-- Daniel Defoe -
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 -
I burst the tyrant bands, which held my sex in awe.
-- Deborah Sampson -
There is one safeguard known generally to the wise, which is an advantage and security to all, but especially to democracies as against despots - suspicion.
-- Demosthenes -
Excessive dealings with tyrants are not good for the security of free states.
-- Demosthenes -
China is not a superpower, nor will she ever seek to be one... If one day China should change her color and turn into a superpower, if she too should play the tyrant in the world, and everywhere subject others to her bullying, aggression and exploitation, the people of the world should identify her as social-imperialist, expose it, oppose it and work together with the Chinese people to overthrow it.
-- Deng Xiaoping -
From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step.
-- Denis Diderot -
My dad was a tyrant. He used to physically beat the crap out of us.
-- Dennis Wilson -
The universal methodology of the tyrant is always incrementalism.
-- Derek R. Audette -
It would seem to me that If this physical life, of which we are now aware, does indeed comprise the entirety of human experience, then what we seem to intuitively know to be true is entirely backwards. For if this is the case, then it must be the despicable tyrant, free of any moral values, and not the selfless compassionate who sacrifices himself for the good of mankind that is truly the one most deserving of our reverence and emulation.
-- Derek R. Audette -
A public library is the most democratic thing in the world. What can be found there has undone dictators and tyrants.
-- Doris Lessing -
Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system.
-- Dorothy Day -
It was known in the mid 90s already that Saddam Hussein was a dangerous tyrant that he had already launched aggressions against Iran, he had invaded Kuwait.
-- Douglas J. Feith -
But we know that freedom cannot be served by the devices of the tyrant. As it is an ancient truth that freedom cannot be legislated into existence, so it is no less obvious that freedom cannot be censored into existence. And any who act as if freedoms defenses are to be found in suppression and suspicion and fear confess a doctrine that is alien to America.
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
Martyrs have been sincere. And so have tyrants. Wise men have been sincere. And so have fools.
-- E. Haldeman-Julius -
Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the snake.
-- Edgar Wallace -
The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny.
-- Edmund Burke -
Whilst shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart; nor will moderation be utterly exiled from the minds of tyrants.
-- Edmund Burke -
Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle.
-- Edmund Burke -
History, which undertakes to record the transactions of the past, for the instruction of future ages, would ill deserve that honourable office if she condescended to plead the cause of tyrants, or to justify the maxims of persecution.
-- Edward Gibbon -
Many a sober Christian would rather admit that a wafer is God than that God is a cruel and capricious tyrant.
-- Edward Gibbon -
There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein's regime is a serious danger, that he is a tyrant, and that his pursuit of lethal weapons of mass destruction cannot be tolerated. He must be disarmed.
-- Edward Kennedy -
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 -
Every tyrant who has lived has believed in freedom for himself.
-- Elbert Hubbard -
The tyrant should take heed to what he doth, Since every victim-carrion turns to use, And drives a chariot, like a god made wroth, Against each piled injustice.
-- Elizabeth Barrett Browning -
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 -
A great nation like the United States has many and varied interests, and we need both to do business with tyrants and to engage constantly in multilateral diplomacy.
-- Elliott Abrams -
Tyrants are always assassinated too late. That is their great excuse.
-- Emile M. Cioran -
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 -
It is remarkable how many misconceptions there are here about life in the developing world and I think that that knowledge gap has done a lot to contribute to the imbalance quite frankly.
-- Emma Thompson
