This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.
Plato
Quotes
|
Tyrants have always some slight shade of virtue; they support the laws before destroying them
Voltaire
Quotes
|
'Twixt kings and tyrans there's this difference known:
Kings seek their subjects' good, tyrants their owne.
Robert Herrick
Quotes , Source: Kings and Tyrants
|
This tyrant, whole sole name blisters our tongues,
Was once thought honest; you have loved him well;
He hath not touched you yet.
William Shakespeare
Quotes , Source: Macbeth (Malcolm at IV, iii)
|
But thou know'st this,
'Tis time to fear when tyrants seem to kiss.
William Shakespeare
Quotes , Source: Pericles Prince of Tyre (Pericles at I, ii)
|
For what is he they follow? Truly, gentlemen,
A bloody tyrant and a homicide;
One raised in blood and one in blood established;
One that made means to come by what he hath,
And slaughtered those that were the means to help him;
A base foul stone, made precious by the foil
Of England's chair, where he is falsely set;
One that hath ever been God's enemy.
William Shakespeare
Quotes , Source: The Tragedy of King Richard the Third (Richmond at V, iii)
|
|
"The liberties of our country, the freedoms of our civil Constitution are worth defending at all hazards; it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors. They purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood. It will bring a mark of everlasting infamy on the present generation – enlightened as it is – if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of designing men." -Samuel Adams
Sam Adams
Quotes
|
His demand
Springs not from Edward's well-meant honest love,
Bur from deceit, bred by necessity;
For how can tyrants safely govern home
Unless abroad they purchase great alliance?
William Shakespeare
Quotes , Source: King Henry the Sixth, Part III (Queen Margaret at III, iii)
|
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.
Thomas Paine
Quotes
|
|
|
Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.
C.S. Lewis
Quotes
|
|
The worst form of tyranny the world has ever known the tyranny of the weak over the strong. It is the only tyranny that lasts.
Oscar Wilde
Quotes
|
|
When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.
Plato
Quotes
|
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy
James Madison
Quotes
|
The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy
Charles de Montesquieu
Quotes
|
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.
Unknown
Quotes
|
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.
Unknown
Quotes
|
No tyrant need fear till men begin to feel confident in each
other.
Unknown
Quotes
|
No tyrant need fear till men begin to feel confident in each
other.
Unknown
Quotes
|
The tyrant now
Trusts not to men: nightly within his chamber
The watch-dog guards his couch, the only friend
He now dare trust.
Joanna Baillie
Quotes , Source: Ethwald (pt. II, act V)
|
Th' oppressive, sturdy, man-destroying villains,
Who ravag'd kingdoms, and laid empires waste,
And in a cruel wantonness of power,
Thinn'd states of half their people, and gave up
To want the rest.
Robert Blair
Quotes , Source: The Grave (l. 9)
|
Tyranny
Absolves all faith; and who invades our rights,
Howe'er his own commence, can never be
But an usurper.
Henry Brooke
Quotes , Source: Gustavus Vasa (act IV, sc. 1)
|
Think'st thou there is no tyranny but that
Of blood and chains? The despotism of vice--
The weakness and the wickedness of luxury--
The negligence--the apathy--the evils
Of sensual sloth--produces ten thousand tyrants,
Whose delegated cruelty surpasses
The worst acts of one energetic master,
However harsh and hard in his own bearing.
Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron)
Quotes , Source: Sardanapalus (act I, sc. 2)
|