1.
A nation can survive its fools,
and even the ambitious.
But it cannot survive treason from within.
An enemy at the gates is less formidable,
for he is known and carries his banner openly.
But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely,
his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys,
heard in the very halls of government itself.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
2.
I came into the world charged with the duty to uphold the right in every place, to destroy sin and evil... the only reason I took birth was to see that righteousness may flourish, that good may live, and tyrants be torn out by their roots.
Guru Gobind Singh
3.
Allah guards the justice loving government, even if it is the government of non-Muslims, and destroys the tyrant government, even if it is the government of Muslims.
Ibn Taymiyyah
'Allah safeguards the righteous regime, whether it be of non-believers or believers, and obliterates the oppressive administration, regardless of its faith.'
4.
If you tremble with indignation at every injustice then you are a comrade of mine.
Che Guevara
If you fume with rage at every wrong then you are a partner of mine.
5.
Though liberty is established by law,
we must be vigilant,
for liberty to enslave us is always present under that very liberty.
Our Constitution speaks of the "general welfare of the people." Under that phrase all sorts of excesses can be employed by lusting tyrants to make us bondsmen.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
6.
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 oppressive power of legalised injustice is the harshest form of despotism.
7.
It is in the interest of tyrants to reduce the people to ignorance and vice. For they cannot live in any country where virtue and knowledge prevail.
Samuel Adams
It is in the agenda of oppressors to plunge the populace into ignorance and wickedness. For they cannot survive in any land where morality and intelligence reign supreme.
8.
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
A malevolent force endangers all citizens of this great country. We must take action to guarantee our internal safety and safeguard our nation.
9.
Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power. Thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, founded in injustice and wrong, are sure to tremble, if men are allowed to reason... Equally clear is the right to hear. To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.
Frederick Douglass
10.
The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant.
Maximilien Robespierre
The key to independence is enlightening individuals, whereas the key to oppression is preventing knowledge.
11.
Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system.
Dorothy Day
The root of our issues lies in the endorsement of this corrupt, putrid structure.
12.
Crisis is the rallying cry of the tyrant.
James Madison
Catastrophe serves as the clarion call of the despot.
13.
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
14.
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
15.
Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down.
Frederick Douglass
Freedom of expression is indispensable where one's capacity to express their thoughts and beliefs has been eliminated. That, above all else, provokes fear in autocrats. It is the right they inevitably extinguish first.
16.
Verily, the index finger that testifies to the oneness of Allah Azzawajal in prayer, utterly rejects to write even an alphabet, endorsing the rule of the tyrant
Sayyid Qutb
Indeed, the digit which avows loyalty to Allah Azzawajal in supplication, absolutely refuses to etch even a single letter, affirming the control of the despot.
17.
That is why our masters in Washington are so anxious to disarm us. They are not afraid of criminals. They are afraid of a populace which cannot be subdued by tyrants.
Jeff Cooper
Our leaders in Washington are eager to strip us of our weapons. They do not fear criminals, but rather a populace that cannot be subjugated by despots.
18.
Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Do not overlook the fact that all of Hitler's activities in Germany were sanctioned by law.
19.
An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.
Plutarch
Inequality between the affluent and destitute is the most ancient and pernicious affliction of all democracies.
20.
Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought. To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears. To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool. To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen. To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies. To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.
Octavia Butler
21.
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
22.
The victor will never be asked if he told the truth.
Adolf Hitler
23.
The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.
Aldous Huxley
24.
Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners.
Vladimir Lenin
25.
Men must be governed by God or they will be ruled by tyrants.
William Penn
26.
This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.
Frederick Douglass
28.
With reasonable men, I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost.
William Lloyd Garrison
29.
A nation can survive its fools,
and even the ambitious.
But it cannot survive treason from within.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
31.
Why independence? If the slaves of today will be the tyrants of tomorrow.
Jose Rizal
32.
Man is not by nature a tyrant, but becomes a tyrant by power conferred on him.
Lucretia Mott
33.
How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!
Samuel Adams
34.
You may talk of the tyranny of Nero and Tiberius; but the real tyranny is the tyranny of your next-door neighbor.
Walter Bagehot
35.
The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion […] but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.
Samuel P. Huntington
36.
A tyrant institutionalises stupidity, but he is the first servant of his own system and the first to be installed within it.
Gilles Deleuze
37.
The Past is dead, and has no resurrection; but the Future is endowed with such a life, that it lives to us even in anticipation. The Past is, in many things, the foe of mankind; the Future is, in all things, our friend. In the Past is no hope; The Future is both hope and fruition. The Past is the text-book of tyrants; the Future is the Bible of the Free. Those who are solely governed by the Past stand like Lot's wife, crystallized in the act of looking backward, and forever incapable of looking before.
Herman Melville
38.
Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms.
Aristotle
39.
Some have said that it is not the business of private men to meddle with government--a bold and dishonest saying, which is fit to come from no mouth but that of a tyrant or a slave. To say that private men have nothing to do with government is to say that private men have nothing to do with their own happiness or misery; that people ought not to concern themselves whether they be naked or clothed, fed or starved, deceived or instructed, protected or destroyed.
Cato the Younger
41.
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.
Frederick Douglass
42.
It is indeed probable that more harm and misery have been caused by men determined to use coercion to stamp out a moral evil than by men intent on doing evil.
Friedrich August von Hayek
43.
The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance.
Thomas Paine
44.
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
45.
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
46.
Public Opinion, this invisible, intangible, omnipresent, despotic tyrant; this thousand-headed Hydra - the more dangerous for being composed of individual mediocrities...
H. P. Blavatsky
47.
Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
Thomas Jefferson
48.
One must never compromise with tyrants. One can only strike at kings through the head. Nothing can be expected from European kings except by force of arms. I vote for the death of the tyrant.
Georges Danton
49.
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
50.
. . . in America, we have achieved the Orwellian prediction - enslaved, the people have been programmed to love their bondage and are left to clutch only mirage-like images of freedom, its fables and fictions. The new slaves are linked together by vast electronic chains of television that imprison not their bodies but their minds. Their desires are programmed, their tastes manipulated, their values set for them.
Gerry Spence