|
6d97a53
|
There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.
|
|
income-tax
taxes
pay
tyranny
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
9deaf17
|
When one with honeyed words but evil mind Persuades the mob, great woes befall the state.
|
|
false-promises
falsehood
elections
deception
government
seduction
tyranny
deceit
power
evil
|
Euripides |
|
b05dca6
|
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice, -- is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.
|
|
injustice
war
morality
motivational
inspirational
patriotic
foreign-policy
selfish
ethics
justice
tyranny
will
safety
fight
|
John Stuart Mill |
|
2db72a9
|
I am a strong believer in the tyranny, the dictatorship, the absolute authority of the writer.
|
|
writing
inspirational
tyranny
|
Philip Pullman |
|
b504c8b
|
Power-lust is a weed that grows only in the vacant lots of an abandoned mind.
|
|
education
tyranny
power
|
Ayn Rand |
|
3cb5432
|
No one is an unjust villain in his own mind. Even - perhaps even - those who are the worst of us. Some of the cruelest tyrants in history were motivated by noble ideals, or made choices that they would call 'hard but necessary steps' for the good of their nation. We're all the hero of our own story.
|
|
heroism
tyranny
|
Jim Butcher |
|
00bcb1a
|
All the animals, the plants, the minerals, even other kinds of men, are being broken and reassembled every day, to preserve an elite few, who are the loudest to theorize on freedom, but the least free of all.
|
|
freedom
destiny
elite
tyranny
|
Thomas Pynchon |
|
97710bb
|
Silent acquiescence in the face of tyranny is no better than outright agreement.
|
|
courage
inspirational
tyranny
|
C.J. Redwine |
|
fc375b4
|
As long as a population can be induced to believe in a supernatural hereafter, it can be oppressed and controlled. People will put up with all sorts of tyranny, poverty, and painful treatment if they're convinced that they'll eventually escape to some resort in the sky where lifeguards are superfluous and the pool never closes. Moreover, the faithful are usually willing to risk their skins in whatever military adventure their government may currently be promoting.
|
|
war
heaven
religion
military
tyranny
|
Tom Robbins |
|
adce73e
|
"Constitutions become the ultimate tyranny," Paul said. "They're organized power on such a scale as to be overwhelming. The constitution is social power mobilized and it has no conscience. It can crush the highest and the lowest, removing all dignity and individuality. It has an unstable balance point and no limitations."
|
|
tyranny
power
|
Frank Herbert |
|
46715bb
|
It's all very well to put the government in the hands of the perfect man, but what do you do when the perfect man gets a bellyache?
|
|
politics
tyranny
|
David Eddings |
|
295a5ea
|
Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of production and trade...
|
|
sex
wealth
slavery
freedom
reason
life
love
philosophy
causality
individual-rights
objective-law
volition
pursuit-of-happiness
commerce
jobs
usa
economy
rock-and-roll
crisis
economics
law
regulation
force
liberty
society
political-philosophy
constitution
government
atheism
capitalism
tyranny
trade
drugs
|
Ayn Rand |
|
2625fd8
|
The people who must never have power are the humorless. To impossible certainties of rectitude they ally tedium and uniformity.
|
|
totalitarianism
tyranny
power
|
Christopher Hitchens |
|
594d6a1
|
The enemy is the tyranny of the dull mind.
|
|
ignorance
tyranny
|
Tom Robbins |
|
5dcf2a1
|
We may indeed in counsel point to the higher road, but we cannot compel any free creature to walk upon it. That leadeth to tyranny, which disfigureth good and maketh it seem hateful.
|
|
mandos
law
tyranny
|
J.R.R. Tolkien |
|
5803f35
|
"Politicians in our times feed their cliches to television, where even those who wish to disagree repeat them. Television purports to challenge political language by conveying images, but the succession from one frame to another can hinder a sense of resolution. Everything happens fast, but nothing actually happens. Each story on televised news is "breaking" until it is displaced by the next one. So we are hit by wave upon wave but never see the ocean. The effort to define the shape and significance of events requires words and concepts that elude us when we are entranced by visual stimuli. Watching televised news is sometimes little more than looking at someone who is also looking at a picture. We take this collective trance to be normal. We have slowly fallen into it. More than half a century ago, the classic novels of totalitarianism warned of the domination of screens, the suppression of books, the narrowing of vocabularies, and the associated difficulties of thought. In Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, published in 1953, firemen find and burn books while most citizens watch interactive television. In George Orwell's 1984, published in 1949, books are banned and television is two-way, allowing the government to observe citizens at all times. In 1984, the language of visual media is highly constrained, to starve the public of the concepts needed to think about the present, remember the past, and consider the future. One of the regime's projects is to limit the language further by eliminating ever more words with each edition of the official dictionary. Staring at screens is perhaps unavoidable, but the two-dimensional world makes little sense unless we can draw upon a mental armory that we have developed somewhere else. When we repeat the same words and phrases that appear in the daily media, we accept the absence of a larger framework. To have such a framework requires more concepts, and having more concepts requires reading. So get the screens out of your room and surround yourself with books. The characters in Orwell's and Bradbury's books could not do this--but we still can." --
|
|
reading
totalitarianism
tyranny
|
Timothy Snyder |
|
5b1f95a
|
For this was the other thing that Elric knew: that to compromise with Tyranny is always to be destroyed by it. The sanest and most logical choice lay always in resistance.
|
|
elric
tyranny
resistance
|
Michael Moorcock |
|
381cf70
|
"Well now," the scholar went on, "I'm just an old fuddy-duddy who could use a tan, so you needn't grant my opinion any authority, but I consider the queendom lucky that a handful of Milliners and their children lived incognito among the population during Redd's tyranny."
|
|
seeing
humor
weird
frank
incognito
milliners
queendom
scholar
tan
glass
redd
wars
tyranny
looking
|
Frank Beddor |
|
1e29e10
|
Monarchies have some good features beyond their star qualities. They can reduce the size and parasitic nature of the management bureaucracy. They can make speedy decisions when necessary. They fit an ancient human demand for a parental (tribal/feudal) hierarchy where every person knows his place. It is valuable to know your place, even if that place is temporary. It is galling to be held in place against your will. This is why I teach about tyranny in the best possible way--by example.
|
|
tyranny
|
Frank Herbert |
|
10622bc
|
He said to people: you're free. And they said hooray, and then he showed them what freedom costs and they called him a tyrant and, as soon as he'd been betrayed, they milled around a bit like barn-bred chickens who've seen the big world outside for the first time, and then they went back into the warm and shut the door...
|
|
life
tyranny
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
abcc823
|
It was not until the year 1808 that Great Britain abolished the slave trade. Up to that time her judges, sitting upon the bench in the name of justice, her priests, occupying her pulpits, in the name of universal love, owned stock in the slave ships, and luxuriated upon the profits of piracy and murder. It was not until the same year that the United States of America abolished the slave trade between this and other countries, but carefully preserved it as between the States. It was not until the 28th day of August, 1833, that Great Britain abolished human slavery in her colonies; and it was not until the 1st day of January, 1863, that , sustained by the sublime and heroic North, rendered our flag pure as the sky in which it floats. was, in my judgment, in many respects, the grandest man ever President of the United States. Upon his monument these words should be written: ' .' Think how long we clung to the institution of human slavery, how long lashes upon the naked back were a legal tender for labor performed. Think of it. .
|
|
heroic
hate
slavery
love
execration
grand
lash
monument
lincoln
united-states
profit
mercy
liberty
purity
president
tyranny
|
Robert G. Ingersoll |
|
cc9d1dc
|
The essence of tyranny is not iron law. It is capricious law.
|
|
law
tyranny
|
Christopher Hitchens |
|
51ac194
|
Catholics get on well with tyranny. It's in the culture.
|
|
religion
humor
tyranny
|
Richard K. Morgan |
|
b073a38
|
Virtue comes through contemplation of the divine, and the exercise of philosophy. But it also comes through public service. The one is incomplete without the other. Power without wisdom is tyranny; wisdom without power is pointless.
|
|
virtue
philosophy
wisdom
public-service
tyranny
power
|
Iain Pears |
|
3e36465
|
A ruler who discerning justice refuseth to it the sanction of law, demanding abnegation of rights and self-sacrifice, will not drive his subjects to these virtues, virtuous only if free, but by unnaturally making justice unlawful, will drive them rather to rebellion against all law.
|
|
mandos
law
tyranny
|
J.R.R. Tolkien |
|
002a33b
|
"Under a tyranny, most friends are a liability. One quarter of them turn "reasonable" and become your enemies, one quarter are afraid to stop and speak, and one quarter are killed and you die with them. But the blessed final quarter keep you alive."
|
|
friendship
tyranny
|
Sinclair Lewis |
|
a68f48b
|
The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it; not a sentimental pretence but an idea; and an unselfish belief in the idea--something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to...
|
|
injustice
politics
western-society
imperialism
tyranny
|
Joseph Conrad |
|
6de9616
|
Augustus was sensible that mankind is governed by names; nor was he deceived in his expectation, that the senate and the people would submit to slavery, provided they were respectfully assured that they still enjoyed their ancient freedoms.
|
|
submission
hypocrisy
tyranny
|
Edward Gibbon |
|
d2495c5
|
Bloomberg does not support the measure to silence the useless and maddening car alarm: he would rather impose himself on people than on mechanical devices.
|
|
big-government
car-alarms
mayoralty-of-michael-bloomberg
michael-bloomberg
pettiness
cars
law
tyranny
|
Christopher Hitchens |
|
790ad89
|
This is written in the night. In war the dark is on nobody's side, in love the dark confirms that we are together.
|
|
courage
hope
tyranny
|
John Berger |
|
1a5f351
|
By exiling human judgment in the last few decades, modern law changed role from useful tool to brainless tyrant. This legal regime will never be up to the job, any more than the Soviet system of central planning was, because ti can't think. The comedy of law's sterile logic--large POISON signs warning against common sand, spending twenty-two years on pesticide review and deciding next to nothing, allowing fifty-year-old white men to sue for discrimination--is all too reminiscent of the old jokes we used to hear about life in the Eastern bloc. Judgement is to law as water is to crops. It should not be surprising that law has become brittle, and society along with it.
|
|
responsibility
human-judgment
bureaucrats
law
regulation
tyranny
|
Philip K. Howard |
|
d7d1dc7
|
Liberty and Freedom are complex concepts. They go back to religious ideas of Free Will and are related to the Ruler Mystique implicit in absolute monarchs. Without absolute monarchs patterned after the Old Gods and ruling by the grace of a belief in religious indulgence, Liberty and Freedom would never have gained their present meaning. These ideals owe their very existence to past examples of oppression. And the forces that maintain such ideas will erode unless renewed by dramatic teaching or new oppressions. This is the most basic key to my life.
|
|
freedom
religion
social-science
post-apocalyptic
liberty
science-fiction
theology
mythology
tyranny
power
ideology
|
Frank Herbert |
|
ce00136
|
There are so many different forms of silence: the silence that tyrannical states force on their citizens, stealing their memories, rewriting their histories, and imposing on them a state-sanctioned identity. Or the silence of witnesses who choose to ignore or not speak the truth, and of victims who at times become complicit in the crimes committed against them. Then there are the silences we indulge in about ourselves, our personal mythologies, the stories we impose upon our real lives.
|
|
silence
tyranny
|
Azar Nafisi |
|
b264c1c
|
"It is cold anarchy to say that all men are to meddle in all men's marriages. It is cold anarchy to say that any doctor may seize and segregate anyone he likes. But it is not anarchy to say that a few great hygienists might enclose or limit the life of all citizens,
|
|
eugenics
tyranny
|
G.K. Chesterton |
|
7264c46
|
Where did this absurd rule come from, and why did we so meekly obey it? Under a tyrannical regime--and the Ireland of those days was a spiritual tyranny--the populace becomes so cowed that it does the state's work for it voluntarily. And as every tyrant knows, a people's own self-censorship is the kind that works best. In the 1990s, when revelations of clerical sexual abuse and the Catholic Church's cover-ups put an end to its hegemony almost overnight, my generation scratched its head and asked, in voices trembling with incredulity, 'How could we let them get away with it for so long?' But the question, of course, contained its own answer: Power is more often surrendered than seized.
|
|
self-censorship
tyranny
|
John Banville |
|
9f5fcce
|
When you attack a tyranny you must expect it to fight back.
|
|
tyranny
|
Philip K. Dick |
|
e3ae6a1
|
In their passion for sameness, the tyrants made themselves more and more powerful. All others grew correspondingly weaker and weaker. New bureaus and directorates, odd ministries, leaped into existence for the most improbable purposes. These became the citadels of a new aristocracy, rulers who kept the giant wheel of government careening along, spreading destruction, violence, and chaos wherever they touched.
|
|
government
tyranny
|
Frank Herbert |
|
8548840
|
There are people who thirst for blood like tigers. Any man who has once tasted this unlimited power over the blood, over the body and spirit of a human creature like himself, a creature created in the same image and subject to the same law of Christ; any man who has tasted this power, this boundless opportunity to humiliate most bitterly another being made in the image of God -- becomes the servant instead of the master of his own emotions. Tyranny is a habit. It can and does eventually develop into a disease. I believe that the best of men may grow coarse, degrade to the level of a beast by sheer force of habit. Blood and power intoxicate one, they develop callousness and lust. The greatest perversions grow finally acceptable and even delicious to mind and heart. The man and the citizen perish in the tyrant for ever and the return to human dignity, remorse and spiritual rebirth becomes scarcely possible to him. Besides, the example and mere possibility of arbitrary power are contagious; they are indeed a great temptation. A society which regards such things calmly is already corrupt at the roots.
|
|
punishment
tyranny
|
Fyodor Dostoyevsky |
|
e3ffd4f
|
The telephone was not his favorite object, and more than once he had considered getting rid of his. What he disliked most of all was its tyranny. Not only did it have the power to interrupt him against his will, but inevitably he would give in to its command.
|
|
tyranny
|
Paul Auster |
|
5065d79
|
"The ship told you a guilty system recognises no innocents. I'd say it does. It recognises the innocence of a young child, for example, and you saw how they treated that. In a sense it even recognises the "sanctity" of the body... but only to violate it. Once again, Gurgeh, it all boils down to ownership, possession; about taking and having."
|
|
tyranny
|
Iain M. Banks |
|
7c1817c
|
It seemed that out of every tear of a martyr new confessors were born, and that every groan on the arena found an echo in thousands of breasts. Caesar was swimming in blood, Rome and the whole pagan world was mad. But those who had had enough of transgression and madness, those who were trampled upon, those whose lives were misery and oppression, all the weighed down, all the sad, all the unfortunate, came to hear the wonderful tidings of God, who out of love for men had given Himself to be crucified and redeem their sins. When they found a God whom they could love, they had found that which the society of the time could not give any one, -- happiness and love.
|
|
hope
love
nero
tyranny
|
Henryk Sienkiewicz |
|
981d563
|
Jamie aveva orrore di qualsiasi forma di estremismo e sosteneva che i guerriglieri si giustificano solo durante la tirannia, quando non c'e altra scelta che battersi con le armi, ma che sono un'aberrazione in un paese dove i cambiamenti si possono ottenere con votazioni popolari.
|
|
guerrilla
tyranny
|
Isabel Allende |
|
06bd615
|
She learns her lesson at once; to escape slavery, she must embrace tyranny.
|
|
slavery
tyranny
|
Angela Carter |
|
d4ca2f3
|
"But he saw now that he must remain alone, a "Liberal," scorned by all the noisier prophets for refusing to be a willing cat for the busy monkeys of either side. But at worst, the Liberals, the Tolerant, might in the long run preserve some of the arts of civilization, no matter which brand of tyranny should finally dominate the world."
|
|
epiphany
tolerance
liberalism
tyranny
|
Sinclair Lewis |
|
239745a
|
The men and women who forged this nation [USA] were straight-up maniacs about freedom. It was just about the only thing they cared about, so they jammed it into everything. This is understandable, as they were breaking away from a monarchy. But it's also a little bonkers, since one of the things they desired most desperately was freedom of religion, based on the premise that Europe wasn't religious and that they needed the freedom to live by non-secular laws that were more restrictive than that of any government, including provisions for the burning of suspected witches.
|
|
freedom
establishment-of-religion
freedom-of-religion
religious-freedom
religious-intolerance
theocracy
hypocrisy
tyranny
religious-extremism
|
Chuck Klosterman |