Tyranny is the exercise of power in a harsh and oppressive manner. Many people throughout history have spoken out against tyranny. Quotes about tyranny often highlight the negative impact it has on society and the importance of standing up against it. These quotes shed light on the cruelty, injustice, and suppression that comes with tyrannical rule. They serve as a reminder of the need for freedom, equality, and the protection of human rights. Such quotes inspire individuals to resist tyranny, promote democracy, and fight for a just and fair society.
Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry. — Unknown Author
Tyranny is always better organized than freedom. — Charles Peguy
The harshest tyranny is that which acts under the protection of legality and the banner of justice. — Baron de Montesquieu
You may talk of the tyranny of Nero and Tiberius; but the real tyranny is the tyranny of your next-door neighbor. — Walter Bagehot
When tyranny becomes law, rebellion is a right. — Simon Bolivar
All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force. — George Orwell
The tyranny of some is possible only through the cowardice of others. — Jose Rizal
When justices seize authority from the other branches of the federal government, as well as state and local governments, under the rubric of judicial review, that’s tyranny. — Mark Levin
Political correctness is tyranny with manners. — Charlton Heston
There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice. — Montesquieu
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny. — Aesop
The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it. — John Hay
When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. — Thomas Jefferson
If you tremble with indignation at every injustice then you are a comrade of mine. — Che Guevara
It's not tyranny we desire; it's a just, limited, federal government. — Alexander Hamilton
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. — James Madison
Dictators can always consolidate their tyranny by an appeal to patriotism. — Aldous Huxley
Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave. — Frederick Douglass
Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system. — Dorothy Day
Wherever Law ends, Tyranny begins. — John Locke
Guns will make us powerful; butter will only make us fat. — Hermann Goring
A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. — Marcus Tullius Cicero
I am opposed to any form of tyranny over the mind of man. — Thomas Jefferson
Tyranny Image Quotes
The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant.
Fight Against Tyranny Quotes
The forces of moderation and democracy must, and will, prevail against extremism and dictatorship. I will not be intimidated... Despite threats of death, I will not acquiesce to tyranny, but rather lead the fight against it. — Benazir Bhutto
Our heroes are fighting to bring stability to the Middle East, and they have put pressure on all of the tyrannies of the Middle East. They have taken a stand against tyranny, against terrorists, and for the prospect of decent societies throughout that region. — Orrin Hatch
Government began in tyranny and force, began in the feudalism of the soldier and bigotry of the priest; and the ideas of justice and humanity have been fighting their way, like a thunderstorm, against the organized selfishness of human nature. — Wendell Phillips
A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny.
A lot of people died fighting tyranny. The least I can do is vote against it. — Carl Icahn
And wherever men are fighting against barbarism, tyranny, and massacre, for freedom, law, and honour, let them remember that the fame of their deeds, even though they themselves be exterminated, may perhaps be celebrated as long as the world rolls round. — Winston Churchill
Government Tyranny Quotes
Does the government fear us? Or do we fear the government? When the people fear the government, tyranny has found victory. The federal government is our servant, not our master! — Thomas Jefferson
We spoke and acted as if, given the opportunity for self-government, we would quickly create utopias. Instead injustice, even tyranny, is rampant. — Julius Nyerere
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny. — Thomas Jefferson
The Founders knew that a democracy would lead to some kind of tyranny. The term democracy appears in none of our Founding documents. Their vision for us was a Republic and limited government. — Walter E. Williams
Some boast of being friends to government; I am a friend to righteous government, to a government founded upon the principles of reason and justice; but I glory in publicly avowing my eternal enmity to tyranny. — John Hancock
The governments of Europe are afraid to trust the people with arms. If they did, the people would certainly shake off the yoke of tyranny, as America did. — James Madison
It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. — C. S. Lewis
By giving the government unlimited powers, the most arbitrary rule can be made legal; and in this way a democracy may set up the most complete despotism imaginable. — Friedrich August von Hayek
That, in its essence, is Fascism — ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. — Franklin D. Roosevelt
The Conservative does not despise government. He despises tyranny. This is precisely why the Conservative reveres the Constitution and insists on adherence to it. — Mark Levin
Tyrannizes Quotes
When a government betrays the people by amassing too much power and becoming tyrannical, the people have no choice but to exercise their original right of self-defense — to fight the government. — Alexander Hamilton
Oppressors can tyrannize only when they achieve a standing army, an enslaved press, and a disarmed populace. — James Madison
So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men. — Voltaire
When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner. — Montesquieu
When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner. — Baron de Montesquieu
Any law which violates the inalienable rights of man is essentially unjust and tyrannical; it is not a law at all. — Maximilien Robespierre
To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical. — Thomas Jefferson
A pure democracy is generally a very bad government, It is often the most tyrannical government on earth; for a multitude is often rash, and will not hear reason. — Noah Webster
Mankind will in time discover that unbridled majorities are as tyrannical and cruel as unlimited despots. — John Adams
... some people cannot bear the truth, no matter how tactfully it is told. No doubt the haughty, the tyrannical, the unmerciful, the impure and the fomentors of discord take a fierce exception to the Sermon on the Mount. — Mary Church Terrell
The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant. — Maximilien Robespierre
The first step in a fascist movement is the combination under an energetic leader of a number of men who possess more than the average share of leisure, brutality, and stupidity. The next step is to fascinate fools and muzzle the intelligent, by emotional excitement on the one hand and terrorism on the other. — Bertrand Russell
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
Our liberty will not be secured at the sword's point... We must secure it by making ourselves worthy of it. And when the people reaches that height, God will provide a weapon, the idols will be shattered, tyranny will crumble like a house of cards, and liberty will shine out like the first dawn. — Jose Rizal
When once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil. — Thomas Jefferson
I have an almost complete disregard of precedent, and a faith in the possibility of something better. It irritates me to be told how things have always been done. I defy the tyranny of precedent. I go for anything new that might improve the past. — Clara Barton
At the age of nineteen, on my own initiative and at my own expense, I raised an army by means of which I restored liberty to the republic, which had been oppressed by the tyranny of a faction. For which service the senate, with complimentary resolutions, enrolled me in its order. — Augustus
Sad will be the day when the American people forget their traditions and their history, and so longer remember that the country they love, the institutions they cherish, and the freedom they hope to preserve, were born from the throes of armed resistance to tyranny, and nursed in the rugged arms of fearless men. — Roger Sherman
A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins.” Benjamin Franklin — Benjamin Franklin
Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins. Republics and limited monarchies derive their strength and vigor from a popular examination into the action of the magistrates. — Benjamin Franklin
It irritates me to be told how things have always been done. I defy the tyranny of precedent. I cannot afford the luxury of a closed mind. — Clara Barton
Instead of hating the people you think are war-makers, hate the appetites and disorder in your own soul, which are the causes of war. If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed - but hate these things in yourself, not in another. — Thomas Merton
To those who cite the first amendment as reason for excluding God from more and more of our institutions and everyday life, may I just say: The first amendment of the Constitution was not written to protect the people of this country from religious values; it was written to protect religious values from government tyranny. — Ronald Reagan
It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity. — Alexander Hamilton
Resistance to tyranny becomes the Christian and social duty of each individual… Continue steadfast and, with a proper sense of your dependence on God, nobly defend those rights which heaven gave, and no man ought to take from us. — John Hancock
The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny. — Jeremy Bentham
It is the growing custom to narrow control, concentrate power, disregard and disenfranchise the public; and assuming that certain powers by divine right of money-raising or by sheer assumption, have the power to do as they think best without consulting the wisdom of mankind. — W. E. B. Du Bois
The civility of no race can be perfect whilst another race is degraded. It is a doctrine alike of the oldest and of the newest philosophy, that man is one, and that you cannot injure any member, without a sympathetic injury to all the members — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed. — Barry Goldwater
Knowledge is power. Information is power. The secreting or hoarding of knowledge or information may be an act of tyranny camouflaged as humility. — Robin Morgan
The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections. — Lord Acton
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
The movement of Pakistan which the Quaid-e-Azam launched was ethical in inspiration and ideological in content. The story of this movement is a story of the ideals of equality, fraternity and social and economic justice struggling against the forces of domination, exploitation, intolerance and tyranny. — Fatima Jinnah
War stirs in men's hearts the mud of their worst instincts. It puts a premium on violence, nourishes hatred, and gives free rein to cupidity. It crushes the weak, exalts the unworthy, and bolsters tyranny .. .Time and time again it has destroyed all ordered living, devastated hope, and put the prophets to death. — Charles De Gaulle
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
Lets replace all references in manuscripts with DOIs & eliminate the tyranny of reference formatting. — Lee Cronin
From behind the Iron Curtain, there are signs that tyranny is in trouble and reminders that its structure is as brittle as its surface is hard. — Dwight D. Eisenhower
In Conclusion
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