Tyrants quotes
600 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside tyrants — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"What use do I put my soul to? It is a serviceable question this, and should frequently be put to oneself. How does my ruling part stand affected? And whose soul have I now? That of a child, or a young man, or a feeble woman, or of a tyrant, of cattle or wild beasts."
"This excessive licence, which the anarchists think is the only true freedom, provides the stock, as it were, from which a tyrant grows."
"A Tyrant is most tyrant to himselfe."
"There are two kinds of rebellion. The first is one in which the slave demands something that the tyrant has got. The second is one in which he demands something that the tyrant has not got."
"Insane!... Ask the tyrant who is his most dangerous foe, the sane man or the insane?"
"To our strongest impulse, to the tyrant in us, not only our reason but also our conscience yields."
"We take a fancy to something: and scarcely have we thoroughly taken a fancy to it when that tyrant in us calls out: "Give me thatin sacrifice"--and we give it."
"Power lies in reason, resolution, and truth. No matter how long the tyrant endures, he will be the loser at the end."
"By "trampling upon the helpless abroad" with unchecked surveillance, Americans have learned, "by a natural process, to endure with apathy the like at home.""
"The master minds of all nations, in all ages, have sprung in affluent multitude from the mass of the nations, and from the mass of the nation only-not from its privileged classes."
"My father was very intense, passionate and over-the-top. He was my hero and my tyrant."
"Perhaps the greatest consolation of the oppressed is to consider themselves superior to their tyrants."
"Set before us the conduct of our own British ancestors, who defended for us the inherent rights of mankind against foreign and domestic tyrants and usurpers, against arbitrary kings and cruel priests; in short against the gates of earth and hell."
"Flight is lawful, when one flies from tyrants."
"A wicked tyrant is better than a wicked war."
"I'm many things: I'm a convicted rapist, I'm a hell-raiser, I'm a father, a loving father. I'm a semi-good husband...I'm pretty much a tyrant-titan."
"A woman who gives any advantage to a man may expect a lover - but will sooner or later find a tyrant."
"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."
"What want these outlaws conquerors should have but history's purchased page to call them great?"
