Tyrannical quotes:

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The scum of the People are most Tyrannical when they get the Power, and treat their Betters with the greatest Insolence. -- Mary Astell
In general, literature is a natural adversary of totalitarianism. Tyrannical governments all view literature in the same way: as their enemy. I lived for a long time in a totalitarian state, and I know firsthand that horror. -- Ismail Kadare
Justice without force is powerless; force without justice is tyrannical. -- Blaise Pascal
Unfortunately, writing and reporting the truth is not allowed under Castro's tyrannical dictatorship. -- Lincoln Diaz-Balart
Growing up in Pakistan in the 1980s, I lived in the shadow of a tyrannical state. -- Mohsin Hamid
There is a certain justice in criticism. The critic is like a midwife - a tyrannical midwife. -- Stephen Spender
The methods by which a trade union can alone act, are necessarily destructive; its organization is necessarily tyrannical. -- Henry George
To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical. -- Thomas Jefferson
Any law which violates the inalienable rights of man is essentially unjust and tyrannical; it is not a law at all. -- Maximilien Robespierre
The ecclesiastical establishments of Europe which serve to support tyrannical governments are not the Christian religion but abuses and corruptions of it. -- Noah Webster
All governments, the worst on earth, and the most tyrannical on earth, are free governments to that portion of the people who voluntarily support them. -- Lysander Spooner
I think the adverb is a much-maligned part of speech. It's always accused of being oppressive, even tyrannical, when in fact it's so supple and sly. -- Eleanor Catton
Some dying men are the most tyrannical; and certainly, since they will shortly trouble us so little for evermore, the poor fellows ought to be indulged. -- Herman Melville
Freedom is not won by merely overthrowing a tyrannical ruler or an oppressive regime. That is usually only the prelude to a new tyranny, a new oppression. -- Jonathan Sacks
Poetry, I feel, is a tyrannical discipline. You've got to go so far so fast in such a small space; you've got to burn away all the peripherals. -- Sylvia Plath
The Government of the absolute majority instead of the Government of the people is but the Government of the strongest interests; and when not efficiently checked, it is the most tyrannical and oppressive that can be devised. -- John C. Calhoun
While America has always been and always will be a safe harbor for those being persecuted by tyrannical governments we must be vigilant to ensure those individuals are not taking advantage of America's generosity and good will. -- Bill Shuster
You are wrong if you think that you can in any way take the vision and tame it to the page. The page is jealous and tyrannical; the page is made of time and matter; the page always wins. -- Annie Dillard
And I think being a good director is being able to be completely tyrannical and you've got to be an absolute dictator while at the same time, you have to listen and see everything because it can all change on a dime. -- Bob Balaban
The real damper on employee engagement is the soggy, cold blanket of centralized authority. In most companies, power cascades downwards from the CEO. Not only are employees disenfranchised from most policy decisions, they lack even the power to rebel against egocentric and tyrannical supervisors. -- Gary Hamel
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
Singling out political opponents for working against the ruling party is precisely the tactic of every tyrannical government from Red China to Venezuela. The first step in the process is creating unfounded public suspicion of political opponents, followed by arresting and jailing any who continue speaking against the regime. -- John Carter
Americans were outraged and horrified by this president's reckless spending and his endless assaults on the Constitution, but no issue drove them to rise up and fight back like Obamacare - both the abominable legislative monstrosity itself and the tyrannical, corrupt manner by which Obama crammed it through the legislative process. -- David Limbaugh
When the Islamic revolution began in 1979 under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini, it aroused considerable admiration in the Arab street. It presented a model of organised popular action that deposed one of the region's most tyrannical regimes. The people of the region discerned in this revolution new hope for freedom and change. -- Wadah Khanfar
Majorities, as such, afford no guarantees for justice. They are men of the same nature as minorities. They have the same passions for fame, power, and money, as minorities; and are liable and likely to be equally - perhaps more than equally, because more boldly - rapacious, tyrannical and unprincipled, if intrusted with power. -- Lysander Spooner
As a single parent, I had become tyrannical in order to survive, and anything I couldn't control caused me enormous anxiety. As a naturally untidy, disorganised man who never made lists or kept receipts, morphing into someone who could take care of a toddler on his own may have caused me to overcompensate a little. -- Simon Van Booy
Charity bestowed upon those who are worthy of it is like good seed sown on a good soil that yields an abundance of fruits. But alms given to those who are yet under the tyrannical yoke of the passions are like seed deposited in a bad soil. The passions of the receiver of the alms choke, as it were, the growth of merits. -- Buddha
It is curious how tyrannical the habit of reasoning is. -- James Russell Lowell
Democratic institutions form a system of quarantine for tyrannical desires. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
Unfortunately, writing and reporting the truth is not allowed under Castro's tyrannical dictatorship -- Lincoln Diaz-Balart
Government is at best a petulant servant and at worst a tyrannical master. -- George Washington
There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people. -- Anthony Trollope
There is a tyrannical element in all fanaticism, an element which makes opposition a torment. -- Mary Augusta Ward
Mankind will in time discover that unbridled majorities are as tyrannical and cruel as unlimited despots. -- John Adams
Ruthless, greedy, tyrannical, disreputable... they have had one principle worth all the rest, the principle of delight! -- Kenneth Clark
Love is needed to strengthen the weak; love becomes tyrannical when it exacts obedience from an unbeliever. -- Mahatma Gandhi
There is a certain justice in criticism. The critic is like a midwife - a tyrannical midwife -- Stephen Spender
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I think forcing people to uncover their head is as tyrannical as forcing them to cover it. -- Mustafa Akyol
As every artist who has used the method knows - photography's a loyal slave and a tyrannical master. -- Robert Genn
Nothing like an arcane literary debate with your tyrannical master while you pass the time leading to your execution. -- Elizabeth Wein
Seek justice from tyrannical governments not with your hat in your hands but with a rifle in your fist. -- Emiliano Zapata
My God, these Feeling types! ... Sensitive people are just tyrannical people - everybody else has to adapt to them. -- Marie-Louise von Franz
If you feel driven to feed the poor, get your checkbook out and keep your tyrannical mouth shut about it. -- Lewis Goldberg
Public opinion is always more tyrannical towards those who obviously fear it than towards those who feel indifferent to it. -- Bertrand Russell
Simply because the nanny-state wants to hug you doesn't mean it's not tyrannical if you don't want to be hugged. -- Jonah Goldberg
There is simply no limit to the tyrannical snobbery that otherwise decent people can descend into when it comes to music. -- Stephen Fry
The most tyrannical of governments are those which make crimes of opinions, for everyone has an inalienable right to his thoughts. -- Baruch Spinoza
So long as a man-of-war exists, it must ever remain a picture of much that is tyrannical and repelling in human nature. -- Herman Melville
Government has hardened into a tyrannical monopoly, and the human race in general becomes as absolutely property as beasts in the plow. -- John Dickinson
Every great idea exerts, on first appearing, a tyrannical influence: Hence, the advantages it brings are turned all too soon into disadvantages. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Is there any chance you'd overthrow the tyrannical Beast Lord and his psychotic consort?" "Yeah, I want a vacation." -Kate & Curran to Jim -- Ilona Andrews
The main political problem is how to prevent the police power from becoming tyrannical. This is the meaning of all the struggles for liberty. -- Ludwig von Mises
Democracy is a kingless regime infested by many kings who are sometimes more exclusive, tyrannical and destructive than one, even if he be a tyrant. -- Benito Mussolini
Intellectual and cultural freedom is the most important single precondition for the breakdown of the kinds of tyrannical and totalitarian systems that periodically threaten us. -- James H. Billington
Legislatures have no right to set up an inquisition and examine into the private opinions of men. Test-laws are useless and ineffectual, unjust and tyrannical. -- Oliver Ellsworth
The Second Amendment is the right to keep and bear arms for our citizenryThis is for usThis is for us when our government becomes tyrannical -- Sharron Angle
I felt in him what women feel in men, something so tender, swollen, tyrannical, absurd; I would never take the consequences of interfering with it. -- Alice Munro
Tyranny seldom announces itself...In fact, a tyranny may exist without an individual tyrant. A whole government, even a democratically elected one, may be tyrannical. -- Joseph Sobran
I think the adverb is a much-maligned part of speech. Its always accused of being oppressive, even tyrannical, when in fact its so supple and sly. -- Eleanor Catton
When a nation has allowed itself to fall under a tyrannical regime, it cannot be absolved from the faults due to the guilt of that regime. -- Winston Churchill
It [childbearing] was never intended to be as time-consuming and self-conscious a process as it is. One of the deepest evils in our society is tyrannical nurturance. -- Germaine Greer
[With my photographs] you have a [single, forever fixed] moment and my particular angle of vision. My tyrannical condition, as it were, is that I prescribe your vision. -- Thomas Demand
Poetry, I feel, is a tyrannical discipline. You've got to go so far, so fast, in such a small space, that you've got to burn away all the peripherals. -- Sylvia Plath
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
In the long run, even a tyrannical government only has the power that the people confer on it and coming to understand history is the beginning of making things right. -- Nilantha Ilangamuwa
Never give up! it is wiser and betterAlways to hope, than once to despair.Fling off the load of Doubt's cankering fetter,And break the dark spell of tyrannical care. -- Martin Farquhar Tupper
There are, however, some potentates I would kill by any and all means at my disposal. They are Ignorance, Superstition, and Bigotry â?? the most sinister and tyrannical rulers on earth. -- Emma Goldman
Always that tyrannical love reaches out. Soft words shrivel me like quicklime. She will not allow me to be cold, hungry. She will insist that I take her own coat, her own food. -- Elizabeth Smart
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 â?? to fight the government. -- Alexander Hamilton
Environmental degradation is one of the biggest challenges we have. I think a question that we're not asking ourselves is: 'Isn't humanity committing suicide with this indiscriminate and tyrannical use of nature?' -- Pope Francis
It is curious how tyrannical the habit of reading is, and what shifts we make to escape thinking. There is no bore we dread being left alone with so much as our own minds. -- James Russell Lowell
The ideal citizen of a tyrannical state is the man or woman who bows in silent obedience in exchange for the status of a well-cared-for herd animal. Thinking people become the tyrants worst enemies. -- Claire Wolfe
You give bureaucrats power over others, and when the others are poor and helpless, nothing matches government. More than any single exploitive tyrannical force, the possibility of what government can do is absolutely terrifying. -- Millicent Fenwick

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