Quotation Explorer - 'Tyrant'

It's said that 'power corrupts', but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power. When they do act, they think of it as service, which has limits. The tyrant, though, seeks mastery, for which he is insa- tiable, implacable.
Pretend you are a foolish to the tyrant because if he realizes you are a genius, he might use you to harm others. - A Gentlemen
A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side. - Aristotle
Tyranny is like the electric wiring in an old house. A tyrant dies, the new tyrant takes possession, and all he has to do is drop the switch. - John le Carré
Mr. President, it is time for you to give me back my country. You can either continue to make fools of the people who elected a tyrant like you or let the country rise phoenix-like from the ashes. - Nilantha Ilangamuwa
It is also in the interests of the tyrant to make his subjects poor... the people are so occupied with their daily tasks that they have no time for plotting. - Aristotle
When people have no other tyrant, their own public opinion becomes one. - Edward Bulwer-Lytton
The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within. - Mahatma Gandhi
Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate. - Henry David Thoreau
I will have thee, as our rarer monsters are, painted upon a pole,and underwrit: "Here you may see the tyrant, Macbeth - William Shakespeare
The worst kind of tyrant is one that is righteously wrong - rassool jibraeel snyman
As things stand the "intellectuals" only come out to lick the bones left over by the tyrant. - Nilantha Ilangamuwa
The fairy tale belongs to the poor...I know of no fairy tale which upholds the tyrant, or takes the part of the strong against the weak. A fascist fairy tale is an absurdity. - Erik Christian Haugaard
Freedom from a tyrant is easy, but freedom from societal conformity is difficult. - Debasish Mridha
When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty and there is nothing to fear from them then he is always stirring up some wary or other in order that the people may require a leader. - Plato
Babylon violated diminishes Alexander; Rome enslaved diminishes Caesar; massacred Jerusalem diminishes Titus. Tyranny follows the tyrant. Woe to the man who leaves behind a shadow that bears his form. - Victor Hugo
What is the end of our revolution? The tranquil enjoyment of liberty and equality; the reign of that eternal justice, the laws of which are graven, not on marble or stone, but in the hearts of men, even in the heart of the slave who has forgotten them, and in that of the tyrant who disowns them. - Maximilien Robespierre
When man turns tyrant it is his own freedom he destroys. - George Orwell
Better to live under one tyrant a thousand miles away, than a thousand tyrants one mile away. - Daniel Bliss
Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. what a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate. - Henry David Thoreau
The planet's tyrant, dotard Death, had held his gray mirror before them for a moment and shown them the image of things to come. - Dorothy L. Sayers
The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness...This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector. - Plato
Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with it is a toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public. - Winston S. Churchill
WEAKNESSES, n.pl. Certain primal powers of Tyrant Woman wherewith she holds dominion over the male of her species, binding him to the service of her will and paralyzing his rebellious energies. - Ambrose Bierce
Any excuse will serve a tyrant. - Aesop
A woman who gives any advantage to a man may expect a lover -- but will sooner or later find a tyrant. - George Gordon Byron
Love is the only tyrant whose reign is sweet. - Matshona Dhliwayo
The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrant. It is its natural manure. - Thomas Jefferson
O tyrant love, to what do you not drive the hearts of men. - Virgil
How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words! - Samuel Adams
Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms. - Aristotle
When the media is controlled by people who runs the world, you are only going to get news that they want you to know. They will paint anther's man country's hero a tyrant, a dictator or a murderer and favor the next just to divide and conquer the people. - Henry Johnson Jr
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