47 Tyranny Quotes to Help You Detect and Prevent Oppression

According to Timothy Snyder, tyranny threatens democracy and individual rights and can emerge slowly through a series of incremental steps. Read these 47 tyranny quotes to help you to recognize and resist tyranny.

Timothy Snyder is a historian and author who has written extensively on tyranny and democracy. According to him, it is vital to observe dictatorship and democracy from both structural and historical perspectives.

From a structural perspective, he argues that we should examine the political institutions and systems that enable tyranny or democracy to thrive. From a historical perspective, he believes that we must look at the experiences of different countries and societies to understand how both have developed and evolved.

Overall, he stresses the importance of understanding the structural and historical factors that shape our political systems and societies to promote and defend democracy and prevent the emergence of tyranny. Read these 47 tyranny quotes as you stay vigilant.

Charles Pegu's quote: "Tyranny is always better organized than freedom." | Image: AmoDays

Tyranny Quotes Filled with Rebellious Spirit

"Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God." — John Bradshaw

"When tyranny becomes law, rebellion is a right." — Simon Bolivar

"Tyranny or slavery, born of selfishness, are the two educational methods of parents; all gradations of tyranny or slavery." — Franz Kafka

"The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant." — Maximilien Robespierre

John Bradshaw's quote: "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God." | Image: AmoDays

"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." — Thomas Jefferson

"It is not my nature, when I see a people borne down by the weight of their shackles - the oppression of tyranny - to make their life more bitter by heaping upon them greater burdens; but rather would I do all in my power to raise the yoke than to add anything that would tend to crush them." — Abraham Lincoln

"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

"Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who posses it; and this I know, my lords: that where law ends, tyranny begins." — William Pitt

Thomas Jefferson's quote: "I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." | Image: AmoDays

"When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty." — Thomas Jefferson

"I shall earnestly and persistently continue to urge all women to the practical recognition of the old Revolutionary maxim. Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God." — Susan B. Anthony

"When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how holy the motives." — Robert A. Heinlein

"Well, the tyranny of masculinity and the tyranny of patriarchy I think has been much more deadly to men than it has to women. It hasn't killed our hearts. It's killed men's hearts. It's silenced them; it's cut them off." — Eve Ensler

Thomas Jefferson's quote: "When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty." | Image: AmoDays

Tyranny Quotes Full of Warnings

"There is no greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of the law and in the name of justice." — Montesquieu

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive." — C. S. Lewis

"The Founding Fathers designed the constitution to prevent some Americans from exercising tyranny. Alert to the classical examples they knew, the decline of ancient Greece and Rome into oligarchy and empire, they established the rule of law, checks and balances, and regular elections as the means of preserving the new republic. Thus far, it has worked. But it need not work forever." — Timothy Snyder

"The preservation of liberty is more about the way we hold our beliefs than the beliefs that we hold. Tyranny is less a political failure than it is an epistemological one." — Robin Koerner

C. S. Lewis' quote: "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive." | Image: AmoDays

"Dictators can always consolidate their tyranny by an appeal to patriotism." — Aldous Huxley

"In every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter who has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or both to deceive and overawe the People." — Eugene V. Debs

"Withholding information is the essence of tyranny. Control of the flow of information is the tool of the dictatorship." — Bruce Coville

"A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny." — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Aldous Huxley's quote: "Dictators can always consolidate their tyranny by an appeal to patriotism." | Image: AmoDays

"I happen to be a big fan of Western civilization; I think it beats the hell out of tyranny and starvation." — Jordan Peterson

"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

"There are historic situations in which refusal to defend the inheritance of a civilization, however imperfect, against tyranny and aggression may result in consequences even worse than war." — Reinhold Niebuhr

"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." — Edmund Burke

Jordan Peterson's quote: "I happen to be a big fan of Western civilization; I think it beats the hell out of tyranny and starvation." | Image: AmoDays

"The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny." — Aesop

"The wisest thing in the world is to cry out before you are hurt. It is no good to cry out after you are hurt; especially after you are mortally hurt. People talk about the impatience of the populace; but sound historians know that most tyrannies have been possible because men moved too late. it is often essential to resist a tyranny before it exists." — G. K. Chesterton

"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

"While we are under the tyranny of Priests, it will ever be their interest, to invalidate the law of nature and reason, in order to establish systems incompatible therewith." — Ethan Allen

Aesop's quote: "The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny." | Image: AmoDays

Tyranny Quotes Full of Different Opinions

"The man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny." — Wole Soyinka

"Tyranny and anarchy are never far apart." — Jeremy Bentham

"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

"All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force." — George Orwell

Wole Soyinka's quote: "The man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny." | Image: AmoDays

"Your empire is now like a tyranny: it may have been wrong to take it; it is certainly dangerous to let it go." — Pericles

"When you look at a corporation, just like when you look at a slave owner, you want to distinguish between the institution and the individual. So slavery, for example, or other forms of tyranny, are inherently monstrous. The individuals participating in them may be the nicest guys you can imagine." — Noam Chomsky

"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." — John Dalberg-Acton

"When the shepherd is a wolf, the flock becomes only so much meat." — Brian Herbert

Pericles' quote: "Your empire is now like a tyranny: it may have been wrong to take it; it is certainly dangerous to let it go." | Image: AmoDays

"Humility is a good estate; founded thereon, the whole spiritual edifice grows into a holy temple in the Lord. Through humility, some have even possessed the gates of their enemies. For which of the virtues is so mighty to subdue the pride of demons and the tyranny of men?" — Saint Bernard

"Great minds are to make others great. Their superiority is to be used, not to break the multitude to intellectual vassalage, not to establish over them a spiritual tyranny, but to rouse them from lethargy, and to aid them to judge for themselves." — William Ellery Channing

"Tyranny is always better organized than freedom." — Charles Peguy

Jeremy Bentham's quote: "Tyranny and anarchy are never far apart." | Image: AmoDays

Studying history can provide numerous benefits, including a better understanding of the present and learning from past mistakes and successes. It can provide us with essential insights into the nature of tyranny and the importance of protecting democratic institutions.

By remaining vigilant and active in defending democracy and individual rights, we can help to prevent the emergence of tyranny and promote a more just and equitable society. Read these quotes to understand more about controlling people.