#tyranny

Writing, as most art, is considered to be essentially superfluous. Who is an artist before a surgeon? Or a scientist? But the fact that tyrants and political forces of every age have been threatened by art again and again, condemned it as degenerate or poisonous, and have silenced, brutalized, or murdered artists because of their work only serves to illustrate how significant art is, that it is our one greatest power. I would even go so far as to say that the tyrant ‘understands’ art more than the devotee, for the latter is generally too ‘pious’ and adoring, almost like a simple-minded believer overwrought by faith who simply loves and finds everything ‘great,’ whereas the former suffers the transformative threat of art more, is even endangered by it, hence their terror. ↗

— Rainer J. Hanshe

#tyranny #age

The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination. ↗

— Voltaire

#benevolent #best #government #occasional #tempered

To set up as a standard of public morality a notion which can neither be defined nor conceived is to open the door to every kind of tyranny. ↗

— Simone Weil

#defined #door #every #kind #morality

It is the besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion for law. This is the usual form in which the masses of men exhibit their tyranny. ↗

— James F. Cooper

#democracies #exhibit #form #law #masses

I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever. ↗

— George C. Wallace

#draw #dust #feet #forever #gauntlet

Let this circumstance of our constitution therefore be directed to this noble purpose, and then all the objections urged against it by jealous tyranny and affrighted superstition will vanish. ↗

— Adam Weishaupt

#circumstance #constitution #directed #jealous #noble

The means of defence against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people. ↗

— James Madison

#liberalism #liberty #tyranny #roman

Power-lust is a weed that grows only in the vacant lots of an abandoned mind. ↗

— Ayn Rand

#education #power #tyranny #education

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

#aggression #civilization #consequences #defend #even

Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy. ↗

— Plato

#democracy #naturally #out #tyranny