Tyranny Quotes – Reflections on Power and Authority

"Blind obedience to authority is the greatest enemy of truth."

Albert Einstein

"This is why you have labels for anyone expressing skepticism of establishment narratives like “conspiracy theorist”, “useful idiot”, “Russian asset” or “Assadist”; the powerful people who understand that whoever controls the narrative controls the world need labels to separate the faithful from the heathens. It means the same thing as “heretic”."

Caitlin Johnstone

"With the exception only of the period of the gold standard, practically all governments of history have used their exclusive power to issue money to defraud and plunder the people."

Friedrich August von Hayek

"I have never thought, for my part, that man's freedom consists in his being able to do whatever he wills, but that he should not, by any human power, be forced to do what is against his will."

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

"Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison."

Henry David Thoreau

"People have no idea how many constraints there are in politics. Politicians are, to some extent, governed by processes, events, and procedures beyond their control. You are not all-powerful—at times, you are simply powerless."

Peter Tauber

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past."

George Orwell

"Democracy has nothing to do with freedom. Democracy is mob rule—incited by demagogues and steered in an unstable manner. German democracy in particular displays traits of a soft totalitarianism, marked by pervasive self-censorship that is often scarcely even recognized as such."

Prof. Hans Hermann Hoppe

"Nothing appears more surprizing to those, who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers."

David Hume

"The power structures that have emerged are not democratically legitimized, and they can no longer be voted out of office through any electoral process. The most important power structures in our society are no longer accessible to the voter at all… and one does not want the ordinary citizen to even know that they exist. They are meant to remain invisible within the framework of public debate."

Prof. Rainer Mausfeld

"The fundamental problem with our democracy is that it is not one. The people—the nominal ruler and sovereign—have, in reality, nothing to say. … Behind the democratic façade, a system has been installed in which completely different rules apply than those of the Basic Law. The system is undemocratic and corrupt; it abuses power and unscrupulously deceives citizens. … Every German is free to obey laws to which he has never consented; he may admire the majesty of the Basic Law, whose validity he has never legitimized; he is free to pay homage to politicians whom no citizen has ever elected, and to provide for them lavishly—with his tax money, about the use of which he has never been consulted. Overall, the state and politics are in a condition of which only professional optimists or hypocrites can claim it has arisen from the will of the citizens."

Prof. Dr. Hans Herbert von Arnim

"If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?"

Claude Frédéric Bastiat

"One might still justify the submission of an entire people to a small number of rulers if those in power were the best among us—but that is not the case, never has been, and never can be. All too often it is the worst, the most insignificant, the most cruel, the most immoral—and especially the most deceitful—who rule. And the fact that this is so is no accident."

Leo Tolstoi (Leo Tolstoy)

"It is hardly necessary to point out that the inability of the masses to judge correctly deprives them of any capacity for critical thought—that is, the ability to distinguish truth from error and to form a sound judgment. The judgments adopted by the masses are merely imposed on them and are never the result of careful examination. Many individuals, in this respect, do not rise above the level of the crowd. The ease with which certain opinions become widely accepted is due above all to the inability of most people to form an opinion of their own on the basis of personal reasoning."

Gustave Le Bon

"It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong."

Voltaire

"For almost two years now, an alleged pandemic has had us firmly in its grip. Day after day, the media and politicians bombard us with narratives and measures. It’s time we take a stand against it. This may be our last chance. If we go along with it and they achieve their goal, life here will become very uncomfortable for us and for future generations. I hope that resistance and clarity continue to grow—and that we force an end to it."

Tobias Levels

"Fear of the virus—fear of getting sick, fear of dying—is the most effective distraction one can politically set in motion: to intimidate people and focus them on that fear so completely that, in the end, you can basically do whatever you want with us."

Dr. Hans-Joachim Maaz