Tyranny Quotes – Reflections on Power and Authority

"The aim of totalitarian education has never been to instill convictions but to destroy the capacity to form any."

Hannah Arendt

"Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty."

Hannah Arendt

"The lie of tyranny is that you will maintain the freedom of life by obeying authority. The choices it offers you are a lifetime of obedience or death. Evil is the master of deceit. The objective of evil is not violence, but obedience. The purpose of violence is to compel obedience. Its design is the destruction of freedom. Whether submitting to authority and obeying, or allowing it to destroy you physically, you will have lost your freedom. The only way to maintain freedom is to fight tyranny at all times and at all costs."

Jeremy Locke

"The moment the monster state lays its paws on the field of education and instruction, the goal of the best possible physical and mental development of the child disappears and the bare power interest of the state in the chastisement of obedient, submissive and reverent subjects becomes the decisive authority."

Walter Borgius

"A man is no less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years."

Lysander Spooner

"We should never forget that the constitution wasn't written to restrain citizens' behavior. It was written to restrain the government's behavior."

Rand Paul

"War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength."

George Orwell

"If you scare people enough, they will demand removal of freedom. This is the path to tyranny."

Elon Musk

"Planners claim that their plans are scientific and that, among decent people with good intentions, there can be no disagreements about them. Yet there is no such thing as a "scientific ought." Science serves to determine what is. It can never prescribe what ought to be or what goals people should pursue. It is a fact that people disagree in their value judgments. It is outrageous to arrogate to oneself the right to override others' plans and force them to submit to the planner's design."

Ludwig von Mises

"Young people are accused of using violence. But are we not in a perpetual state of violence? Because we were born and raised in prison, we no longer notice that we are stuck in a hole with our hands and feet chained and a gag in our mouths. What do you call a lawful state? A law that turns the vast majority of citizens into servile cattle in order to satisfy the unnatural needs of an insignificant and corrupt minority? And this law, supported by brute military force and the stupid cleverness of its agents, this law is eternal, brute force, contrary to justice and common sense, and I will fight against it with my mouth and my hands wherever I can."

Karl Georg Büchner

"It is uninteresting who plays the leader of a nation; what is much more important is how many fools play along with this game."

Matthias Lubos

"We now live in a nation where doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the press destroys information, religion destroys morals, and our banks destroy the economy."

Chris Hedges

"Everything is backwards; everything is upside down. Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the major media destroy information and religions destroy spirituality."

Michael Ellner

"The few who could understand the system (checks, money, credits) will either be so interested in its profits, or so dependent on its favours, that there will be no opposition from that class, while on the other hand, the great body of people, mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantage that capital derives from the system, will bear its burdens without complaint, and perhaps without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests."

Nathaniel Meyer Rothschild

""In a money-driven sham democracy, the financial system takes precedence over the law." This is state-legalized fraud. The consequences of this fraud are: exploitation of people and nature, quantitative growth pressure, national debt, privatization, progressive impoverishment of many people, concentration of wealth and power among the richest, corruption, crises, and wars. The mainstream media, corporations, and the ruling political puppets are all part of this fraudulent system."

Rico Albrecht

"The system absorbs those who think they can utilize it. Nor can there be any question of finding a modus vivendi or achieving attenuations. It has been demonstrated how the liberal state becomes an authoritarian state. The course is set and no accommodation will be either lasting or sufficient. In face of this absolute power, only an absolutely negative position is viable. What we have in mind is the attitude that conscientous objectors take on a specific point, and not without good reason. In the present set-up the anarchist attitude of a total refusal of validity or legitimacy to any authority of any kind seems to me to be the only valid and viable one. The point is not to enforce a particular view of society but to establish a counterbalance, a protest, a sign of cleavage. In face of an absolute power only a total confrontation has any meaning."

Jacques Ellul

"Culture teaches that only “nuts” and “crazies” challenge authority. Law is the holiest and most sacred emblem of culture.

Insanity is not an inability to perceive reality; it is a willing rejection of reality in favor of the artificial constructs of tyranny. Law threatens violence upon all who refuse to obey it. When you chose to act upon an artificial view of reality, you are insane. People obey law out of fear of death, until they can be properly cultured to accept the rule of law without question. Cultural indoctrination is insanity. The definition of insanity is blind obedience.

It is insane to believe that those in power over people rightfully belong there. It is insane to assume that they will always be there. It is insane to believe that law has the right to command the obedience of people. The culture of royalty, the culture of patriotism and the culture of law are all insanity.
No human being who understands the fullness of their own worth would ever accept the notion that someone ought to rule over them. It is the function of culture to blind the eyes of people to their own worth, and to deafen their ears to any speech that may teach them. When cultural influence is at its peak, insanity ravages the mind. Obedience is the object of authority, and authority wants no possibility of rebellion. The definition of insanity is blind obedience."

Jeremy Locke

"A people that is governed by a power must know the power by which it is governed. The people must direct and control that power. They must step in when it commits crimes; otherwise, the people become accomplices. The foundation of democracy is popular sovereignty, not the authority of a paternalistic state. It is not the citizen who stands in a relationship of obedience to the government; rather, the government is accountable to the citizen for its actions within the framework of the law. The citizen has the right and the duty to call the government to order if he believes that democratic rights are being violated."

Dr. Gustav Heinemann