Random quotes against tyranny

When dogma enters the brain, all intellectual activity ceases

 -- Robert Anton Wilson

A great wave of oppressive tyranny isn't going to strike, but rather a slow seepage of oppressive laws and regulations from within will sink the American dream of liberty --George Baumler

The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home

-- James Madison: US fourth president, 1751-1836

This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector

-- Plato: Ancient Greek philosopher (428/427-348/347 B.C.)

The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience

-- Albert Camus: French novelist, essayist, and playwright.1957 Nobel Prize for Literature. 1913-1960

Most people want security in this world, not liberty

-- Henry Louis Mencken" American journalist, 1880-1956

We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security

-- Dwight David Eisenhower : 34th president of the United States, 1890-1969

I have named the destroyers of nations: comfort, plenty, and security - out of which grow a bored and slothful cynicism, in which rebellion against the world as it is, and myself as I am, are submerged in listless self-satisfaction

-- John Steinbeck: American novelist, Nobel Prize for Literature for 1962, 1902-1968

The only security for the American people today, or for any people, is to be found through the control of force rather than the use of force

-- Norman Cousins: American essayist and editor, long associated with the Saturday Review, 1912-1990

Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous

-- William Proxmire

If my soldiers were to begin to think, not one would remain in the ranks

-- Frederick The Great

In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful

-- Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy : Russian author, 1828-1910

It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it.
-- General Lee speaking to James Longstreet, on seeing a Federal charge repulsed in the Battle of Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862

The victor will never be asked if he told the truth

-- Adolf Hitler

That until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned; that until there is no longer any first-class and second-class citizens of any nation; that until the color of a man's skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes; that until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all, without regard to race -- until that day, the dreams of lasting peace and world citizenship and the rule of international morality will remain but a fleeting illusion, to be pursued but never attained

-- Speech by H.I.M. HAILE SELASSIE I - California 28th February 1968

The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly...it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.

-- Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister

The process [of mass-media deception] has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt.... To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies - all this is indispensably necessary.

-- George Orwell in the book 1984

Like the effect of advertising upon the customer, the methods of political propaganda tend to increase the feeling of insignificance of the individual voter.

-- Erich Fromm, psychoanalyst and social philosopher, 1900-1980

Democracy don't rule the world, You'd better get that in your head; This world is ruled by violence, But I guess that's better left unsaid.

-- Bob Dylan : American folksinger, b.1941

You have to show violence the way it is. If you don't show it realistically, then that's immoral and harmful. If you don't upset people, then that's obscenity.

-- Roman Polanski

When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war. War settles nothing.

-- Dwight David Eisenhower : 34th president of the United States, 1890-1969

You guard against decay, in general, and stagnation, by moving, by continuing to move.

-- Mary Daly 
 
If you are trying to transform a brutalized society into one where people can live in dignity and hope, you begin with the empowering of the most powerless. You build from the ground up.

-- Adrienne Rich

 

[ With much gratitude to George ]