Tyrant

“ For why, say they, should we apply the name of king, the title of Jupiter the Beneficent, and not rather the title of tyrant, to a man ambitious of sole authority and power, lording it over a degraded multitude? For a tyrant may be as merciful as a king may be oppressive; so that the whole difference to the people is, whether they serve an indulgent master or a cruel one, since serve some one they must. ”

“ A tyrant, who should be incredulous, would not be a more incommodious scourge to his subjects, than a theological autocrat, who should wield his sceptre to the misery of his people. Would the nation of the latter feel more happy, from the mere circumstance that the tyger who governed it believed in the most abstract systems, heaped the most sumptuous presents on the priests, and humiliated himself at their shrine? ”

“ You, indeed, are a tyrant of another sort; and, upon your political bed of torture, can excruciate any subject, from a first minister down to such a grub or butterfly as myself; like another detested tyrant of antiquity, can make the wretched sufferer fit the bed, if the bed will not fit the sufferer, by disjointing or tearing the trembling limbs, until they are stretched to its extremity. ”

“ A tyrant drops his head upon the scaffold, and they weep!—an innocent queen is poisoned, and they "show no sign of sorrow!"—a cruel, cowardly yeomanry, and a brutal, sanguinary soldiery, massacre an unarmed populace, and thanks and a subscription acknowledge and reward their heroism!—here a people are stripped of their rights and privileges, and content themselves with complaining!—there a country is everwhelmed in penury and wretchedness, and finds a cure for all its distresses in the casual visit of its despotic ruler, and his unmeaning and stupid speeches! ”

“ But a tyrant shall, out of a wanton personal passion, carry fire and sword through a whole continent, and deliver up a hundred thousand of his fellow creatures to the slaughter in one day, without any remorse or further notice, than that they died for his glory. I say nothing of the moral effect of tyranny; though 'tis certain that ignorance, vice, poverty, and vileness, always attend it. ”

“ The other statesman, unrelenting in his power, and grinding in his oppression, unblest with one brother-feeling, had his dungeons filled and his scaffolds raised, and died in safety and glory—a cautious tyrant! ”

“ He sees nothing more in the midst of this imposing pomp, where the tyrant sets enthroned, than a sumptuous and mournful decoration of the dead; the apparatus of a fastuous funeral, in the centre of which is a cold and lifeless lump of unanimated earth, a phantom of power ready to disappear before the enemy, by whom it is despised! ”

“ Who but a tyrant (a name expressive of everything which can vitiate and degrade human nature) could think of seizing on the property of men, unaccused, unheard, untried, by whole descriptions, by hundreds and thousands together? ”

“ The unreflecting tyrant, that raised a mistaken fame from scenes of devastation and war, shall spurn the ground, a haughty and indignant horse; and in that form, shall learn, by dear experience, what were the sufferings and what the scourge that he inflicted on mankind. ”

“ I come before you on this auspicious occasion to declare treason—treason to the tyrant commonly called 'polite society.' I've come to the solemn conclusion that it is about time I began to prepare to live. ”

“ That famine, frenzy, woe, and penury breathe.
These are the hired bravos who defend
The tyrant's throne—the bullies of his fear:
These are the sinks and channels of worst vice,
The refuse of society, the dregs
Of all that is most vile: their cold hearts blend
Deceit with sternness, ignorance with pride,
All that is mean and villainous, with rage
Which hopelessness of good, and self-contempt,
Alone might kindle; they are decked in wealth,
Honour and power, then are sent abroad
To do their work. ”

“ The tyrant was a fallen, broken man, maimed, dumb, bullied and insulted. Aye! He, who yesterday was the Chosen of the People, the Messenger of the Most High, now sat, or rather lay, in the tumbril, with broken jaw, eyes closed, spirit already wandering on the shores of the Styx; insulted, railed at, cursed—aye, cursed!—by every woman, reviled by every child.
The end came at four in the afternoon, in the midst of acclamations from a populace drunk with gladness—acclamations which found their echo in the whole of France, and have never ceased to re-echo to this day. ”

“ A tyrant or a cabal may oppress a nation for long years. Their word may be thought absolute, their power irresistible. Tyranny seems to paralyse the courage of resistance, like the fabled head of Medusa. Remove its fascination [Pg 123] of corruption, and men become men, and not machines, once more. ”

“ At length, indeed, we see the tyrant humbled, stripped of power, but stripped by those who, in the main, are not unwilling to play the despot on a narrower scale, and to break down the spirit of nations under the same iron sway. ”

“ THE DEVOUT MAN AND THE TYRANT.
If the half of a loaf the devout man receives,
The half of that half to the wretched he gives;
But no sooner a tyrant one kingdom has ta’en,
Than the wish of his heart is another to gain. ”

“ There are nine characters in The Captive: a tyrant, two slaves, six guests, and a man. There are two scenes—a dungeon, and a banquet-hall.
A tyrant: I understand by a tyrant a man whose happiness is the unhappiness of others. I read of the discoverers of Mexico, and how they found a pyramid of human skulls, raised as a monument; that has been to me, ever since, the type of tyranny. The forms of tyranny vary through the ages, but the principle is always the same; a tyrant is a man who is made great by the toil and sorrow of others. ”

“ Clever Romance-writers create out of writing-ink and printer's-ink a new and terrible tyrant, give him a throne either in Italy or the Orient,—and then (unlike children who run away from the figure they have drawn) they step up courageously before the painted, crowned tyrant, and tell him the grandest, but boldest truths to his face, which betray the free man, and which no crooked courtling could well repeat before his sovereign. ”

“ M. We should call him a tyrant.—B. But a tyrant not only possesses no just authority over his people, but is their enemy? M. He is surely their enemy.—B. Is there not a just cause of war against an enemy who has inflicted heavy and intolerable injuries upon us? ”

“ He had made his name as the most lewd and blood-thirsty tyrant that had ever governed any country with a pretence to civilization. Strong, fearless, and energetic, he had sufficient virtue to enable him to impose his odious vices upon a cowering people for ten or twelve years. ”

“ Glad we meet the tyrant's power.
Doubts and cares before him go,
20 Canker'd jealousy behind;
Round about him spells he'll throw,
Scatt'ring with each gust of wind
On the motley crew below,
Who, like him, are render'd blind.
This is love! a tyrant kind,
Giving extacy and pain;
Fond deluder of the mind,
Ever feigning not to feign;
Whom no savage laws can bind,
30 None escape his pleasing chain.
G. Ebbare. ”

“ The Public Will, the only Right Divine, Sanctions the office, or divides the line; Topples the crown from off the tyrant's head, And puts a king to govern in his stead. Tyrant and king are vastly different things— We're robb'd by tyrants, but obey'd by kings! If it be ask'd, how the distinction's known, Oppression marks him out—the nations groan, The broken laws, the cries of injur'd blood, Are languages by all men understood! * * Tyrants lose all respect for humanity, in proportion as they are sunk beneath it; taught to believe themselves of a different species, they really become so ”

“ The depredator has intercepted the rewards of toil, and marred the image of justice, and dimmed the lustre of faith in men’s minds. The imperial tyrant has invoked a whirlwind, to lay waste, for an hour of God’s eternal year, some region of society. ”

“ Of tyrants and of traitors, honest men
May breathe the air in safety.
(Shouts from without.)
Barrere.
What means this uproar! if the tyrant band
Should gain the people once again to rise—
We are as dead! ”

“ Repentance for his ruin, when his doom
Is sealed in gold and blood!
Those too the tyrant serve, who, skilled to snare
The feet of justice in the toils of law,
Stand, ready to oppress the weaker still ”

“ I will no longer play the tyrant that, weighing good and evil by my own feelings and opinions, insists upon his acting by the notions I have formed, whatever misery they may bring him by opposing all his own. ”

“ Yes, I said; but small and great are comparative terms, and all these things, in the misery and evil which they inflict upon a State, do not come within a thousand miles of the tyrant; when this noxious class and their followers grow numerous and become conscious of their strength, assisted by the infatuation of the people, they choose from among themselves the one who has most of the tyrant in his own soul, and him they create their tyrant. ”

“ So, I was afraid! “Instans Tyrannus,” the present tyrant, the tyrant for the time only, whose apparently illimitable power to hurt shrivels into nothing in presence of the King of kings, whose dominion is everlasting.
The poor victim of this tyrant’s oppression is a true child of God, but the nobility of his inner life is of course concealed from the proud wretch who despises him, and who, it must be remembered, is the speaker throughout. ”

“ A modern tyrant, who should find no resistance either in his own breast, or in his people, would soon experience a gentle restraint from the example of his equals, the dread of present censure, the advice of his allies, and the apprehension of his enemies. ”

“ But the tyrant, after all, will become exhausted—his strength and power will fail him; he will destroy his own subjects; he will become feeble, and when he has nothing further on which to exercise his power, he will, like many another tyrant before him, sink, and be lost in the ruin he has made. ”

“ The iron hand crush’d the tyrant’s head,
And became a tyrant in his stead. ”

“ This rather portentous proposition was limited by defining the tyrant to be one who is endeavoring through cupidity, fraud, sorcery, or evil mind to deprive the king of his authority, and the subject or vassal is assumed to be one who is inspired by loyalty, and him the king should cherish and reward. ”

“ The tyrant, it has been said, is but a slave turned inside out. ”

“ Surely you would laugh to scorn such an accusation as this; and your cruel treatment of the impious would be universally applauded.
'But so it is: the public does not inquire into the character of a ruler, into the justice or injustice of his conduct; the mere name of tyranny ensures men's hatred; the tyrant might be an Aeacus, a Minos, a Rhadamanthus,—they would be none the less eager for his destruction; their thoughts ever run on those tyrants who have been bad rulers, and the good, because they bear the same name, are held in the like detestation. ”

“ Not the least in conspicuous display was an allegorical representation on a ear of the devil inciting Tyranny, crowned and dressed as a monarch, to acts of cruelty towards a group of cowering wretches in chains, whilst the angel of Liberty was be degrees releasing them from slavery, and the tyrant eventually becomes the prey of the Arch-Fiend. ”

“ In every man there sleeps a tyrant, awaiting only a favorable occasion for waking. Now the tyrant is the worst enemy of authority, because he furnishes us its intolerable caricature, whence come a multitude of social complications, collisions and hatreds. ”

“ Some, for hard masters, broken under arms, 250
In battle lopp’d away, with half their limbs, 251
Beg bitter bread through realms their valour saved,
If so the tyrant, or his minion, doom. ”

“ While it saves the conscience of the tyrant,--if such tyrants have any,--it makes doubly sure the success of their tyranny. And probably nothing short of revelation from Heaven, in shape of blinding light, would ever open their eyes to the fact that it is even more selfish to hold a generous spirit fettered hour by hour by a constant fear of giving pain than to coerce or threaten or scold them into the desired behavior. Invalids, all invalids, stand in deadly peril of becoming tyrants of this order. ”

“ Great and terrible as the tyrant may appear enthroned amid his satellites, let us not be afraid to go in and ask; and the answer is, that the monarchical is the happiest, and the tyrannical the most miserable of States. 577And may we not ask the same question about the men themselves, requesting some one to look into them who is able to penetrate the inner nature of man, and will not be panic-struck by the vain pomp of tyranny? ”

“ Monarchy was once a popular organ; yet it was turned against the people. Remember that newspapers are popular organs that may be turned against the people. Whatever the new tyrant is, he will not wear the exact uniform of the old tyrant. ”

“ But let us now hear them, as becomes men with such feelings, express more cheering and bolder hopes rising from a confidence in the supremacy of justice,—hopes which, however the Tyrant from the iron fortresses of his policy may scoff at them and at those who entertained them, will render their memory dear to all good men, when his name will be pronounced with universal abhorrence. ”

“ For what difference is there between a professed Tyrant, who declares himself a Tyrant in words, laws and deeds, as all Conquerors do, and him who promises to free me from the power of the Tyrant if I’ll assist him ”

“ It has never yet been found, that the tyrant, the plunderer, the oppressor, the most hateful of the hateful, the most profligate of the profligate, have been denied any celebrations which they were willing to purchase, or that wickedness and folly have not found correspondent flatterers through all their subordinations, except when they have been associated with avarice or poverty, and have wanted either inclination or ability to hire a panegyrist. ”