Democracy was the right of the people to choose their own…

Crisis is the rallying cry of the tyrant.

— James Madison

A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a people…

— Thomas Jefferson

I would rather be my own tyrant than have someone else tyrannize me.

— Henry Flagler

In the States, I learned to fight for every idea. Sometimes, a director has to be a tyrant to keep the quality.

— Jean-Pierre Jeunet

But if one wishes to be absolute master of all, to obtain the entire inheritance, and to exclude his brothers from even a third…

— Gregory of Nyssa

Between a tyrant and a prince there is this single or chief difference, that the latter obeys the law and rules the people by…

— John of Salisbury

A wicked tyrant is better than a wicked war.

— Martin Luther

The government is a tyrant living by theft, and therefore has no business to engage in any business.

— Benjamin Tucker

Let us render the tyrant no aid.

— Frederick Douglass

A tyrant does not remain in the world; But the curse on him abides forever!

— Bill Vaughan

[It is a basic principle of a tyrant] to unarm his people of weapons, money and all means whereby they resist his power.

— Walter Raleigh

Every apathetic individual is a brick in a tyrant's throne.

— Philip Slater

Love reigns a very tyrant in my heart.

— Thomas Otway

I will never, for the future, paint the portrait of a tyrant until his head lies before me on the scaffold.

— Jacques-Louis David

The tyrant has fallen, and Iraq is free.

— George W. Bush