Fantastic doctrines (like Christianity or Islam or Marxism) require unanimity of belief. One dissenter casts doubt on the creed of millions. Thus the fear and the hate; thus the torture chamber, the iron stake, the gallows, the labor camp, the psychiatric ward.
more Edward Abbey quotes
Fear is the foundation of most governments; but it is so sordid and brutal a passion, and renders men in whose breasts it predominates so stupid and miserable, that Americans will not be likely to approve of any political institution which is founded on it.
more John Adams quotes
For somehow this is tyranny's disease, to trust no friends.
more Aeschylus quotes
Self-conceit may lead to self-destruction.
more Aesop quotes
I have everything, yet have nothing; and although I possess nothing, still of nothing am I in want.
more Publius Terentius Afer quotes
The first step to truly living a good and fearless life, is accepting responsibility for your actions. Accepting what part you had in any situation. Difficult, to say the least, but liberating.
more Jann Arden quotes
The moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen. What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed? If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. This is because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, and a lying government has constantly to rewrite its own history. On the receiving end you get not only one lie -- a lie which you could go on for the rest of your days -- but you get a great number of lies, depending on how the political wind blows. And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please.
more Hannah Arendt quotes
Totalitarianism begins in contempt for what you have. The second step is the notion: “Things must change—no matter how, Anything is better than what we have.” Totalitarian rulers organize this kind of mass sentiment, and by organizing it articulate it, and by articulating it make the people somehow love it. They were told before, thou shalt not kill; and they didn’t kill. Now they are told, thou shalt kill; and although they think it’s very difficult to kill, they do it because it’s now part of the code of behavior. They learn whom to kill and how to kill and how to do it together. This is the much talked about Gleichschaltung—the coordination process. You are coordinated not with the powers that be, but with your neighbor—coordinated with the majority. But instead of communicating with the other you are now glued to him. And you feel of course marvelous. Totalitarianism appeals to the very dangerous emotional needs of people who live in complete isolation and in fear of one another.
more Hannah Arendt quotes
The three aims of the tyrant are, one, the humiliation of his subjects; he knows that a mean-spirited man will not conspire against anybody; two, the creation of mistrust among them; for a tyrant is not to be overthrown until men begin to have confidence in one another -- and this is the reason why tyrants are at war with the good; they are under the idea that their power is endangered by them, not only because they will not be ruled despotically, but also because they are too loyal to one another and to other men, and do not inform against one another or against other men -- three, the tyrant desires that all his subjects shall be incapable of action, for no one attempts what is impossible and they will not attempt to overthrow a tyranny if they are powerless.
more Aristotle quotes
The quintessential revolution is that of the spirit, born of an intellectual conviction of the need for change in those mental attitudes and values which shape the course of a nation's development. A revolution which aims merely at changing official policies and institutions with a view to an improvement in material conditions has little chance of genuine success. Without a revolution in spirit, the forces which had produced inequities of the old order would continue to be operative, posing a constant threat to the process of reform and regeneration. It is not enough merely to call for freedom, democracy and human rights. There has to be a united determination to persevere in the struggle, to make sacrifices in the name of enduring truths, to resist the corrupting influences of desire, ill will, ignorance, and fear.
more Aung San Suu Kyi quotes
The man who fears no truths has nothing to fear from lies.
more Sir Francis Bacon quotes
A just fear of an imminent danger, though there be no blow given, is a lawful cause of war.
more Sir Francis Bacon quotes
So long as there are earnest believers in the world, they will always wish to punish opinions, even if their judgment tells them it is unwise and their conscience tells them it is wrong.
more Walter Bagehot quotes
Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state lives at the expense of everyone.
more Frederic Bastiat quotes
The country's first drug ban explicitly targeted the opium of "the heathen Chinee." Cocaine was first banned in the south to prevent an uprising of hopped-up "cocainized Negroes.
more Dan Baum quotes
Conformities are called for much more eagerly today than yesterday... skeptics, liberals, individuals with a taste for private life and their own inner standards of behavior, are objects of fear and derision and targets of persecution for either side... in the great ideological wars of our time.
more Isaiah Berlin quotes
Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.
more Ambrose Bierce quotes
Heathen, n. A benighten creature who has the folly to worship something that he can see and feel.
more Ambrose Bierce quotes
We must abandon the prevalent belief in the superior wisdom of the ignorant.
more Daniel Boorstin quotes
Without an unfettered press, without liberty of speech, all of the outward forms and structures of free institutions are a sham, a pretense -- the sheerest mockery. If the press is not free; if speech is not independent and untrammeled; if the mind is shackled or made impotent through fear, it makes no difference under what form of government you live, you are a subject and not a citizen.
more William E. Borah quotes
The constitutional right of free speech has been declared to be the same in peace and war. In peace, too, men may differ widely as to what loyalty to our country demands, and an intolerant majority, swayed by passion or by fear, may be prone in the future, as it has been in the past, to stamp as disloyal opinions with which it disagrees.
more Justice Louis D. Brandeis quotes
There exists a “fear of freedom” of selfhood, which makes people want to submerge themselves in the mass and confession is one of the obvious means by which they can do so, for thereby they lose those traits which cause them to feel separate.
more James A. C. Brown quotes
The mortalist enemy unto knowledge, and that which hath done the greatest execution unto truth, has been a preemptory adhesion unto authority.
more Sir Thomas Browne quotes
It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.
more Giordano Bruno quotes
If you are afraid to speak against tyranny, then you are already a slave.
more John "Birdman" Bryant quotes
The whole secret of existence is to have no fear. Never fear what will become of you, depend on no one. Only the moment you reject all help are you freed.
more Buddha quotes
Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.
more Edmund Burke quotes
No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.
more Edmund Burke quotes
The people never give up their liberties, but under some delusion.
more Edmund Burke quotes
Dare to be honest and fear no labor.
more Robert Burns quotes
The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We've removed an ally of al Qaeda.
more George W. Bush quotes
We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans, and confront the worst threats before they emerge.
more George W. Bush quotes
We will fight with full force and might of the United States military.
more George W. Bush quotes
We're too great a nation to allow the evildoers to affect our soul.
more George W. Bush quotes
Our enemies are a radical network of terrorists -- and every government that supports them.
more George W. Bush quotes
We have every reason to assume the worst.
more George W. Bush quotes
And our security will require all Americans to be forward-looking and resolute, to be ready for pre-emptive action.
more George W. Bush quotes
Saddam Hussein's regime is a gray and gathering danger.
more George W. Bush quotes
There will be no going back to the era before September 11th, 2001, to false comfort in a dangerous world.
more George W. Bush quotes
Today the Justice Department did issue a blanket alert. It was in recognition of a general threat we received. This is not the first time the Justice Department have acted like this. I hope it is the last. But given the attitude of the evildoers, it may not be.
more George W. Bush quotes
Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.
more George W. Bush quotes
The one serious conviction that a man should have is that nothing is to be taken too seriously.
more Nicholas Murray Butler quotes
Men willingly believe what they wish.
more Gaius Julius Caesar quotes
I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones.
more John Cage quotes
Today the grand jury is the total captive of the prosecutor who, if he is candid, will concede that he can indict anybody, at any time, for almost anything, before any grand jury.
more William J. Campbell quotes
Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear.
more Albert Camus quotes
If you fear making anyone mad, then you ultimately probe for the lowest common denominator of human achievement.
more Jimmy Carter quotes
At the bottom of a good deal of bravery... lurks a miserable cowardice. Men will face powder and steel because they cannot face public opinion.
more E. H. Chapin quotes
Forms of expression always appear turgid to those who do not share the emotions they represent.
more Gilbert Keith Chesterton quotes
If you stand straight, do not fear a crooked shadow.
more Chinese Proverb quotes
 Get a Quote-A-Day! 
Fear Quotes 1-50 out of 195
   Next 50 Fear quotes>>
 
Quotes: Index by Author
A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M - N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z

More Quotations
Get a Quote-A-Day! Free!
Liberty Quotes sent to your mail box.
RSS Subscribe
Liberty Quotes & Quotations

© 1998-2024 Liberty-Tree.ca