Dalai Lama Quotes

If officials are too forceful, people will revolt.

When dictatorship is a fact, revolution becomes a right.

The seed of revolution is repression.

Death to Pharaoh!

If any person has a good word for the previous government that is good enough for me to have him shot.

A State infinitely worse than that which the most inflamed Zealot, the most violent Republican or Enthusiast even pretended to dread before the Rebellion commenced.

You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising. There are no counterexamples. None. It's not if, it's when.

History dictates that unresponsive governments force ordinary people to do extraordinary things.

Tyranny may precipitate a revolutionary movement at any time.

Revolution is engendered by an indignation with tyranny, yet is itself pregnant with tyranny

Many who tried to enlighten were hanged from the lamppost.

It is authority that provokes revolution....

Old forms of government finally grow so oppressive, that they must be thrown off even at the risk of reigns of terror.

I not only weaken the opposition, I’m going to make them dead ... and if anyone is strong enough to try to hold a demonstration, I will beat all those dogs and put them in a cage.

We know what the birth of a revolution looks like: A student stands before a tank. A fruit seller sets himself on fire. A line of monks link arms in a human chain. Crowds surge, soldiers fire, gusts of rage pull down the monuments of tyrants, and maybe, sometimes, justice rises from the flames.

In contrast, fear societies are societies in which dissent is banned.

The last resort of kings, the cannonball. The last resort of the people, the paving stone.

What was taken by force, can only be restored by force.

Fascism is fascism. Terrorism is terrorism. Oppression is oppression.

From behind the Iron Curtain, there are signs that tyranny is in trouble and reminders that its structure is as brittle as its surface is hard.

Fight the power that be. Fight the power.

If we got into a situation where people start burning our records, then bring it on. That's the whole point. The gloaming has begun. We're in the darkness. This has happened before. Go read some history.

The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it.

Unless something drastic is done very soon, then bloodshed and violence are going to happen…almost inevitably… A people made desperate by despair and injustice and oppression will use desperate means.

I fear that, tired of anarchy, you may hope at the end for a return of oppression and that you may welcome the yoke of the first fortunate adventurer who shows up, who, far from consolidating your destiny, will only prolong your servitude