James Harrington Quotes

Our laws are ultimately all that protect us from tyranny, and before them we are all equal - prime ministers and private citizens alike.

Democracy is better than tyranny.

Democratic institutions form a system of quarantine for tyrannical desires.

It is ingrained into our national life that the rule of law makes us free.

Wherever law ends, tyranny begins.

Liberty dies in the hearts of men and women: when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it.

In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for. Now, as always, they stand for democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not subjection; and against a dictatorship by mob rule and the over-privileged alike.

When dictators and tyrants seek to destroy the freedoms of men, their first target is the legal profession and through it the rule of law.

If dictatorship is the concentration of power, freedom consists in its diffusion.

Liberty... is there only when there is no abuse of power.

The way to secure liberty is to place it in the people's hands, that is, to give them the power at all times to defend it in the legislature and in the courts of justice.

"Magna Carta is the Law: Let the King look out." So it has always been with tyrants among our own people: when the King was tyrant, let him look out. And it has always been the same, and will be the same, whether the tyrant be the Barons, whether the tyrant be the Church, whether he be demagogue or dictator - let them look out.

A country that goes out of its way to imprison the innocent has no business preaching democracy to the world.

Instead of that liberty which takes root and growth in the progress of reason, if recovered by mere force or accident, it becomes with an unprepared people a tyranny still of the many, the few, or the one.

For me democracy is the only way of life. The opposite is dictatorship or anarchy.

Everywhere that freedom stirs, let tyrants fear.

Freedom is contagious. That's why despots fear it so much.

No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our history has determined the very existence of politics, the cause of freedom versus tyranny.

Freedom is never easily won, but once established, freedom lasts, spreads and chokes out tyranny.

The desire for liberty has also made itself felt as struggle against domestic tyranny or arbitrary rule.

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.

There have been in this century only one great man and one great thing: Napoleon and liberty. For want of the great man, let us have the great thing.

There is no such thing as a little freedom. Either you are all free, or you are not free.

Anywhere, anytime ordinary people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same: freedom, not tyranny; democracy, not dictatorship; the rule of law, not the rule of the secret police.

Ultimately, freedom and democracy are stronger than fear and tyranny.