Skip to content

Thomas Aquinas on Power

1220–1274 Italy

← All quotes by Thomas Aquinas

3 quotes

One who liberates his country by killing a tyrant is to be praised and rewarded.

Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard (1254)

When government is unjustly exercised by one man who seeks personal profit from his position instead of the good of the community subject to him, such a ruler is called a tyrant.

When what is ordered by an authority is opposed to the object for which that authority was constituted, ... not only is there no obligation to obey the authority, but one is obliged to disobey it, as did the holy martyrs who suffered death rather than obey the impious commands of tyrants.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Thomas Aquinas (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.