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'Twixt kings and tyrants there's this difference known:
Kings seek their subjects' good, tyrants their own.

— Robert Herrick Hesperides (1648)

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More quotes by Robert Herrick

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.

Hesperides (1648)

Attempt the end, and never stand to doubt;
Nothing's so hard but search will find it out.

Hesperides (1648)

Thou art a plant sprung up to wither never,
But like a laurel to grow green for ever.

Hesperides (1648)

Against diseases here the strongest fence
Is the defensive virtue, abstinence.

Hesperides (1648)

If well thou hast begun, go on fore-right;
It is the end that crowns us, not the fight.

Hesperides (1648)

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The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.

John Adams A Defence of the Constitutions of Government (1787)

There is no governor anywhere; you are all absolutely free. There is no restraint that cannot be escaped.

Robert Anton Wilson

When we see a great man desiring power instead of his real goal we soon recognize that he is sick, or more precisely that his attitude to his work is sick.

Martin Buber What is Man? (1938)

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

C. S. Lewis God in the Dock (1970)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Robert Herrick (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.