Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.
AristotleRead
Tyrants preserve themselves by sowing fear and mistrust among the citizens by means of spies, by distracting them with foreign wars, by eliminating men of spirit who might lead a revolution, by humbling the people, and making them incapable of decisive action.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Tyrants maintain control through fear, manipulation, and suppression of potential leaders.
This quote from Aristotle highlights the methods by which tyrants assert and maintain their power over a populace. By instilling fear and distrust, using spies to monitor citizens, engaging in foreign conflicts to divert attention, and oppressing capable individuals who could incite resistance, tyrants create an environment where people are discouraged from taking decisive actions against oppression. The emphasis is on the systematic degradation of civic virtue and unity as a strategy for sustaining authoritarian rule.
Themes
TyrannyFearControlOppressionManipulationLeadership
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of transparency in government, one might quote Aristotle's insight on tyranny.
More from Aristotle
All quotes →Those who cannot bravely face danger are the slaves of their attackers.
AristotleRead
For often, when one is asleep, there is something in consciousness which declares that what then presents itself is but a dream.
AristotleRead
You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.
AristotleRead
But if nothing but soul, or in soul mind, is qualified to count, it is impossible for there to be time unless there is soul, but only that of which time is an attribute, i.e. if change can exist without soul.
AristotleRead
The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
AristotleRead
Similar quotes
The idea that God could only forgive our sins by having his son tortured to death as a scapegoat is surely, from an objective point of view, a deeply unpleasant idea. If God wanted to forgive us our sins, why didn't he just forgive them? Why did he have to have his son tortured?
Richard DawkinsRead
For all things are baptized at the font of eternity, and beyond good and evil; good and evil themselves, however, are but intervening shadows and damp afflictions and passing clouds.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
If you have not discovered something you are willing to die for, then you are not fit to live.
Martin Luther King, Jr.Read
Commerce has set the mark of selfishness, the signet of its all-enslaving power, upon a shining ore, and called it gold: before whose image bow the vulgar great, the vainly rich, the miserable proud, the mob of peasants, nobles, priests, and kings, and with blind feelings reverence the power that grinds them to the dust of misery.
Percy Bysshe ShelleyRead
I didn't think of myself as an outsider because of my race because... where I grew up I was the same race as almost everyone else... It is true that I noticed things that no one else seemed to notice. And I think only people who are outsiders do this.
Jamaica KincaidRead
We are exploring together. We are cultivating a garden together, backs to the sun. The question is a hoe in our hands and we are digging beneath the hard and crusty surface to the rich humus of our lives.
Parker J. PalmerRead