“When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”

— Thomas Jefferson

First attributed to Jefferson in 1945, this does not appear in any known Jefferson document. When governments fear the people, there is liberty... http://wiki.monticello.org/mediawiki/index.php/When_governments_fear_the_people,_there_is_liberty...(Quotation), Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia. It first appears in 1914, in [Barnhill, John Basil, John Basil Barnhill, Indictment of Socialism No. 3, Barnhill-Tichenor Debate on Socialism, http://debs.indstate.edu/b262b3_1914.pdf, PDF, 2008-10-16, 1914, National Rip-Saw Publishing, Saint Louis, Missouri, p. 34]
Misattributed
Variant: Where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Thomas Jefferson 456

3rd President of the United States of America 1743–1826

John Basil Barnhill

Indictment of Socialism (#3) http://debs.indstate.edu/b262b3_1914.pdf, transcript of Barnhill-Tichenor Debate on Socialism (1914)
This quote is often erroneously attributed to Thomas Jefferson

“The conclusions seem inescapable that in certain circles a tendency has arisen to fear people who fear government. Government, as the Father of Our Country put it so well, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. People who understand history, especially the history of government, do well to fear it. For a people to express openly their fear of those of us who are afraid of tyranny is alarming. Fear of the state is in no sense subversive. It is, to the contrary, the healthiest political philosophy for a free people.”

Jeff Cooper (1920–2006) American journalist

Jeff Cooper's Commentaries, vol. 4, no. 16, December, 1996

“If tyranny is going to come in the United States, it's going to come from people who are so fearful of the liberty of Americans, that they believe that the government should shut down all sorts of freedoms that we hold dear.”

Ben Shapiro (1984) American journalist and attorney

2018-08-01
Is The Second Civil War Coming?
The Ben Shapiro Show
593
38:35
https://soundcloud.com/benshapiroshow/ep593
2018

“When people fear surveillance, whether it exists or not, they grow afraid to speak their minds and hearts freely to their government or to anyone else.”

Sam Ervin (1896–1985) Democratic United States Senator from North Carolina

Quoted in Rick Perlstein, Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (2008), p. 549

“I fear very much that, in fact, government of the people, by the people and for the people is beginning to perish in America.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

Twitter (28 August 2016) https://twitter.com/SenSanders/status/770376321520267264
2010s, 2016

“The government in a revolution is the despotism of liberty against tyranny.”

Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) French revolutionary lawyer and politician

Original: (fr) Le gouvernement de la révolution est le despotisme de la liberté contre la tyrannie.
Source: Speech to the National Convention http://www.royet.org/nea1789-1794/archives/discours/robespierre_principes_morale_politique_05_02_94.htm (5 February 1794)

“The revolutionary government is the despotism of liberty against tyranny.”

Georg Büchner Danton's Death

Act I.
Dantons Tod (Danton's Death) (1835)

““The main cause of poverty or financial struggle is fear and ignorance, not the economy or the government or the rich. It’s self-inflicted fear and ignorance that keeps people trapped.”

Robert T. Kiyosaki (1947) American finance author , investor

Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money-That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!

“The majority falls prey to the delusion—popular in some circles—that ordinary people are too careless and stupid to own guns, and we would be far better off leaving all weapons in the hands of professionals on the government payroll. But the simple truth—born of experience—is that tyranny thrives best where government need not fear the wrath of an armed people.”

Alex Kozinski (1950) American judge

Kozinski, Alex. “An Individual’s Right to Bear Arms.” Capitalism Magazine 22 May 2003. http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=2792

“The people of a nation are enslaved when, together, they are helpless to institute effective change, when the people serve the government more than the government serves them.”

Gerry Spence (1929) American lawyer

Source: Give Me Liberty! (1998), Ch. 1 : We, the People, the New American Slaves, p. 8

“When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”

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