Source: The Jewels of Aptor (1962), Chapter X (p. 133)
Context: A lesson which history should have taught us thousands of years ago was finally driven home. No man can wield absolute power over other men and still retain his own mind. For no matter how good his intentions are when he takes up the power, his alternate reason is that freedom, the freedom of other people and ultimately his own, terrifies him. Only a man afraid of freedom would want this power, who could conceive of wielding it. And that fear of freedom will turn him into a slave of this power.
“Let them fear bondage who are slaves to fear;
The sweetest freedom is an honest heart.”
Act I, sc. iii.
The Lady's Trial (1638)
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John Ford (dramatist) 33
dramatist 1586–1639Related quotes
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 106
“Let them hate, so long as they fear.”
Oderint dum metuant.
From Atreus, quoted in Seneca, Dialogues, Books III–V "De Ira", I, 20, 4. (16 BC)
Concurring, Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357, 376 (1927).
Judicial opinions
“The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.”
“Be fearless, let fearlessness radiate from you and dispel fear in the hearts of others.”
The Himalayan Masters: A Living Tradition (2002)
“Let them hate me, so that they will but fear me.”
Oderint, dum metuant.
Quoted in The Tyrants : 2500 Years of Absolute Power and Corruption (2006), p. 27 London: Quercus Publishing, ISBN 1905204965 , these derive from a statement by Suetonius, included below, in which he states these words were often used by Caligula, but imply that he was quoting the tragedian Accius.
Disputed
“Let them hate us as long as they fear us.”
1860s, Letter to Alexander H. Stephens (1860)