““What do you mean by a tyrant?”
“One whose blood was poisoned by the ambition to rule over others.””

— Steven Erikson , book Gardens of the Moon

Source: Gardens of the Moon (1999), Chapter 10 (p. 309)

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Steven Erikson 136

Canadian fantasy author 1959

Related quotes

“What do you mean by a tyrant?”

Steven Erikson book Gardens of the Moon

“One whose blood was poisoned by the ambition to rule over others.”
Source: Gardens of the Moon (1999), Chapter 10 (p. 309)

“Better be poisoned in one's own blood then to be poisoned in one's principle.”

Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1890–1988) Indian independence activist

As quoted by Governor Barnett's Declaration to the Profile of Mississippi Broadcast via TV and Radio. Sep. 13, 1962 http://microsites.jfklibrary.org/olemiss/controversy/doc2.html without citation and in An unknown legend of India: A bharat ratna By Gaurav Pundeer https://books.google.com/books?isbn=3736889569
Famous speeches

“The tyrant dies and his rule is over; the martyr dies and his rule begins.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

1848
1840s, The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1840s
Source: The Journals of Kierkegaard

“There is not one of you whose actions do not operate on the actions of others — operate, we mean, in the way of example.”

Henry Melvill (1798–1871) British academic

"Partaking in Other Men's Sins", an address at St. Margaret's Church, Lothbury, England (12 June 1855), printed in Golden Lectures (1855); eventually part of this statement become paraphrased in several slight variations, and has usually been misattributed to Herman Melville, i.e.: "We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and along these fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects".
Context: There is not one of you whose actions do not operate on the actions of others — operate, we mean, in the way of example. He would be insignificant who could only destroy his own soul; but you are all, alas! of importance enough to help also to destroy the souls of others.... Ye cannot live for yourselves; a thousand fibres connect you with your fellow-men, and along those fibres, as along sympathetic threads, run your actions as causes, and return to you as effects.

“Do you realize sufficiently what it means to rule—to rule in a secret society? Not only over the lesser or more important of the populace, but over the best of men, over men of all ranks, nations, and religions, to rule without external force, to unite them indissolubly, to breathe one spirit and soul into them, men distributed over all parts of the world?”

Adam Weishaupt (1748–1830) German philosopher and founder of the Order of Illuminati

"Greeting to the newly integrated illuminatos dirigentes", in Nachtrag von weitern Originalschriften vol. 2 (1787) p. 45.

“There's just one rule for politicians all over the world: Don't say in Power what you say in Opposition; if you do, you only have to carry out what the other fellows have found impossible.”

John Galsworthy (1867–1933) English novelist and playwright

Maid in Waiting (1931), Ch. 7

“What is food to one, is to others bitter poison.”
Ut quod ali cibus est aliis fuat acre venenum.

Lucretius (-94–-55 BC) Roman poet and philosopher

Book IV, line 637 (reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations)
Compare: "What's one man's poison, signor, / Is another's meat or drink", Beaumont and Fletcher, Love's Cure (1647), Act III, scene 2
De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things)