Veronica Roth Quotes

People demand freedom only when they have no power.

Force, no matter how concealed, begets resistance.

Conquerors never, never conquer a nation to bring freedom. They brought control.

My instincts are always against people who want to fasten some sort of hegemony onto things.

There is no such thing as liberty. You only change one sort of domination for another. All we can do is to choose our master.

The tyrant is only the slave turned inside out.

Truth is always the enemy of power. And power the enemy of truth.

A people that patiently lets itself be trampled, deserves to be trampled and crushed.

… so long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.

No one can go on being a rebel too long without becoming an autocrat.

Wild beasts hate nets, and people hate their superiors.

Every organism, every human being, must conquer or serve.

You only have power over people so long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of everything he’s no longer in your power — he’s free again.

The tyranny of some is possible only through the cowardice of others.

If we fail to see that there are powers that cause people to be bowed down in bondage, we are going to fight the wrong battle.

It is in the nature of tyranny to deride the will of the people as the voice of the mob, and to denounce the cry for freedom as the roar of anarchy.

The establishment, whatever rewards it gives us, will also, if necessary to maintain it's control, kill us

For some people, being free means being free to keep their feet on someone else's chest.

The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master.

Let people hate you so long as they fear you.

Have you any idea how much tyrants fear the people they oppress?

The master who fears the choices his people will make enough to take those choices away isn't worth serving.

Free people can treat each other justly, but they can't make life fair. To get rid of the unfairness among individuals, you have to exercise power over them. The more fairness you want, the more power you need. Thus, all dreams of fairness become dreams of tyranny in the end.

Why are the people rebellious? Because the rulers interfere too much. Therefore they are rebellious.

Beware the People weeping When they bare the iron hand.