Tyranny
Is far the worst of treasons.  Dost thou deem
None rebels except subjects?  The prince who
Neglects or violates his trust is more
A brigand than the robber-chief.
The Two Foscari, Act ii.  Sc. 1.  LORD BYRON.

Slaves would be tyrants if the chance were theirs. The Vanished City.  V. HUGO.

’Twixt kings and tyrants there’s this difference known: 
Kings seek their subjects’ good, tyrants their owne.
Kings and Tyrants.  R. HERRICK.

                 Oh! it is excellent
  To have a giant’s strength; but it is tyrannous
  To use it like a giant.

* * * * *

Could great men thunder
As Jove himself does, Jove would ne’er be quiet;
For every pelting, petty officer
Would use his heaven for thunder,—­
Nothing but thunder.  Merciful Heaven! 
Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt,
Split’st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak,
Than the soft myrtle:  but man, proud man! 
Drest in a little brief authority,—­
Most ignorant of what he’s most assured,
His glassy essence,—­like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven,
As make the angels weep; who, with our spleens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal.

VANITY.

  As eddies draw things frivolous and light,
  How is man’s heart by vanity drawn in!
Night Thoughts DR. E. YOUNG.

  One prospect lost, another still we gain;
  And not a vanity is giv’n in vain: 
  Even mean Self-love becomes, by force divine,
  The scale to measure others’ wants by thine.
Essay on Man, Epistle II.  A. POPE.

  Sir Plume (of amber snuff-box justly vain,
  And the nice conduct of a clouded cane),
  With earnest eyes, and round unthinking face,
  He first the snuff-box opened, then the case.
Rape of the Lock A. POPE.

  Light vanity, insatiate cormorant. 
  Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.
King Richard II., Act ii.  Sc.  I.  SHAKESPEARE.

VARIETY.

  The earth was made so various, that the mind
  Of desultory man, studious of change. 
  And pleased with novelty, might be indulged.
The Task, Bk.  I.  W. COWPER.

  Variety’s the very spice of life. 
  That gives it all its flavor.
The Timepiece:  The Task, Bk.  II W. COWPER.

  Not chaos-like together crushed and bruised. 
  But, as the world, harmoniously confused,
  Where order in variety we see,
  And where, though all things differ, all agree.
Windsor Forest A. POPE.

  How various his employments whom the world
  Calls idle, and who justly in return
  Esteems that busy world an idler too!
The Task:  The Timepiece.  W. COWPER.