Life & Wisdom Quote by Jose Rizal

Power doesn’t just arrive on horseback; it gets waved in by people who decide it’s safer to look away. Rizal’s line is calibrated to shame a public that wants the moral comfort of innocence without the risk of resistance. “Tyranny” here isn’t framed as a mysterious evil force but as a practical arrangement, a system that requires collaboration. The most brutal move is grammatical: the tyrant is not the sole agent. The sentence relocates responsibility onto “others,” making passivity an enabling act rather than a neutral absence.

The key word is “cowardice,” which Rizal uses less as an insult than as a diagnosis of political paralysis. Cowardice isn’t simply fear; it’s fear that’s been rationalized into routine. It’s the small daily bargains - keeping your job, preserving your status, staying in the church’s good graces - that add up to a functioning regime. By implying that tyranny is “possible only” through this behavior, Rizal strips away the romantic narrative that oppression is inevitable. He’s arguing that authoritarian power is contingent, dependent on the compliance of clerks, neighbors, editors, and the quietly obedient.

Context sharpens the blade. Writing under Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines, Rizal saw how censorship, clerical influence, and bureaucratic violence thrived not merely through force but through the disciplined silence of those who benefited, or hoped not to be targeted. The quote is a call to civic courage, but it’s also a warning: the first casualty of cowardice isn’t pride; it’s agency.