Quotes from Natan Sharansky

My optimism is not based primarily on the successful march of democracy in recent times but rather is based on the experience of having lived in a fear society and studied the mechanics of tyranny that sustain such a society.

The only peace that can be made with a dictator is once that must be based on deterrence. For today, the dictator may be your friend, but tomorrow he will need you as an enemy.

The central premise behind Oslo was that if Arafat were given enough legitimacy, territory, weapons and money, he would use his power to fight terror and make peace with Israel.

The message of the free world to any potential Palestinian leadership should be a simple one: Embrace democratic reform and we will embrace you.

People may believe that there can be a society where dissent is not permitted, but which is nonetheless not a fear society because everyone agrees with one another and therefore no one wants to dissent.

The three main sources of scepticism are first, that not every people desires freedom second, that democracy in certain parts of the world would be dangerous and third, that there is little the world's democracies can do to advance freedom outside their countries.

Can someone within that society walk into the town square and say what they want without fear of being punished for his or her views? If so, then that society is a free society. If not, it is a fear society.

Unfortunately, little attention was paid to how Arafat ruled. In fact, some saw the harsh and repressive nature of Arafat's regime as actually bolstering the prospects for peace.

Arafat rejected the deal because, as a dictator who had directed all his energies toward strengthening the Palestinians hatred toward Israel, Arafat could not afford to make peace.

By focusing once and for all on helping the Palestinians build a free society, I have no doubt that an historic compromise between Israelis and Palestinians can be reached and that peace can prevail.

The Americans have their spies here, and we have our people over there. You, however, are not simply a spy. You're a Soviet citizen—and a traitor. An entirely different fate awaits you.

When Jews abandon identity in the pursuit of universal freedom, they end up with neither.

thought of this introductory part of the interrogation as the Manilov-Chichikov routine, after the characters in Gogol's Dead Souls who dawdled at great length at the door, each trying to let the other enter first. But whereas in Gogol's novel the two men eventually went through the door together, I never permitted myself to violate the etiquette of the investigation.

Over the years, I have come to understand a critical difference between the world of fear and the world of freedom. In the former, the primary challenge is finding the strength to confront evil. In the latter, the primary challenge is finding the moral clarity to see evil.

A lack of moral clarity is why an Israeli journalist compared a kipa to a prison. It is why people in free societies cannot distinguish between religious fundamentalists in democratic states and religious terrorists in fundamentalist states. It is why people in free societies can come to see their fellow citizens as their enemies and foreign dictators as their friends.