Quotes About Authoritarianism

It might be useful to think about authoritarianism, totalitarianism, or any kind of dictatorship in the same way we think about dangerous, life-threatening, infectious diseases. The best prevention against such a disease is to build immunity. Education is like a vaccination. Understanding history is part of the process of making ourselves more immune to the dangers of dictatorship.

I loathe and detest all this trivialisation of politics.

history has shown that the removal of all restraints of reason and morality leads not to liberation but to fascism.

Whatever promises offered by dictators in any negotiated settlement, no one should ever forget that the dictators may promise anything to secure submission from their democratic opponents, and then brazenly violate those same agreements.

We may be facing a generation of struggle to defend liberal democracy and human rights from authoritarian nationalism. There is a danger of a contraction of world trade and even of a major war. These threats make action more urgent. The Left is better equipped to win this struggle, as long as it understands and avoids the errors of its past.

The varieties of skullduggery which make up the repertoire of the totalitarian government are just about as unlimited as human ingenuity itself, and just about as unpleasant. For, as you know, no holds are barred. There are no rules of the game. They can do anything that they think is in their interests.

The accords were fig leaves of democratic procedure to hide the nakedness of Stalinist dictatorship.

El general Augusto Pinochet encabezó una Junta Militar y pronto habría de convertirse en la personificación de la dictadura. La represión fue instantánea, fulminante y a fondo.

The spotless order of barracks and the artificial peace of fear reigned everywhere.

He proposed a socialist system that respected civil rights, an experiment that no one had attempted before.

but his monumental pride prevented him from recognizing in the man any virtues beyond those that marked him as a good peon.

The prestige of the international financial institutions rates less than zero.

A source of embarrassment for Libyans, Gadhafi has never been a joke: disappearances, a police state, zero freedom of expression, and poverty for at least a third of the population of country tremendously wealthy thanks to oil.

The world has to have zero tolerance for naked dictatorship.

For Ghana to suggest that they will turn off the Internet, in addition to other countries that have done it like Uganda, Zimbabwe, DRC, Burundi, Chad and others, that's worrying.

I probably will not live to see Turkey become an exemplary democracy, but I pray that the downward authoritarian drift can be stopped before it is too late.

Turkey's regime is fast degenerating into outright dictatorship, emboldened by the imminent ascent of Donald Trump to the most powerful position on Earth.

The government in Turkey, which represents the powerful, traditionalist mass, is very comfortable creating policies tailored only for their supporters.

Mugabe's become a disgrace to Africa. And I must say this because I am an African and a lot of us looked up to him back in the 1980s when he was the liberation hero. But he's now turned himself into a murderous despot.

I looked at Putin and was terrified from the very beginning. That makes me look very prescient because he actually turned out to be exactly the monster that I thought he was.

Bashar Assad clearly doesn't want to hear anything that impugns his government.

Authoritarians tend to consolidate support by using fear, but more importantly by driving a wedge among the people that they want to control.

Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.

All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it.