Totalitarian Government Quotes

• The fundamental basis of this nation’s laws was given to Moses on the Mount…If we don’t have a proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in rights for anybody except the State.

  Harry S. Truman

  Believe, Rights, Government

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• The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law and particularly to deny him the judgement of his peers is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist.

  Winston Churchill

  Men, Law, Liberty

  Winston Churchill (1952). “The Second World War”

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• There is danger that totalitarian governments, not subject to vigorous popular debate, will underestimate the will and unity of democratic societies where vital interests are concerned.

  John F. Kennedy

  Government, Unity, Underestimate

  Kennedy, John F. (1962). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1961”, p.477, Best Books on

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• A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Equality, Government, Liberty

  "Law, Legislation and Liberty" by Friedrich August von Hayek, Vol. 2 : The Mirage of Social Justice, (Ch. 9), 1976.

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• A tax-supported, compulsory educational system is the complete model of the totalitarian state.

  Isabel Paterson

  Education, Historical, Liberty

  Isabel Paterson (1993). “God of the Machine”, p.258, Transaction Publishers

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• The one process now going on that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us.

  E. O. Wilson

  Loss, Years, Diversity

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• It belongs among the refinements of totalitarian government in our century that they don't permit their opponents to die a great, dramatic martyr's death for their convictions.

  Hannah Arendt

  Government, Opponents, Dramatic

  Hannah Arendt (2006). “Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil”, p.206, Penguin

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• The real problem is that "limited government" invariably leads to unlimited government. If history is to be any guide and current experience is to be any guide, we in the United States 200 years ago started out with the notion of limited government - virtually no government interference - and we now have a massive quasi-totalitarian government.

  Murray Bookchin

  Real, Years, Government

  Interview with Jeff Riggenbach, reason.com. October 1979.

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• The essence of totalitarian government, and perhaps the nature of every bureaucracy, is to make functionaries and mere cogs in the administrative machinery out of men, and thus to dehumanize them. And one can debate long and profitably on the rule of Nobody, which is what the political form known as bureau-cracy truly is….we have become very much accustomed by modern psychology and sociology, not to speak of modern bureaucracy, to explaining away the responsibility of the doer for his deed in terms of this or that kind of determinism.

  Hannah Arendt

  Responsibility, Men, Essence

  "The Origins of Totalitarianism". Book by Hannah Arendt, progressive.org. 1951.

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• Procrustes in modern dress, the nuclear scientist will prepare the bed on which mankind must lie; and if mankind doesn’t fit—well, that will be just too bad for mankind. There will have to be some stretching and a bit of amputation—the same sort of stretching and amputations as have been going on ever since applied science really got going into its stride, only this time they will be a good deal more drastic than in the past. These far from painless operations will be directed by highly centralized totalitarian governments.

  Aldous Huxley

  Lying, Past, Government

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• I love talking about Kennedy assassination...a great archetypal example of how totalitarian government...sorry, wrong meeting.

  Bill Hicks

  Sorry, Government, Talking

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• The worst thing that will probably happen-in fact is already well underway-is not energy depletion, economic collapse, conventional war, or the expansion of totalitarian governments. As terrible as these catastrophes would be for us, they can be repaired in a few generations. The one process now going on that will take millions of years to correct is loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us.

  E. O. Wilson

  War, Loss, Government

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• I've been fascinated by Machiavelli since I was very young. I've always felt that he had a bad rap from history, and that he was actually a person quite unlike what we now think of as Machiavellian. He was a republican. He disliked totalitarian government.

  Salman Rushdie

  Rap, Thinking, Government

  "Salman Rushdie Spins a Yarn". Interview with James Mustich, www.barnesandnoble.com. June 2, 2008.

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• But even the Four Horsemen of Kidporn, Dope Dealers, Mafia and Terrorists don't worry me as much as totalitarian governments. It's been a long century, and we've had enough of them.

  Bruce Sterling

  Dope, Government, Long

  "So, people, we have a fight on our hands" by Bruce Sterling, www.wired.com. July 1, 1994.

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• Officially in America we now have a totally arbitrary and limitless government. That is, we have a ‘total government.’ In short, we’ve got totalitarian government.

  Richard Salsman

  Government, America, Arbitrary

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