Dictator Quotes - Page 18

• The first country conquered by any dictator is his own country.

  Pete Seeger

  Country, Firsts

  Source: portside.org

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• It is an illusion to suppose that a Dictator makes himself; at most he seizes an opportunity made for him by passive, stupid, incompetent, and above all, unsatisfied and fearful men.

  Susan Stebbing

  Stupid, Opportunity, Men

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• The Hollywood atmosphere of crises and continuous anxiety is a kind of hysteria which prevents people from thinking, and is not too different from the way dictators use wars and continuous threats of war as an emotional basis for maintaining their power.

  Hortense Powdermaker

  War, Emotional, Thinking

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• Warlords, dictators and terrorists are normally okay with the U.S., as long as they do the bidding of U.S. corporate interests.

  Brendan Sexton III

  Long, Bidding, Warlords

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• Tyrants and dictators will accept no other gods before them. They require disobedience to the First Commandment. They seek absolute control and are threatened by faith in God. They fear only the power they cannot possess - the power of truth. So they resent the living example of the devout, especially the devotion of a unique people chosen by God.

  George W. Bush

  Humor, Unique, Tyrants

  "Bush Speaks At Holocaust Memorial Event". www.cnn.com. April 19, 2001.

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• These, then, are the four kinds of royalty. First the monarchy of the heroic ages; this was exercised over voluntary subjects, but limited to certain functions; the king was a general and a judge, and had the control of religion The second is that of the barbarians, which is a hereditary despotic government in accordance with law. A third is the power of the so-called Aesynmete or Dictator; this is an elective tyranny. The fourth is the Lacedaemonian, which is in fact a generalship, hereditary and perpetual.

  Aristotle

  Kings, Government, Law

  Aristotle (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Aristotle (Illustrated)”, p.3028, Delphi Classics

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• The teacher loses the position of external boss or dictator but takes on that of leader of group activities

  John Dewey

  Teacher, Leader, Boss

  John Dewey (1998). “Experience and Education, 60th Anniversary Edition”, p.66, Kappa Delta Pi

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• I've met quite a few dictators up close and personal in my life.

  Paul Wolfowitz

  Mets

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• After the death of the sadistic dictator Gen. Sanni Abacha in 1998, Nigeria underwent a one-year transitional military administration headed by Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, who uncharacteristically bowed out precisely on the promised date for military disengagement. Did the military truly disengage, however? No.

  Wole Soyinka

  Military, Years, Administration

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• The president, who finds so much to complain about in other areas of the world, apparently saw nothing wrong in recognizing a Communist regime that has killed more people in its short history of control over the teeming millions of that great country than any other collection of dictators or tyrants in the history of the world.

  Barry Goldwater

  Country, War, Tyrants

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• We have to recognize that there is a strong, fresh wind blowing, powered by these new information technologies. It will be increasingly difficult for dictators to impose their will through sheer brutality.

  John F. Kerry

  Strong, Technology, Wind Blowing

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• Dictating to dictators doesn't work; they are congenitally delusional about their own indispensability.

  Joe Klein

  Delusional, Diplomacy, Dictating

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• It is my duty, gentlemen, to inform you that women are dictators
  all, and I recommend to you this moral:
  In real life it takes only one to make a quarrel.

  Ogden Nash

  Real, Women, Gentleman

  Ogden Nash (1941). “The face is familiar: the selected verse of Ogden Nash”, Garden City publishing company, inc

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• Dictators can be deterred, they can be crushed - but they can never be appeased.

  Margaret Thatcher

  Crushed

  Margaret Thatcher's speech to Conservative Party conference at Bournemouth International Centre in Bournemouth, www.margaretthatcher.org. October 12, 1990.

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• There's been a coup, have you heard? It's the CIA coup. The CIA runs everything, they run the military. They're the ones who are over there lobbing missiles and bombs on countries. ... And of course the CIA is every bit as secretive as the Federal Reserve. ... And yet think of the harm they have done since they were established [after] World War II. They are a government unto themselves. They're in businesses, in drug businesses, they take out dictators ... We need to take out the CIA.

  Ron Paul

  Running, Country, Military

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• As political and economic freedom diminishes, sexual freedom tends correspondingly to increase. And the dictator will do well to encourage that freedom...it will help to reconcile his subjects to the servitude which is their fate.

  Aldous Huxley

  Fate, Political, Helping

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• This is not a new world - it is simply an extension of what began in the old one. It has patterned itself after every dictator who has ever planted the ripping imprint of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time. It has refinements...technological advances...and a more sophisticated approach to the destruction of human freedom. But like everyone of the super-states that preceded it - it has one iron rule: logic is an enemy and truth is a menace.

  Rod Serling

  Iron, Enemy, Boots

  "The Twilight Zone: The Obsolete Man". TV Series, www.imdb.com. 1961.

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• We shall never want to serve God in our real and secret hearts if He looms in our subconscious mind as an arbitrary Dictator or a Spoil-sport, or as one who takes advantage of His position to make us poor mortals feel guilty and afraid. We have not only to be impressed by the "size" and unlimited power of God, we have to be moved to genuine admiration, respect, and affection, if we are ever to worship Him.

  John Bertram Phillips

  Sports, Real, Heart

  John Bertram Phillips (1964). “Your God is too small”, Scribner Paper Fiction

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• Learn to shrink yourself to the size of the company you are in. Take their tone, whatever it may be, and excell in it if you can;but never pretend to give the tone. A free conversation will no more bear a dictator than a free government will.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Government, Giving, Tone

  Lord Chesterfield, David Roberts (2008). “Lord Chesterfield's Letters”, p.346, Oxford University Press

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• To be sure, dictators are crafty, evil geniuses with awesome firepower at their disposal. They are also brutally efficient at intimidation, terrorism, and mass slaughter. However, a force is able to dominate because the counterforce is either nonexistent or weak.

  George Ayittey

  Evil, Genius, Able

  George B.N. Ayittey (2011). “Defeating Dictators: Fighting Tyranny in Africa and Around the World”, p.8, St. Martin's Press

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• I love the people of Venezuela. I want that country to have freedom. I want it to have human rights and to be banned by a dictator like Nicolas Maduro is, to me, a badge of honor.

  Marco Rubio

  Love, Country, Freedom

  "Rubio calls Venezuela ban 'a badge of honor'" by John Roberts and The Associated Press, www.foxnews.com. February 28, 2015.

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• Once you capitulate to one dictator, does that mean that the next dictator or the next terrorist that says you're not going to make a comedy about - or a film at all about ISIS. All of us in public life have a responsibility right now to speak out and to say, 'No, Sony, you did the wrong thing' and to say to Hollywood, come behind - the other studios should come behind Sony and offer their support.

  Ed Royce

  Life, Mean, Responsibility

  "Washington outraged over Sony decision" by Jeremy Diamond, www.cnn.com. December 19, 2014.

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• The word "people" is unpleasant to me. The phrase "Soviet people" was drummed into us from childhood on. I love concrete people, enlightened people who live conscious lives and do not simply sit there and vegetate. To love the people you have to be the general secretary of the Communist Party or an absolute dictator.

  Vladimir Sorokin

  Party, People, Childhood

  "Russia Is Slipping Back into an Authoritarian Empire". Interview with Martin Doerry and Matthias Schepp, www.spiegel.de. February 2, 2007.

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• In the creative process, my ego has always been a huge tyrant ... a dictator and kind of rude and very misleading, because sometimes when I'm doing something, I say, "This is great! This is fantastic! Very genius!" And 20 minutes later, I feel like a dead jellyfish. "You are a stupid a**hole. This is a piece of sh*t. Nobody will care about it."

  Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

  Stupid, Tyrants, Creative

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• You obviously don't have to be a murderer to play a murderer or you don't have to be a dictator to play a dictator. So, you're an actor. You come up with whatever you come up with to play that part.

  Robert Duvall

  Play, Actors, Come Up

  "Robert Duvall’s talks about his faith-themed film “Seven Days in Utopia” — and why he’s not into “message movies”". Interview with John W. Kennedy, www.beliefnet.com. 2011.

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