Dictatorship Quotes

• It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own.

  Herbert Hoover

  Freedom, Democracy, Ladders

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• When dictatorship is a fact, revolution becomes a right.

  Victor Hugo

  Wisdom, Political, Politics

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• True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Jobs, Freedom, People

  Franklin D. Roosevelt (1995). “The Essential Franklin Delano Roosevelt”, Gramercy

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• The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting.

  Charles Bukowski

  Trust, Order, Differences

  Charles Bukowski (2013). “The Most Beautiful Woman in Town”, p.190, City Lights Books

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• In a dictatorship there is no choice, the elections are controlled, the police are the military, fear equals control, speech is suppressed, the economy is looted, the people are slaves.

  Alex Jones

  Military, People, Choices

  FaceBook post by Alex Jones from Jan 09, 2017

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• A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it.

  George W. Bush

  Funny, Sarcastic, Would Be

  "Bush Gives on Patients Bill, But Democrats Want More" by Robert Pear, www.nytimes.com. July 27, 2001.

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• Dictatorships are never as strong as they think they are, and people are never as weak as they think they are.

  Gene Sharp

  Strength, Confidence, Strong

  "Gene Sharp: A dictator's worst nightmare". Interview with Mairi Mackay, www.cnn.com. June 25, 2012.

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• Dictatorships start wars because they need external enemies to exert internal control over their own people.

  Richard Perle

  War, People, Enemy

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• The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.

  Niels Bohr

  Political, Democracy, Weapons

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• The first thing dictators do is finish free press, to establish censorship. There is no doubt that a free press is the first enemy of dictatorship.

  Fidel Castro

  Doubt, Enemy, Firsts

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• If you begin to consider yourself solely responsible to a political party, you're half-way to a dictatorship.

  Clement Attlee

  Party, Political, Half

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• The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders...tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.

  Hermann Goring

  Country, Peace, Freedom

  Quoted in Gustave M. Gilbert, Nuremberg Diary (1947).

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• Every movement that seeks to enslave a country, every dictatorship or potential dictatorship, needs some minority group as a scapegoat which it can blame for the nation's troubles and use as a justification of its own demands for dictatorial powers. In Soviet Russia, the scapegoat was the bourgeoisie; in Nazi Germany, it was the Jewish people; in America, it is the businessmen.

  Ayn Rand

  Country, America, Russia

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.143, Penguin

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• All democracies turn into dictatorships - but not by coup. The people give their democracy to a dictator, whether it's Julius Caesar or Napoleon or Adolf Hitler. Ultimately, the general population goes along with the idea.

  George Lucas

  Ideas, People, Giving

  "Democracy, Tyranny, and Star Wars". Time Interview, www.ign.com. April 25, 2002.

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• Every one of the world's dictatorships can and does claim to be acting in the name of the people.

  Harold H. Greene

  Names, People, Acting

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• Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.

  Winston Churchill

  Leadership, Dictator, Socialism

  Letter, 11 Nov. 1937, in Step by Step (1939) p. 186. Cf. the proverb "He who rides a tiger is afraid to dismount" (see Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs under rides)

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• In a democracy, you believe it or not; in a dictatorship, you believe it or else.

  Evan Esar

  Believe, Democracy

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• A totalitarian dictatorship cannot explain; it can only suppress.

  Robert Payne

  Robert Payne (1975). “The Corrupt Society: From Ancient Greece to Present-Day America”, Praeger Publishers

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• You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police ... yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts: words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home -- all the more powerful because forbidden -- terrify them. A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic.

  Winston Churchill

  Powerful, Fear, Home

  "The Defence of Freedom and Peace (The Lights are Going Out)", radio broadcast to the United States and to London, October 16, 1938.

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• Better the rule of One, whom all obey, than to let clamorous demagogues betray our freedom with the kiss of anarchy.

  Oscar Wilde

  Freedom, Kissing, Anarchy

  Oscar Wilde, Russell Jackson, Ian Small (2000). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Poems and poems in prose”, p.148, Oxford University Press on Demand

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• Dictatorship is like a giant beech-tree - very magnificent to look at in its prime, but nothing grows underneath it.

  Stanley Baldwin

  Tree, Political, Giants

  Broadcast from London on March 06, 1934. "This Torch of Freedom: Speeches and Addresses". Book by Stanley Baldwin, p. 21, 1935.

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• In dictatorships you need courage to fight evil; in the free world you need courage to see evil.

  Natan Sharansky

  Fighting, Evil, Needs

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• The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy; the best weapon of a democracy is openness.

  Edward Teller

  Freedom, Democracy, Weapons

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• Dictatorship, by whatever name, is founded on the doctrine that the individual amounts to nothing; that the State is the only one that counts; and that men and women and children were put on earth solely for the purpose of serving the state.

  Harry S. Truman

  Children, Men, Names

  United States. President (1945-1953 : Truman), Harry S. Truman (1962). “Harry S. Truman: Containing the Public Messages, Speeches, and Statements of the President, 1945-53”

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• Dictatorship is a constant lecture instructing you that your feelings, your thoughts and desires are of no account, that you are a nobody and must live as you are told by other people who desire and think for you

  Stephen Vizinczey

  Thinking, People, Feelings

  Stephen Vizinczey “Truth and Lies in Literature, A Writer's Ten Commandments: (Revised and Extended edition)”, stephenvizinczey.com

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