Totalitarian Regimes Quotes

• There is an absolutely fundamental hostility on the part of totalitarian regimes toward religion.

  Jeane Kirkpatrick

  Fundamentals, Regimes, Hostility

  7 Copy quote

• The real point is that totalitarian regimes have claimed jurisdiction over the whole person, and the whole society, and they don't at all believe that we should give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God that which is God's.

  Jeane Kirkpatrick

  Real, Believe, Giving

  6 Copy quote

• Advances in the technology of communications have proved an unambiguous threat to totalitarian regimes: Fax machines enable dissidents to bypass state-controlled print media; direct-dial telephone makes it difficult for a state to control interpersonal voice communication; and satellite broadcasting makes it possible for information-hungry residents of many closed societies to bypass state-controlled television channels.

  Rupert Murdoch

  Technology, Regimes, Threat

  "Murdoch and China". www.theguardian.com. August 24, 2003.

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is a totalitarian regime inside every one of us. We are ruled by a ruthless politburo which sets our norms and drives us from one five-year plan to another. The autonomous individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.

  Eric Hoffer

  Years, Effort, Individuality

  Eric Hoffer (1996). “The Passionate State of Mind”

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• A lawn is nature under totalitarian rule.

  Michael Pollan

  Environment, Grass, Lawns

  Michael Pollan (2007). “Second Nature: A Gardener's Education”, p.48, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  22 Copy quote

  Show source

• The great strength of the totalitarian state is that it forces those who fear it to imitate it.

  Adolf Hitler

  Fear, Political, Mein Kampf

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  30 Copy quote

  Show source

• Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state...

  Noam Chomsky

  Media, Political, Democracy

  "On Propaganda". WBAI Interview, chomsky.info. January 1992.

  68 Copy quote

  Show source

• The individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.

  Eric Hoffer

  Effort, Individuality, Literature

  Eric Hoffer (1963). “The Ordeal of Change”

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Only the freedom of mind can prevent the state from becoming totalitarian and from issuing totalitarian demands.

  Friedrich Durrenmatt

  Mind, Demand, Becoming

  5 Copy quote

• Perfection spawns doctrines, dictators and totalitarian ideas.

  Antonio Tabucchi

  Ideas, Perfection, Doctrine

  7 Copy quote

• We invaded Iraq to change a totalitarian, despotic regime, and we have been successful there.

  Judd Gregg

  Change, Successful, Iraq

  5 Copy quote

• Gun control: The theory that a woman found dead in an alley, raped and strangled with her panty hose, is somehow morally superior to a woman explaining to police how her attacker got that fatal bullet wound.

  L. Neil Smith

  Gun, Found Dead, Panty Hose

  38 Copy quote

• The savior who wants to turn men into angels is as much a hater of human nature as the totalitarian despot who wants to turn them into puppets.

  Eric Hoffer

  Hater, Nature, Angel

  Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  56 Copy quote

  Show source

• Weak logic, inconsistencies and alienation from the people are common features of authoritarianism. The relentless attempts of totalitarian regimes to prevent free thought and new ideas and the persistent assertion of their own rightness bring on them an intellectual stasis which they project on to the nation at large. Intimidation and propaganda work in a duet of oppression, while the people, lapped in fear and distrust, learn to dissemble and to keep silent.

  Aung San Suu Kyi

  Ideas, People, Intellectual

  "In Quest of Democracy". Essay by Aung San Suu Kyi, 1991.

  41 Copy quote

  Show source

• The seeds of totalitarian regimes are nurtured by misery and want.

  Harry S. Truman

  War, Want, Misery

  The Truman Doctrine, delivered 12 March 1947 before a Joint Session of Congress

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• The real stumbling-block of totalitarian regimes is not the spiritual need of men for freedom of thought; it is men's inability to stand the physical and nervous strain of a permanent state of excitement, except during a few years of their youth.

  Simone Weil

  Spiritual, Block, Real

  Simone Weil (2015). “Selected Essays, 1934-1943: Historical, Political, and Moral Writings”, p.189, Wipf and Stock Publishers

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• We should teach general ethics to both men and women, but sexual relationships themselves must not be policed. Sex, like the city streets, would be risk-free only in totalitarian regimes.

  Camille Paglia

  Sex, Women, Cities

  5 Copy quote

• Imagination is a danger thus every totalitarian regime is frightened of the artist. It is the vocation of the prophet to keep alive the ministry of imagination to keep on conjouring and proposing alternative futures to the single one the king wants to urge as the only thinkable one.

  Walter Brueggemann

  Kings, Artist, Imagination

  114 Copy quote

• Dominion is a spy novel, a love story, and also I hope gives some sense of the difficulties faced by dissidents under any totalitarian regime: the threat of imprisonment, torture and death; the threat to one's family, the terror of being alone in a hostile world.

  C.J. Sansom

  Giving, Spy, Stories

  3 Copy quote

• There is a sinister anachronistic interpretation of the aesthetic state as some kind of totalitarian regime that puts aesthetic over moral standards; one associates it with national-socialism. But this has nothing to do with the romantics, whose ideal of the aesthetic state has much more to do with the republican tradition.

  Frederick C. Beiser

  Moral, Kind, Republican

  "Diotima’s child". Interview with Richard Marshall, www.3ammagazine.com. September 21, 2012.

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• Puzzlement and doubt are, however, already crimes in the totalitarian state. The mind that is open for questions is open for dissent. In the totalitarian regime the doubting, inquisitive, and imaginative mind has to be suppressed. The totalitarian slave is only allowed to memorize, to salivate when the bell rings.

  Joost Meerloo

  Doubt, Mind, Bells

  11 Copy quote

• I am no apologist for Fidel's [Castro] regime. It is, after all, a totalitarian regime. So I would like to see that change.

  John Gimlette

  Regimes, Castro

  Source: www.identitytheory.com

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• People tell me, 'Bill, let it go. The Kennedy assassination was years ago. It was just the assassination of a President and the hijacking of our government by a totalitarian regime - who cares? Just let it go.' I say, 'All right then. That whole Jesus thing? Let it go! It was 2,000 years ago! Who cares?'

  Bill Hicks

  Jesus, Government, Years

  "Bill Hicks: Revelations". Documentary, Comedy, 1993.

  44 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is necessary for me to express the deep sorrow that I feel for all the Cuban people both inside and outside of Cuba that have suffered the atrocities and repression caused by Fidel Castro and his totalitarian regime.

  Andy Garcia

  People, Sorrow, Atrocities

  "Andy Garcia Reacts to Fidel Castro’s Death: I Feel ‘Deep Sorrow’ for All Cuban People ‘That Have Suffered’" by Seth Kelley, variety.com. November 26, 2016.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source