Top 100 Dictator Quotes
#2. In our hearts there is a ruthless dictator, ready to contemplate the misery of a thousand strangers if it will ensure the happiness of the few we love.
Graham Greene
#3. Cromwell is just as much of a bloody dictator as was Stalin.
Vladimir Putin
#5. You don't know that. And now we never will." "We're agents of the United States government, not some Third World dictator's private security force. That is not the way we work. We don't have
Marcus Sakey
#7. The concept of the benevolent dictator, just like the concepts of the noble thief or the honest whore, is no more than a meaningless fantasy.
Alaa Al Aswany
#8. Sometimes you have compulsions that you can't control coming from the subconscious ... they are the dictator inside ourselves.
Denis Villeneuve
#10. Paradoxically, preserving liberty may require the rule of a single leader-a dictator-willing to use those dreaded 'extraordinary measures, which few know how, or are willing, to employ.'
Michael A. Ledeen
#11. The tyranny of a majority can be just as cruel as the tyranny of a single dictator, depending on the degree of enlightenment or stupidity of the voting majority.
John Hospers
#12. The spectacle of the constabulary in the terminal with automatic weapons slung on their shoulders also made me homesick, confirming I was again in a country with its malnourished neck under a dictator's loafer.
Viet Thanh Nguyen
#13. Reason can never be the absolute dictator of man's mental or moral economy.
Anthony Daniels
#14. The Queen is the ultimate dictator.
Morrissey
#15. Any dictatorship would be better than modern democracy. There cannot be so incompetent a dictator, that he would show more stupidity than a majority of the people. Best dictatorship would be one where lots of heads would roll and government would prevent any economical growth.
Pentti Linkola
#16. The scientific dictator of tomorrow will set up his whispering machines and subliminal projectors in schools and hospitals (children and the sick are highly suggestible), and in all public places where audiences can be given a preliminary softening up by suggestibility-increasing oratory or rituals.
Aldous Huxley
#17. hold out your right hand, palm up. Imagine a 2-inch-tall version of yourself in a military uniform, with a whip in one hand and a gun in the other, stomping around in your palm, shrieking deeply personal insults and commanding you to lose weight. This is the Dictator.
Martha N. Beck
#18. Kennedy echoed Stanley Baldwin that a democracy is always two years behind a dictator.
Scott Farris
#19. The writer that you are, I guess you're used to being a kind of dictator, telling the characters in your stories what to do.
Dean Koontz
#20. A man is not a dictator when he is given a commission from the people and carries it out.
Huey Long
#21. The little dictator who went to Moscow in his green fatigues to receive a bear hug did not forsake the doctrine of Lenin when he returned to the West and appeared in a two-piece suit. (On Daniel Ortega Saavedra)
Ronald Reagan
#22. There's never been an act done since the beginning, from a kid stealing candy to a dictator committing genocide, that the person doing it didn't think he was fully justified. That's a mental trick called rationalizing, and it's done the human race more harm than anything else you can name.
Leigh Brackett
#23. Reason, it is true, is DICTATOR in the Society of Mankind; from her there ought to lie no Appeal; But here we want a Pope in our Philosophy, to be the infallible Judge of what is or is not Reason.
Daniel Defoe
#25. A president cannot sit on his hands and be seen as passive in the face of ruthless action by a foreign dictator.
Robert Dallek
#26. The dictator is also the scapegoat; in assuming absolute authority, he assumes absolute guilt; and the oppressed masses, groaning under the yoke, know themselves to be innocent as lambs, while they pray hypocritically for deliverance.
Mary McCarthy
#27. Fascism is the consequence of economic jam and dictatorship is the product of Fascism, for Fascism cannot be managed save by a dictator.
John T. Flynn
#28. Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons ... We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons - the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have.
George W. Bush
#29. I must accept responsibility even though I had no power as foreign minister because it was a dictator state.
Joachim Von Ribbentrop
#31. We got rid of a terrible dictator. We gave the Iraqi people an opportunity for a new life under a representative form of government.
Colin Powell
#32. He who loves a dictator is much more dangerous than the dictator himself.
Mehmet Murat Ildan
#33. The First World War began because one man was shot. The Second World War began because of a mad German dictator. Who knows how a third could start. There are also people who think that the war has been going for a long time.
Ronald Lauder
#34. Ask any of your elders and they will tell you: Trujillo might have been a dictator, but, he was a Dominican dictator, which is another way of saying he was the number-one bellaco in the country.
Junot Diaz
#36. I don't want to be a dictator, because it is contrary to my own conscience. I am a democrat, but I don't desire democratic liberalism. On the contrary, I want a guided democracy ... I have a conception of my own, which I will put at the disposal of the party leaders if required.
Sukarno
#37. The island of the tonal, the way we see life, is there so we can get through our life. It was never intended to become a dictator that would usurp all other views of the world and banish them.
Frederick Lenz
#38. Getting rid of the dictator is only a first step in establishing a free society. The dictatorship must also be disassembled.
George Ayittey
#39. The spirit of rebellion must live in Serbia. Only then will we know we are alive and not servants of a dictator.
Zoran Djindjic
#40. If when I die, I am still a dictator, I will certainly go down into the oblivion of all dictators. If, on the other hand, I succeed in establishing a truly stable foundation for a democratic government, I will live forever in every home in China.
Chiang Kai-shek
#41. Earthquake means destruction; dictator means destruction! In the case of earthquake, you need a strong building; in the case of dictator, you need an educated rational mind, because an irrational ignorant mind always serves the dictator!
Mehmet Murat Ildan
#42. Every dictator is an enemy of freedom, an opponent of law.
Demosthenes
#43. There is a very easy and very peaceful way to get rid of a dictator: Get out of the system!
Mehmet Murat Ildan
#44. You're bubbly and approachable.".... "I'm none of those things. The sarcastic wit and humorous charm is a front. I honestly despise people. I like to consider myself as more of a dictator that staff are confident in but scared to approach.
Eden Summers
#45. When you stop a dictator, there are always risks. But there are greater risks in not stopping a dictator.
Margaret Thatcher
#46. If you stand on a soapbox and trade rhetoric with a dictator you never win.
Mel Brooks
#47. Obama might think of himself as one, but he is not a dictator. We are not a banana republic yet. This is not an authoritarian form of government. This is a constitutional republic, and the president doesn't allow or disallow. The president can't buy or purchase.
Rush Limbaugh
#48. I never thought being the producer was being the dictator. It means being the director and being the coach. It's a way of keeping everybody focused on the goal, and also having final say. Everybody can be in the same car, but somebody has to drive.
Paul Stanley
#49. You might hear people decry the loss of privacy in today's world, but radical transparency is dramatically reducing violence everywhere. Most violent things happen in the dark when no one's watching, whether it's an oppressive dictator or someone causing violence in the inner city.
Peter Diamandis
#51. The reaction that a ruthless dictator sets up in us either that of awe or pity according respectively as we react to him violently on nonviolently.
Mahatma Gandhi
#52. Get the hell out of my way! Said by John Galt as the leaders of the country tried to make him become their dictator.
Ayn Rand
#53. When an upstart dictator in the United States succeeds in making this a one-party form of government, I shall have the courage to stand up and advocate the use of bullets.
Charles Coughlin
#54. But I don't really see myself as a role model. I'm not a dictator, or someone who wants to be adored!
Isabella Rossellini
#55. I think the dictator director is based upon stories from the past. I don't think anyone would put up with it now. There are a lot of people on a film set with egos. So, to be completely authoritarian, you'd probably have to have a reputation like Kurosowa or somebody to get away with it.
Colin Firth
#56. The liberation of Iraq, which is already hard to justify from the perspective of American interests, at least had the virtue of freeing Iraqis from a brutal dictator. Despite all the anarchy and violence, life has gotten better for most Iraqis.
Timothy Noah
#57. Being confident of our own future, we are now free of that inordinate fear of communism which once led us to embrace any dictator who joined us in that fear. I'm glad that that's being changed.
Jimmy Carter
#58. And the God who ruled absolutely in the life and fortunes of the most powerful monarch of that time still rules in the fortunes and destinies of governments today. No government or dictator is so powerful as to be beyond the sway of His sovereign rule over all the nations of the earth. GOD
Jerry Bridges
#59. Saddam Hussein is a homicidal dictator who is addicted to weapons of mass destruction.
George W. Bush
#60. As an artist, it's a great opportunity to play a character like this [Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland]. And then, as a person, I had never been to the African continent. So, I knew, personally, it would reshape me.
Forest Whitaker
#61. The power of every dictator has two main sources: His psychopathic mind and the support of the very easily deceivable ignorant masses!
Mehmet Murat Ildan
#62. The uprising in Egypt was initiated by the young generation. The uprising achieved two things. One is it made the lives of dictators impossible. Today, if you are looking for a safe job, don't become a dictator.
Shimon Peres
#63. The problem is that the dictator of the tonal wants to eliminate the mystery of life.
Frederick Lenz
#64. Wealth is a form of power in our society. With great power comes great responsibility. If you have too much wealth, ipso facto, you have too much power - therefore you have too much responsibility - and you're a kind of dictator.
Will Self
#65. One day I hoped some thoughtful historian would point out the close connection between the Mercedes-Benz motor car and Germany's favorite dictator and that the Lord would find a way to pay these bastards back for their help in bringing the Nazis to power and keeping them there.
Philip Kerr
#66. 'The Dictator' lands somewhere between wan Mel Brooks and good Adam Sandler, whose 'You Don't Mess With the Zohan,' about an Israeli Special Forces soldier at a hair salon, manages to strike better contrasts with vaguely similar culture differences - it's a nuttier movie, too.
Wesley Morris
#67. If you have to fight an enemy at a critical point in time, and you have an ally who happens to be a dictator, you don't say: Let's stop fighting right now, because you're not a democrat. That would be ridiculous.
Natan Sharansky
#68. Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the U.S. media.
Noam Chomsky
#69. After the fall of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, Romanians were crazed with happiness. People who never met each other before hugged each other in the streets - convinced that tomorrow things would look different. Then came the many disappointments.
Octavian Paler
#70. It is hard to put a price on some things. What is the value of having prevented nuclear weapons from getting into the hands of a dictator like Saddam Hussein - or of Gadhafi ?
Donald Rumsfeld
#71. Sometimes, and in particular dealing with a dictator, the only chance of peace is a readiness for war.
Tony Blair
#72. China is not a great idea: capitalism and a dictator. It's like the two worst possible things you could imagine together. It's a very bad idea.
Fran Lebowitz
#73. A Venezuelan dictator once decided to stop leprosy. He saw that most lepers in his country were also beggars. By the simple expedient of collecting and destroying all the beggars in Venezuela an end was put to leprosy in that country.
L. Ron Hubbard
#74. CBS news anchor Dan Rather has interviewed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. When asked what it was like to talk to a crazy man, Saddam said, 'It's not so bad.'
Conan O'Brien
#75. We've been saying Putin is a dictator for years who doesn't care about the law.
Garry Kasparov
#76. In a perfect world what poor countries at the lowest rungs of economic development need is not a multi-party democracy, but in fact a decisive benevolent dictator to push through the reforms required to get the economy moving
Dambisa Moyo
#77. When my turn came, I said I hoped one day to be the dictator of an Islamic republic with nuclear capability; the others appeared shocked, and I was forced to explain that I had been joking.
Mohsin Hamid
#78. No man is a complete ruler or dictator. He is only the mouthpiece for the wishes of his followers. As long as he expresses those wishes, he leads them.
Louis L'Amour
#79. It was one of the greatest errors in evaluating dictatorship to say that the dictator forces himself on society against its own will. In reality, every dictator in history was nothing but the accentuation of already existing state ideas which he had only to exaggerate in order to gain power
Wilhelm Reich
#81. [In] 2010, Woody Allen said that he felt Barack Obama should be a dictator so that he could get things done, and the first thing obviously that Woody Allen wanted done is to make it legal to have sex with stepdaughters.
Greg Gutfeld
#82. He looked like a Dictator on the point of starting a purge.
P.G. Wodehouse
#83. I'm a hardened atheist but I feel that we have an inbuilt need for God. If you eradicate religion, you end up with something terrible in its place, like the communist state, as in Russia or China, where the dictator becomes the messiah figure.
Jonathan Trigell
#84. The first country conquered by any dictator is his own country.
Pete Seeger
#85. I could never go into politics, because I'm far too impatient and I'd want to be a dictator, albeit a benevolent one ... I would hope.
Joanna Lumley
#86. My face is sour. Maybe that's why they say I'm a dictator.
Augusto Pinochet
#88. Mr Bush, Mr. Blair and now Mr Brown's sense of human rights precludes our people's right to their God-given resources, which in their view must be controlled by their kith and kin. I am termed dictator because I have rejected this supremacist view and frustrated the neo-colonialists.
Robert Mugabe
#89. The loyal dogs of a dictator are much more dangerous than the dictator himself because a dictator can bite you only through his supporters. Without his dogs, he is nothing! More's the pity, the world history is full of such loyal biters!
Mehmet Murat Ildan
#90. Remember evil Russian dictator Vladimir Putin? He vanished for 10 days. He had disappeared and there were a lot of rumors. One rumor was he had disappeared because he had himself executed.
David Letterman
#91. North Korean dictator Kim Jung Il may be stepping down. Yeah, experts in the State Department say he could be replaced by his son, Menta Li Ill.
David Letterman
#92. 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
#93. You can't be a successful Dictator and design women's underclothing.
P.G. Wodehouse
#94. Who cares how we avoided a war and got a dictator to give up his chemical weapons if we avoided a war and got a dictator to give up his chemical weapons.
Jon Stewart
#95. It's tough being a dictator, but I've always thought it must be tougher being a hanger-on to a dictator. The late nights spent listening to his crazed ranting, the weary rictus grin from smiling at bad jokes, the draining knowledge that one misjudged comment could land you on the chopping block.
John Niven
#96. Working on a novel is very solitary and I get to be the boss. I'm the dictator, so I win every battle. So, in that sense, novels are easier because you don't have to answer to anyone. And then, you go into something like film and there are more cooks in the kitchen, so to speak.
Nicholas Sparks
#97. Romania, which had the worst dictator in Eastern Europe, Ceausescu, he was a darling of the West. The United States and Britain loved him. He was supported until the last minute.
Noam Chomsky
#98. And I think being a good director is being able to be completely tyrannical and you've got to be an absolute dictator while at the same time, you have to listen and see everything because it can all change on a dime.
Bob Balaban
#99. Obviously, every dictator pays a great deal of attention to who is running the army. There's always a base right outside the capitol to protect the head of government.
Elliott Abrams
