Quotes About Dictators

#1. But, no matter how big or small dictators are, they all accept 100 percent the principle that granting government authority to manipulate our lives and control our property is legitimate and morally acceptable.

Ron Paul

#2. Countries who don't have brave prosecutors and fearless judges will instead have plenty of thieves, many killers and even stupid dictators!

Mehmet Murat Ildan

#3. The problem was Le Corbusier was a genius and an enormous artist, but he tried to resolve problems to which there is no solution. So the idea to demolish the centre of Paris in order to adapt it to the car - he drew it! - is something not even the most bloody dictators conceived.

Leon Krier

#4. Clearly North Korea is a very strange situation because it is such an isolated country run by a handful of dictators, or maybe just one, who seems to be somewhat paranoid. And, who had nuclear weapons.

Bernie Sanders

#5. The dictators of the world say that if you tell a lie often enough, why, people will believe it. Well, if you tell the truth often enough, they'll believe it and go along with you.

Harry Truman

#6. How can there be peace when drunkards, drug dealers, communists, atheists, New Age worshipers of Satan, secular humanists, oppressive dictators, greedy money changers, revolutionary assassins, adulterers, and homosexuals are on top?

Pat Robertson

#7. The misconception that aid falls straight into the hands of dictators largely stems from the Cold War era.

Bill Gates

#8. When Marxist dictators shoot their way into power in Central America, the Democrats don't blame the guerrillas and their Soviet allies, they blame United States' policies of one hundred years ago, but then they always blame America first.

Jeane Kirkpatrick

#9. Dictators have always played on the natural human tendency to blame others and to oversimplify.

Gerard K. O'Neill

#10. Most dictators were short, fat, middle-aged and hairless. Besides Danny Devito, there's only me to play them.

Bob Hoskins

#11. Mostly actors are progressive because we are accustomed to all the nuances of human life, whereas dictators just try to flatten it all out. So we usually try to stand up to dictators like, well, we won't mention names.

Jane Fonda

#12. That's what separates out American democracy from dictators and horrible governments across the world and the reason why that works is that we have a president that can consult with congress before making big decisions. That doesn't just make a unilateral decision to go in for military conflict.

Charles R. Chamberlain

#13. Dictators are not in the business of allowing elections that could remove them from their thrones.

Gene Sharp

#14. Dictators always seek to take weapons away from people so that there can be no effective opposition to their rule.

Terry Goodkind

#15. When dictators feel their support slipping among adults, it is not unusual for them to alter school textbooks in the hope of enlisting impressionable youths in their cause.

Samantha Power

#16. The Shadow had no imagination. He neither looked at naked women nor thought of ridding the world of dictators like Hitler or Mussolini.

E.L. Doctorow

#17. It's a mistake to think that poor people get the benefit from the welfare system. It's a total fraud. Most welfare go to the rich of this country: the military-industrial complex, the bankers, the foreign dictators, it's totally out of control.

Ron Paul

#18. My fine friends who are perfectionists, each in their own world where they are petty dictators, could write a perfect bill. Those of us who have grown up and matured ... understand that we have to work together on the big issues.

Newt Gingrich

#19. A black Mercedes Benz 450 SL pulled up. It was your classic hood auto beloved of terrorists, pimps and African dictators.

Adrian McKinty

#20. Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people.

Charlie Chaplin

#21. If sex and creativity are often seen by dictators as subversive activities, it's because they lead to the knowledge that you own your own body (and with it your own voice), and that's the most revolutionary insight of all.

Erica Jong

#22. 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

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

Marcus Sakey

#24. The characteristic mark of this age of dictators, wars and revolutions is its anticapitalistic bias. Most governments and political parties were eager to restrict the sphere of private initiative and free enterprise.

Ludwig Von Mises

#25. Facts are subversive. Subversive of the claims made by democratically elected leaders as well as dictators, by biographers and autobiographers, spies and heroes, torturers and post-modernists. Subversive of lies, half-truths, myths; of all those easy speeches that comfort cruel men.

Timothy Garton Ash

#26. 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

#27. 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

#28. When it comes to tyrants, dictators and terrorists, strength and the threat of force is the only language they understand.

Kevin McCarthy

#29. If we try to engineer outcomes, if we overturn tradition to make everyone the same, we ruin society. If we upset tradition to allow for an equal shot at the starting gate, everyone wins, except for the charlatans and would be dictators.

Ben Stein

#30. Books can be dangerous. You never know when they're going to blow up, and what they'll take out when they do. Why do you think dictators are so fond of burning them? One idea can lead to another, and then before you know it, people are going crazy having thoughts and opinions and stuff.

Amanda Weaver

#31. We - by whom I mean anyone over sixty - commit two offenses just by existing. One is Lack of Velocity. We drive too slowly, walk too slowly, talk too slowly. The world will do business with dictators, perverts, and drug barons of all stripes, but being slowed down it cannot abide.

David Mitchell

#32. Just because we feel offended doesn't mean we must be offended. Feelings are indicators not dictators.

Lysa TerKeurst

#33. But clothing themselves in the trappings of democracy, dictators may, like drag queens, tend to overdo it, and Napoleon wanted there to be no doubt that his French Republic was more democratic than any before it.

Tom Reiss

#34. One might have thought that the Cold War's conclusion would have convinced the Left that appeasement of dictators is not profitable.

Mona Charen

#35. When we're afraid, we lose all sense of analysis and reflection. Our fear paralyzes us. Besides, fear has always been the driving force behind all dictators' repression.

Marjane Satrapi

#36. Whatever promises offered by dictators in any negotiated settlement, no one should ever forget that the dictators may promise anything to secure submission from their democratic opponents, and then brazenly violate those same agreements.

Gene Sharp

#37. I don't put much stock in powers that people have to hurt others, in sorcery and all this nonsense. There are murders and there are dictators. That is just a part of life. The intelligent use of power in yoga can assist you avoiding that side of humanity.

Frederick Lenz

#38. I've had meetings with Fidel Castro. I've had meetings with Kim Il-Sung. I've had meetings with other dictators. I've met with the Butcher of Beijing. You know, I think it's important to hear, you know, each other's perspective.

Gary Ackerman

#39. I've played so many historical characters because most horrible dictators are short, fat, middle-aged men.

Bob Hoskins

#40. Free nations generally look for ways to deal with dictators amicably.

Natan Sharansky

#41. 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

#42. Libraries are the mainstays of democracy. The first thing dictators do when taking over a country is close all the libraries, because libraries are full of ideas and differences of opinion, all the things we say we want in a free and open society. So keep 'em, fund 'em, embrace and cherish 'em.

David Baldacci

#43. We cannot forget the little things we take for granted in America that remain the disdain of dictators and terrorists throughout the world.

Trent Lott

#44. More congenial to me than dictators
Are rickshaw-runners.
If they break my neck
It will be by accident,
Not as a matter of state policy.

William Kean Seymour

#45. Shoot the dictator and prevent the war? But the dictator is merely the tip of the whole festering boil of social pus from which dictators emerge; shoot him and there'll be another one along in a minute. Shoot him too? Why not shoot everyone and invade Poland?

Terry Pratchett

#46. Money comes to Switzerland through three illegal sources: tax evasion in other developed countries, the blood money of dictators and other rulers in the Third World and organized crime.

Jean Ziegler

#47. One of the most perplexing political questions of the late 20th century is how new democracies should punish deposed dictators and their associates. Victims cry for justice, but leaders of new regimes must decide to what extent it is possible, moral or prudent to pursue evildoers of the past.

Stephen Kinzer

#48. In the exhibition at Galerie Perrotin, they have the Sarajevo painting - I think it's very good to nail down this story of Pol Pot and other people, not all dictators but most of them.

Erro

#49. If we want to protect people against dictators or repression or torture, don't you need that rule to be universal so as to not end up with a situation where we do so only when it is comfortable, profitable and safe?

Donald Tusk

#50. You know history better than I do, you've been teaching all your life. Without real opposition you get dictators down the line. Idi, Amin, Mugabe. No democracy without opposition.

Nadine Gordimer

#51. To the end of homicidal dictators with weird black bangs and puny square mustaches!" The

Mark T. Sullivan

#52. We know that power is shifting from brawn to brains, from north to south and west to east, from old corporate behemoths to agile start-ups, from entrenched dictators to people in town squares and cyberspace.

Moises Naim

#53. There is not a special imposition on writers to be activists. All that does is encourage writers to write propaganda. Propaganda can be written by anybody, including dictators.

Wole Soyinka

#54. I think that, from Vaclav Havel own experience, he knew if we all paid attention to what was going on, the chances were that even the most horrible dictators wouldn't execute people.

Judy Woodruff

#55. Leaders should never, ever try to look cool - that's for dictators

Ben Elton

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

Joe Klein

#57. If people in the Arab world knew what was happening in this place, the hatred against the U.S. would be heavily watered, and the accusation that the U.S. is helping and working together with dictators in our countries would be cemented.

Mohamedou Ould Slahi

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

Paul Wolfowitz

#59. American presidents always avoid shaking hands with brutal dictators, except when it's advantageous to do so.

Elizabeth A. Sherman

#60. The Internet is empowering everybody. It's empowering Democrats. It's empowering dictators. It's empowering criminals. It's empowering people who are doing really wonderful and creative things.

Rebecca MacKinnon

#61. fallen empires of kings, dictators, and fools who were passionate, certain, and wrong.

Bobby Adair

#62. 'The End of America' details the 10 steps that would-be dictators always take in seeking to close an open society; it argued that the Bush administration had been advancing each one.

Naomi Wolf

#63. Reading develops cognitive skills. It trains our minds to think critically and to question what you are told. This is why dictators censor or ban books. It's why it was illegal to teach slaves to read. It's why girls in developing countries have acid thrown in their faces when they walk to school.

Karin Slaughter

#64. I never read the paper myself. Why bother? It's the same old shit day in and day out, dictators beating the ching-chong out of people weaker than they are, men in uniforms beating the ching-chong out of soccer balls or footballs, politicians kissing babies and kissing ass.

Stephen King

#65. The dictator is merely the tip of the whole festering boil of social pus from which dictators emerge; shoot one, and there'll be another one along in a minute.

Terry Pratchett

#66. Dictators cause the world's worst problems: all the collapsed states, and all the devastated economies. All the vapid cases of corruption, grand theft, and naked plunder of the treasury are caused by dictators, leaving in their wake trails of wanton destruction, horrendous carnage and human debris.

George Ayittey

#67. If you really want to help the rest of the world, what you've got to do is encourage free markets, private property rights and the strong rule of law and get rid of the dictators in a lot of these countries.

Dave Brat

#68. Dictators and oppressors should continue to fear me because I will be here for a long time.

Lech Walesa

#69. Though all dictators endorse the same principle of government aggression to suppress people's liberty, some dictators are harder to detect than others. A slick neocon can seem virtuous compared to a Hitler, yet still endorse invasion and the slaughter of innocent people.

Ron Paul

#70. We know that dictators are quick to choose aggression, while free nations strive to resolve differences in peace.

George W. Bush

#71. There is an interesting resemblance in the speeches of dictators, no matter what country they may hail from or what language they may speak.

Edna Ferber

#72. Being consistent meant not departing from convictions already formulated; being a leader meant making other persons accept these convictions. It was a narrow track, and a one-way, but a person might travel a considerable distance on it. A number of dictators have.

Jessamyn West

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

Margaret Thatcher

#74. Muslims and Christians can work together to depose dictators and assert the power of the people. We've seen it happen on the Tahrir Square in Cairo during the 2011 revolution in Egypt, with devout Muslims and Coptic Christians protesting side by side.

Miroslav Volf

#75. The Arab Spring showed that people are not going to wait for an American president to make good on his big talk about democracy and human rights; they are going to fight for those rights themselves and overthrow pro-American dictators who stand in their way.

Pankaj Mishra

#76. I don't think we should take the emotional reactions of a few people as more representative than those of the millions of people who took to the street in a non-violent way against dictators.

Tariq Ramadan

#77. Why even dictate?
Well, like a lot of other dictators, there's one man's opinion I value above all others. Mine.

Stephen Colbert

#78. This is not even the stuff dictators are made of, but this is the kind of madness which is often not found out until it is too late.' Campion

Margery Allingham

#79. History reminds us that dictators and despots arise during times of severe economic crisis.

Robert Kiyosaki

#80. Frank Lowy is an institution in Australian sport but judging by this decision he might be visiting a different kind of institution. He has brought the game into disrepute. The sport should not be run by dictators like him.

Clive Palmer

#81. The lesson we are indebted to Egypt for, our future generations learned that in the face of oppression silence is never golden.

Aysha Taryam

#82. It is from weakness that people reach for dictators and concentrated government power. Only the strong can be free. And only the productive can be strong.

Wendell Willkie

#83. Fashion designers are dictators of taste.

Karl Lagerfeld

#84. The all but unanimous judgment seems to be that we, the democracies, are just as responsible for the rise of the dictators as the dictatorships themselves, and perhaps more so.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

#85. In my view dictators do not surrender. They have to be well and truly defeated.

Margaret Thatcher

#86. Kadafi is a zombie in a pillbox hat, that's what he is!

Bill Maher

#87. This is how religions shore up dictators; by encircling them with words of power, words which the people are reluctant to see discredited, disenfranchised, mocked.

Salman Rushdie

#88. Dictators can always consolidate their tyranny by an appeal to patriotism.

Aldous Huxley

#89. Timing: The alpha and omega of aerialists, jugglers, actors, diplomats, publicists, generals, prizefighters, revolutionists, financiers, dictators, lovers.

Marlene Dietrich

#90. Perfection spawns doctrines, dictators and totalitarian ideas.

Antonio Tabucchi

#91. Writing has power, but its power has no vector. Writers can stir the mind, but they can't direct it. Time changes things, God changes things, the dictators change things, but writers can't change anything.

Isaac Bashevis Singer

#92. Ignorance is an evil weed, which dictators may cultivate among their dupes, but which no democracy can afford among its citizens.

William Beveridge

#93. To understand why dictators fall, it helps to recognise factors that produce a perfect anti-dictatorial storm. Barring missteps such as those that led to Gaddafi's undoing, a dictator's survival can be at risk because of newness in office, poor health, or old age combined with economic trouble.

Bruce Bueno De Mesquita

#94. Bosses are no more inevitable in state and local governments than dictators are in national governments. They will arise and prosper, nevertheless, if true believers of democracy - citizens devoted to the democratic ideals - do not constantly oppose them.

Charles Edison

#95. Terrorism works better as a tactic for dictatorships, or for would-be dictators, than for revolutionaries.

Christopher Hitchens

#96. President Bush has shown great leadership. He has said that the 21st century will not be ruled or dictated by terrorists, dictators, and murderers. He is absolutely right. God bless him for his resolve.

Lindsey Graham

#97. It's pretty well known that the CIA has been installing friendly dictators around the world for years.

Rob Walton

#98. It's time to bury the unreal, failed 'realism' of those who have long thought that dictators brought stability.

Elliott Abrams

#99. More harm was done in the 20th century by faceless bureaucrats than tyrant dictators.

Dennis Prager

#100. I will begin my presidency with a jobs tour. President Obama began with an apology tour. America, he said, had dictated to other nations. No Mr. President, America has freed other nations from dictators.

Mitt Romney