Top 100 Quotes About Dictators
#1. Aspiring dictators sometimes win elections, and elected leaders sometimes govern badly and threaten their neighbors ... History demonstrates that democracy usually follows good governance, not the reverse.
Rudy Giuliani
#2. America has had to deal with eccentric dictators in the past: Idi Amin, Muammar Qaddafi, Ming the Merciless ... but now the security of the world is threatened by Kim Jong-il, a nerdy, pompadoured, platform shoe-wearer who looks like something you'd put on the end of your child's pencil.
Jon Stewart
#3. You have too many gurus in this country. They have told you what to do, what to think, what to practice. They are the dictators.
Radhanath Swami
#4. Feelings are indicators, not dictators. They can indicate where your heart is in the moment, but that doesn't mean they have the right to dictate your behavior and boss you around. You are more than the sum total of your feelings and perfectly capable of that little gift ... called self-control.
Lysa TerKeurst
#5. Reza implemented an impressive number of reforms that were designed to turn the cracked empire he had inherited into a purposeful nation state. But he ended up, like so many of his fellow dictators, alone in his citadel. And much of the goods he did was nullified by the way he did it.
Christopher De Bellaigue
#6. When dictators and tyrants seek to destroy the freedoms of men, their first target is the legal profession and through it the rule of law.
Leon Jaworski
#7. Dictators are allergic to reform, and they are cunning survivors. They will do whatever it takes to preserve their power and wealth, no matter how much blood ends up on their hands. They are master deceivers and talented manipulators who cannot be trusted to change.
George Ayittey
#8. When you review the Central American wars or other Latin American wars, you find that there were dictators and there were insurgents.
Alvaro Uribe
#9. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.
Charlie Chaplin
#10. We should say to the West: "You have been supporting dictators for too many years. Don't expect the people to introduce democracy over night. It is going to take time." It took time with the French revolution, it took time with the Eastern European revolutions. And it is going to take time there.
Tariq Ramadan
#11. As journalists, we cannot swallow the official line without question. We should challenge almost everything that dictators, presidents and officials say.
Jorge Ramos
#12. I am a socialist, so I am not worried about socialism. I am worried about dictators who are putting everyone into a socialist state for their own benefit.
Rirkrit Tiravanija
#13. Were there peace and justice in the Middle East, the Arabs would no more need their tinhorn dictators than they would their corpulent princes.
James Buchan
#14. It is a great tool of dictators and tyrants, who want to get masses of people to do what they want, to make sure there are no libraries...The fact that there was no public library in Rwanda is one reason why genocide was possible.
Stephen Kinzer
#15. Dictators must have enemies. They must have internal enemies to justify their secret police and external enemies to justify their military forces.
Richard Perle
#17. There are, of course, all sorts of other unpleasant regimes outside the walls as well - the military dictators of Latin America and the apartheid regime of South Africa.
Barbara Amiel
#18. Directors are like generals, political dictators, aggressive people ... And everyone in the film is always grateful if you can tell them what to do.
Abraham Polonsky
#19. The world is full of little dictators trying to run your life.
Alan King
#20. You can't pay for healthcare if we're sending a trillion dollars a year to dictators.
Brian Schweitzer
#21. Dictators seem to learn from history much better than democrats
Garry Kasparov
#22. To be sure, totalitarian dictators do not consciously embark upon the road to insanity. The
Hannah Arendt
#23. 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
#24. I fearthat both dictators [Hitler and Mussolini] think their present methods are succeeding because of the gains they have made in Albania, Hungary and Yugoslavia.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
#25. In modern studios, we're so used to becoming little dictators; you're used to the fascism of having complete control over every element.
Herbert
#26. Famines occur under a colonial administration, like the British Raj in India or for that matter in Ireland, or under military dictators in one country after another, like Somalia and Ethiopia, or in one-party states like the Soviet Union and China.
Amartya Sen
#27. Sarah Palin gave a speech in South Korea. Just what the Koreans needed: Two crazy dictators in fashionable lady's glasses.
Conan O'Brien
#28. Debt is a task master to be feared almost as much as the dictators themselves. It has enslaved thousands in its meshes. It has wrecked happy homes.
Stephen L. Richards
#29. Italy in the 1920s, Germany in the '30s, East Germany in the '50s, Czechoslovakia in the '60s, the Latin American dictatorships in the '70s, China in the '80s and '90s - all dictatorships and would-be dictators target newspapers and journalists.
Naomi Wolf
#30. There is an undeniable web connecting incidents such as the rise to power of dictators... poverty and the perception of human beings as disposable property.
Beatrice Rose Roberts
#31. In any case, it's the cowardice of people like you who give dictators the chance to install themselves!
Marjane Satrapi
#33. The best feeling in the world is performing in front of a live audience who like what you're doing. I can understand why people become dictators just because of the thrill they get making the speeches.
Steve Coogan
#34. When even the dictators of today appeal to reason, they mean that they possess the most tanks. They were rational enough to build them; others should be rational enough to yield to them.
Max Horkheimer
#35. Dictators free themselves by enslaving others. They work not for your benefit, but their own.
Charlie Chaplin
#36. 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
#37. Hate is strewn like confetti by the fear-fueled, specious, tiny- dicked (or un-tender) vacuous dictators, of any gender, whom never knew true love, only sadism. They ALL need some good pharma.
Elizabeth Lucye Robillard
#38. Democracy consists of choosing your dictators, after they've told you what you think it is you want to hear.
Alan Coren
#39. Ignorance and its hand-maidens, prejudice, intolerance, suspicion of our fellowman, breed dictators and breed wars.
Harry S. Truman
#40. Even socialist dictators have an interest in gorgeous supermodels.
Hugo Chavez
#41. Foreign trade is not a replacement for foreign aid, of course, but foreign aid to a country that doesn't also engage in significant amounts of foreign trade is more likely to end up in the pockets of dictators and cronies.
Brian Behlendorf
#43. We have a president for whom English is a second language. He's like 'We have to get rid of dictators,' but he's pretty much one himself.
Robin Williams
#44. In some departments of our daily life, in which we imagine ourselves free agents, we are ruled by dictators exercising great power.
Edward Bernays
#45. I disapprove of lots of decisions made by George Bush: the war, the meddling in the affairs of other countries, the conversations with dictators; it was a dark time.
Tommy Hilfiger
#46. The gene," Dr. Narcejac-Boileau said, "is associated with social dominance and strong control over other people. We have isolated it in sports leaders, CEOs, and heads of state. We believe the gene is found in all dictators throughout history.
Michael Crichton
#47. Dictators aren't stupid, or regimes could be toppled easily by young people mobilizing on Facebook.
Evgeny Morozov
#48. Is is true that dictators never dream because they can change their smallest fantasies into realities if they want to?
Alfred De Musset
#49. Sex and creativity are often seen by dictators as subversive activities.
Erica Jong
#50. When the dictators and the opportunists are gone, the cross will still stand before us and something in us will say, 'That is the real thing.'
Ralph W. Sockman
#51. Reagan never cottoned to dictators. He was pure in this notion in a true belief that democracy was the best solution in the world because it spoke to people's hopes and dreams and aspirations, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of speech.
Douglas Brinkley
#52. If you follow the devil, your journey will end up in the hell! This is what happens to those who follow the dictators!
Mehmet Murat Ildan
#53. But Pavlov purely for a good purpose. Pavlov for friendliness and trust and compassion. Whereas you prefer to use Pavlov for brainwashing, Pavlov for selling cigarettes and vodka and patriotism. Pavlov for the benefit of dictators, generals and tycoons.
Aldous Huxley
#54. Dictators long ago found that it is easier to unite people in common hatred than in common love.
Dagobert D. Runes
#55. No one has done what Saddam Hussein has done, or is thinking of doing. He is producing weapons of mass destruction, and he is qualitatively and quantitatively different from other dictators.
Madeleine Albright
#56. The worst things in history have happened when people stop thinking for themselves and listen to other people and, even worse, start following other people. That's what gives rise to dictators.
Donald J. Trump
#57. A universal draft is most often the instrument of Third World dictators.
Joe Bob Briggs
#58. Against the odd's, I have persevered, I am the living attestation of the American dream. I am the extolment of this great nation. I have coffee and cocktails with presidents and dictators. I'm an international figure, a citizen of the world. I've made it.
Don King
#59. A test of a people is how it behaves toward the old. It is easy to love children. Even tyrants and dictators make a point of being fond of children. But the affection and care for the old, the incurable, the helpless are the true gold mines of a culture.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
#60. To understand why dictators have a problem with making peace - or at least a genuine peace - the link between the nature of a regime and its external behavior must be understood.
Natan Sharansky
#61. I used to wish there was a useful term for those of us who thought American power should be used to remove psychopathic dictators.
Christopher Hitchens
#62. I was always dreaming about very powerful people. Dictators and things like that. I was always impressed by people who could be remembered for hundreds of years. Even like Jesus, being remembered for thousands of years.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
#63. Once again, as a flawed evaluator of dictators and failed strategist who has permitted Russia back in as a major player in the Middle East, is Hillary Clinton guilty or not guilty?
Chris Christie
#65. Dictators from the past, tyrants, were not unaware that it is easier to govern and enslave a nation of drinkers than that of abstainers.
Samael Aun Weor
#66. I don't think it's hypothetical whether or not it's a good idea to topple secular dictators in the Middle East and hope to get a good outcome and hope that stability comes thereafter.
Rand Paul
#67. The war against ISIS will pose many new challenges for the next commander-in-chief. The last two presidents [George W. Bush and Barack Obama] pursued a Middle East policy that supported toppling dictators to try to promote democracy.
Wolf Blitzer
#68. Just as the poet is a menace to conformity, he is also a constant threat to political dictators. He is always on the verge of blowing up the assembly line of political power.
Rollo May
#69. Africa has more dictators per capita than any other continent.
George Ayittey
#70. When women can support themselves, have entry to all the trades and professions, with a house of their own over their heads and a bank account, they will own their bodies and be dictators in the social realm.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
#71. Now when a people has dictators, that is a symptom that they are running mad. They should be watched. I think they should be watched very closely. And later they should be prevented. Now think it is not a nation but an individual, now see, this is like he had a disease.
Stevie Smith
#72. Today the primary threat to the liberties of the American people comes not from communism, foreign tyrants or dictators. It comes from the tendency on our own shores to centralize power, to trust bureaucracies rather than people.
George Allen
#73. I yawned awake ready to blow stuff up like a 90s action-star. I'd become what I despised, a misguided schmuck following the status-quo for the sole purpose of fitting in. Whatever... gunrunners, terrorists, bankers, dictators, goons; we all have it coming.
Bruce Crown
#74. Mobs and dictators were made for each other, and when mobs appear, dictators will soon flourish.
Jaron Lanier
#76. Our role in the world is not to roam the globe looking for new dictators to topple. Our role in the world is to make ourselves a beacon of hope. Make ourselves stronger at home, but also our role in the world, yes, is also to confront evil when it rises.
Martin O'Malley
#77. A gigantic crowd of one million persons was gathered on the Maifeld to hear the two fascist dictators speak their pieces. Mussolini, orating in German, was carried away by the deafening applause - and by Hitler's flattering words.
William L. Shirer
#78. Really, no-one is bad except for serial killers and dictators.
Joel Edgerton
#79. Good coaching is about leadership and instilling respect in your players. Dictators lead through fear - good coaches do not.
John Wooden
#80. This is the twenty-first century. The oceans are rising. Mad dictators have access to nuclear weapons. Corporatism and the dumbing down of the media have destroyed the very foundations of democracy. Anyone who isn't afraid is a moron." There
Tommy Wallach
#81. Dictators and tyrants are the ones who lead their people over a cliff.
David Runciman
#82. Industrial societies can only be run successfully by dictators or oligarchs.
Dora Russell
#83. It is not patriotic to admire foreign dictators. It
Timothy Snyder
#84. Or say we have two rival dictators in a death grudge. Assuming ED289/290 develops nicely in pill form, allow me to slip each dictator a mickey. Soon their tongues are down each other's throats and doves of peace are pooping on their epaulets.
George Saunders
#85. Where would dictators be without our compliant amnesia? Make the collective lose its memory, you can conceal anything.
Charles Stross
#86. Dictators are rulers who always look good until the last ten minutes.
Jan Masaryk
#87. Every time our great Country has been critically challenged either by dictators or terrorists, we as a Country have put aside our personal agendas and focused on doing what we need to do to win when threatened.
George M. Gilbert
#88. Dictators are ludicrous characters, and, you know, in my career and in my life, I've always enjoyed sort of inhabiting these ludicrous, larger-than-life characters that somehow exist in the real world.
Sacha Baron Cohen
#89. Dictators long ago found out it is easier to unite people in common hatred than common love.
Dagobert D. Runes
#90. Escape from Freedom attempts to show, modern man still is anxious and tempted to surrender his freedom to dictators of all kinds, or to lose it by transforming himself into a small cog in the machine, well fed, and well clothed, yet not a free man but an automaton.
Erich Fromm
#91. There is no doubt that we have defeated too many dictators; but we must not forget that the religion is still out there.
M.F. Moonzajer
#92. Ignorant, unconscious and dishonourable part of a society want and like kings, dictators, padishahs and all sort of despots; educated, conscious and honourable part of the same society hate and refuse monarchs, tyrants, oppressors and any kind of autocrats!
Mehmet Murat Ildan
#93. First impressions are like South American dictators: overly powerful and unreliable.
A. J. Jacobs
#94. There are visible and invisible dictators. The power structure of world football is monarchical. It's the most secret kingdom in the world.
Eduardo Galeano
#95. Unlike other dictators, Stalin and his satraps never made the mistake of believing themselves beloved
on the contrary they saw plots under every stone.
Anna Reid
#96. And who died and made you boss?" But I knew a lost cause when I saw it and was already pulling my hair back with nimble fingers.
Niko slapped a shoulder holster against my chest. "No one. Like all truly great dictators, I seized that power myself. Now finish up. We leave in five minutes.
Rob Thurman
#97. It's the principle of the thing, Jess . That's what you've got to understand. You have to stop people like that. Otherwise they turn into tyrants and dictators.
Katherine Paterson
#98. Dictators are actually very fearful themselves. Even when they're asleep, they're afraid that others will take their powers away.
Chen Guangcheng
#99. No one is ever better off with dictators but there comes a time you know, when you're on an airplane, they always say, "in case of an emergency oxygen masks will drop down. Put yours on first and then administer help to your neighbor." We need oxygen right now.
Benjamin Carson
#100. Khomeini was not a puppet like Arafat or Qaddafi or the many other dictators I met in the Islamic world. He was a sort of Pope, a sort of king - a real leader.
Oriana Fallaci
