Quotes About Dictatorships

#1. Colossal rigidity, whether in dinosaurs or dictatorships, has a very poor record of evolutionary survival.

Carl R. Rogers

#2. Generally, dictatorships do not work in marriage - or, for that matter, in any other relationship.

Gloria Allred

#3. For the last fifty years we've been supporting right-wing governments, and that is a puzzlement to me ... I don't understand what there is in the American character ... that almost automatically, even when we have a liberal President, we support fascist dictatorships or are tolerant towards them.

Michael Parenti

#4. 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

#5. The Holy Book calls upon Muslims to resist tyranny. Dictatorships in Pakistan, however long, have, therefore, always collapsed in the face of this spirit.

Benazir Bhutto

#6. We must learn, and especially we Germans, that resistance is not only possible and allowed in dictatorships. There is resistance that man must perform every day.

Heinrich Boll

#7. There are examples of fraternal dictatorships, or one, anyway: the passing of power from Fidel to Raul Castro.

Elliott Abrams

#8. I renounce war for its consequences, for the lies it lives on and propagates, for the undying hatred it arouses, for the dictatorships it puts in place of democracy, for the starvation that stalks after it. I renounce war, and never again, directly or indirectly, will I sanction or support another.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

#9. [Altruism] is a moral system which holds that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the sole justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, value and virtue. This is the moral base of collectivism, of all dictatorships.

Ayn Rand

#10. The problem with dictatorships - as I read somewhere recently - and with poisonous ideologies, too, is that they are like sharks. They must keep moving forward or die. What caused their aggression is not what you did. It's who they are.

Robert A. Heinlein

#11. Should we continue to spend billions to subsidize foreign military dictatorships, or should we concentrate on taking better care of the one we have right here at home?

Pat Paulsen

#12. You need dictatorships and poverty to produce great footballers.

Eamon Dunphy

#13. We have to implant democracies where there are now dictatorships.

Tom Tancredo

#14. Only a free West can help the prisoners of today's left- and right-wing dictatorships.

Barbara Amiel

#15. Millions of people died in the war "to make the world safe for democracy" - a war that led to autocratic dynasties being replaced by totalitarian dictatorships that slaughtered far more of their own people than the dynasties had?

Thomas Sowell

#16. Most of ideologies are not based on the individual - no matter what they say. There are these peoples' democracies, nationalism - they're all dictatorships. And I think any kind of dictatorship is bad for the individual.

Frank Capra

#17. The United States condoned dictatorships in Latin America for much of the 20th century.

Carlos Fuentes

#18. History proves that all dictatorships, all authoritarian forms of government are transient. Only democratic systems are not transient. Whatever the shortcomings, mankind has not devised anything superior.

Vladimir Putin

#19. Powerful dictatorships that make their leaders powerful need to stage wars to get ordinary people to march in lockstep like mindless Nazi robots. That is the road to Greatness.

Michael A. Ledeen

#20. 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

#21. It serves notice that President Bush is serious about promoting freedom, because free societies are a lot more peaceable than dictatorships and monarchies.

Tony Snow

#22. Democracies, unlike dictatorships, are forgiving and generous, but they cannot survive unless they fight.

Jalal Talabani

#23. When the United States was founded, the very idea of a nation premised on democratic principles of freedom and tolerance was viewed by the vast majority of the world as an experiment doomed to fail. Dictatorships, monarchies, and theocracies had for many centuries ruled the world.

Eliot Spitzer

#24. That worst evil of long dictatorships: the loss of all political experience.

James Cameron

#25. Dictatorships do cut down on rape, and pillage, not to mention sexual harassment, by the simple expedient of sending people to labour camps for life or cutting off their hands without a trial.

Barbara Amiel

#26. The poets who have written the best poems about war seem to be the poets whose countries have experienced an invasion or vicious dictatorships.

Billy Collins

#27. Dictatorships don't always die when the dictator leaves office

Mohamed Nasheed

#28. When the United States aligns with dictatorships and totalitarian regimes, it compromises the basic democratic principles of its foundation - namely, life, liberty and justice for all.

Benazir Bhutto

#29. As a rule, dictatorships guarantee safe streets and terror of the doorbell. In democracy the streets may be unsafe after dark, but the most likely visitor in the early hours will be the milkman.

Adam Michnik

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

Natan Sharansky

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

Harold H. Greene

#32. In our modern age - in the age of free information - I don't think there is any place for dictatorships.

Rashid Al-Ghannushi

#33. Distributed intelligence is the key to the advancement of human civilization. Dictatorships, communist countries, monarchies in the past all eventually collapsed because of their inefficiency in moving information.

Al Gore

#34. So I think we should stay focused on the real problem in the Middle East. It's not Israel. It's these dictatorships that are developing nuclear weapons with the specific goal of wiping Israel away.

Benjamin Netanyahu

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

Gene Sharp

#36. There has never been a communism that worked. They were all dictatorships or oligarchies, every single one.

David Crosby

#37. I came from two harsh dictatorships, Nazi and Stalinist. I never thought of becoming a writer as such, yet in a lucid moment, I recognised what I had to do.

Imre Kertesz

#38. 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

#39. Freedom is a terrible gift, and the theory behind all dictatorships is that "the people" do no want freedom.

Madeleine L'Engle

#40. In constitutional states, liberty is compensation for heavy taxes; in dictatorships, the subsititue is light taxes.

Baron De Montesquieu

#41. It cannot be denied that Fascism and similar movements aiming at the establishment of dictatorships are full of the best intentions and that their intervention has, for the moment, saved European civilization. The merit that Fascism has thereby won for itself will live on eternally in history.

Ludwig Von Mises

#42. Dictatorships, wars, and cruelty drive whole countries to madness. My theory is that the human species was crazy from the very first and that civilization and culture are only enhancing man's insanity.
A Tale of Two Sisters

Isaac Bashevis Singer

#43. Multiple political parties are a fact of life throughout Europe and most of the West. Today the only countries without strong multiparty political systems are the United States and a number of third world military dictatorships.

Thomas Naylor

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

Christopher Hitchens

#45. Dictatorships foster oppression, dictatorships foster servitude, dictatorships foster cruelty; more abominable is the fact that they foster idiocy.

Jorge Luis Borges

#46. The president feels not only do we need to change these rogue regimes, but even our friendly allies, who really basically have, sort of, benign dictatorships, need to get with the program if they want to have long-term security and prosperity from terrorism.

Mitch McConnell

#47. We preach democracy while supporting dictatorships.

James W. Loewen

#48. Dictatorships are one-way streets. Democracy boasts two-way traffic.

Alberto Moravia

#49. First, I look at history the way I look at evolution. Some things die out for a good reason, and should be left dead. I put dictatorships and velociraptors in the same category: leave them in the past, where they can serve as frightening object lessons for the present.

Holly Lisle

#50. Dictatorships may seem strong and unified, but they are always weaker than they appear.

Hyeonseo Lee

#51. This is ideological colonization. They colonize people with ideas that try to change mentalities or structures, but this is not new. This was done by the dictatorships of the last century.

Pope Francis

#52. The most effective way to restrict democracy is to transfer decision-making from the public arena to unaccountable institutions: kings and princes, priestly castes, military juntas, party dictatorships, or modern corporations.

Noam Chomsky

#53. North Korea has taught a great lesson to all the countries in the world, especially the rogue countries of dictatorships or whatever: if you don't want to be invaded by America, get some nuclear weapons.

Michael Moore

#54. So many idealistic political movements for a better world have ended in mass-murdering dictatorships. Giving leaders enough power to create 'social justice' is giving them enough power to destroy all justice, all freedom, and all human dignity.

Thomas Sowell

#55. Dictatorships must be feared to survive so they cannot bear to be mocked.

Garry Kasparov

#56. Contrary to popular opinion, even totalitarian dictatorships are dependent on the population and the societies they rule.

Gene Sharp

#57. I sing against emotional dictatorships, and against the imposition of one person over another, in the name of love.

Concha Buika

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

Richard Perle

#59. 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

#60. I am the product of living in dictatorships. And someone who's lived in dictatorships and not being allowed to be themselves, it cherishes the ability to be yourself and to have feelings and to speak them when asked. And I am that person.

Teresa Heinz

#61. The patchwork political landscape of the Arab world - the client monarchies, degenerated nationalist dictatorships, and the imperial petrol stations known as the Gulf states - was the outcome of an intensive experience of Anglo-French colonialism.

Tariq Ali

#62. So when you hear about Hillary's [Clinton] dishonesty, or the emails, or taking millions from the Saudis and other Middle Eastern dictatorships - remember, this is not about politics.

Newt Gingrich

#63. The reason that democracies always defeat dictatorships is because they're open to debate. We should never allow Washington to say, 'Shut up, get in line and wave the flag.'

Ralph Nader

#64. This (presidential) system will not bear any resemblance to dictatorships under the same name in Africa and Asia, (It) will be unique to Turkey, it will be like a bee making honey, taking something from every flower and giving us a taste of a truly different honey.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan

#65. Democracy is messy. It is messy whether you've been doing it since 1789 or whether you're going to do it for the first time in 2005. The trouble with Democracy is, you hold elections. The trouble with dictatorships is ... you don't.

Rich Galen

#66. If Greece had gone through a very normal political life, I may have not been in politics. But just the fact that I lived through huge upheavals and very difficult struggles and polarization and the barbarism of dictatorships - that made me feel that we had to change this country.

George Papandreou

#67. Nigerian politics has been, since the military dictatorships, largely non-ideological. Rather than a battle of ideas, it is about who can pump in the most money and buy the most access.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

#68. I hate war ... for the dictatorships it puts in the place of democracies, and for the starvation that stalks after it.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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

Gene Sharp

#70. Subjugation requires vigilance; if you relax your brutality even for a moment, the people you're oppressing will revolt at the first sign of weakness. That's why dictatorial regimes are always a slippery slope of cruelty doomed to end in failure.

Nenia Campbell

#71. 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

#72. 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

#73. The main reason for the people who support a dictator is that their character perfectly match with the character of that dictator! They both have a mean personality!

Mehmet Murat Ildan