Authoritarianism Quotes

• How ever sugarcoated and ambiguous, every form of authoritarianism must start with a belief in some group's greater right to power, whether that right is justified by sex, race, religion or all four.

  Gloria Steinem

  Sex, Race, Liberty

  Gloria Steinem (1986). “Outrageous acts and everyday rebellions”, New Amer Library

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• The strengthening of our statehood is, at times, deliberately interpreted as authoritarianism.

  Vladimir Putin

  Strengthening, Authoritarian Government

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• For us Africans, literature must serve a purpose: to expose, embarrass, and fight corruption and authoritarianism. It is understandable why the African artist is utilitarian.

  Ama Ata Aidoo

  Fighting, Artist, Purpose

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• It has been well over half a century and I'm glad to say we have taken the right path from authoritarianism to democracy and this is a road of no return.

  Chen Shui-bian

  Taken, Democracy, Prejudice

  BBC Interview, news.bbc.co.uk. March 30, 2004.

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• America needs fewer laws, not more prisons. By trying to seize far more power than is necessary over American citizens, the federal government is destroying its own legitimacy. We face a choice not of anarchy or authoritarianism, but a choice of limited government or unlimited government .

  James Bovard

  Government, Law, America

  James Bovard (1994). “Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty”, p.6, Palgrave Macmillan

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• We begin the path toward defeating Mexico's real adversary, who represents authoritarianism and the worst antidemocratic practice, who represents a return to corruption as a system and impunity as conviction. That adversary is Pena Nieto and his party.

  Josefina Vazquez Mota

  Real, Party, Practice

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• A republic is not an easy form of government to live under, and when the responsibility of citizenship is evaded, democracy decays and authoritarianism takes over.

  Earl Warren

  Responsibility, Government, Democracy

  Earl Warren (1972). “A Republic, If You Can Keep It. -”

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• Clarity of language is the first casualty of authoritarianism.

  Robin Morgan

  Firsts, Language, Clarity

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• Modern authoritarianism, as it's growing inside Europe and now coming to the United States, rests much more on the use of power to protect the guilty than to persecute the innocent. And its motive is not crazy totalitarian utopianism, it's motive is repressive kleptocracy. To steal and to use the powers of the state to protect theft.

  David Frum

  Crazy, Europe, United States

  Source: www.cbc.ca

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• Authoritarianism and secrecy breed incompetence; the two feed on each other. It's a vicious cycle. Governments with authoritarian tendencies point to what is in fact their own incompetence as the rationale for giving them yet more power.

  Josh Marshall

  Government, Two, Giving

  "I Was Finally Able". Talking Points Memo, talkingpointsmemo.com. January 17, 2006.

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• As one might expect, authoritarianism will at times cause children and students to adopt rebellious positions, defiant of any limit, discipline, or authority. But it will also lead to apathy, excessive obedience, uncritical conformity, lack of resistance against authoritarian discourse, self-abnegation, and fear of freedom.

  Paulo Freire

  Children, Self, Discipline

  Paulo Freire (2005). “Teachers as Cultural Workers: Letters to Those who Dare Teach”

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• Demanding domestic security in times of war invites carelessness in preserving civil liberties and the right of privacy. Frequently the people are only too anxious for their freedoms to be sacrificed on the altar of authoritarianism thought to be necessary to remain safe and secure.

  Ron Paul

  War, People, Liberty

  "Bush’s Wars". www.counterpunch.org. September 21, 2001.

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• 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.

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• We are at heart so profoundly anarchistic that the only form of state we can imagine living in is Utopian; and so cynical that the only Utopia we can believe in is authoritarian.

  Lionel Trilling

  Believe, Heart, Cynical

  "Partisan Review: 50th Anniversary Edition", ed. William Philips, 1985.

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• Russia is leading a movement around the world to spread autocracy and authoritarianism.

  Adam Schiff

  Russia, Movement, World

  Source: abcnews.go.com

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• In any authoritarian society, the possessor of power dictates, and if you try and step outside, he will come after you. This is equally true of Sovietism, of China and of Iran, and in our time it has happened a lot in Islam. The point is that it's worse when the authoritarianism is supported by something supernatural.

  Salman Rushdie

  Iran, Islam, Trying

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• When we talk about authoritarianism, we conjure up out-of-date visions from the 1930s. But we are no more likely to do authoritarian government the way they did in the 1930s then we're likely to address or talk or do any of our other business in the way they did it in the 1930s.

  David Frum

  Government, Vision, Addresses

  "David Frum: 'How Donald Trump Could Build An Autocracy In The U.S.'". "Morning Edition" with Steve Inskeep, www.npr.org. January 31, 2017.

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• Marginalized youth, workers, artists and others are raising serious questions about the violence of inequality and the social order that legitimates it. They are calling for a redistribution of wealth and power - not within the old system, but in a new one in which democracy becomes more than a slogan or a legitimation for authoritarianism and state violence.

  Henry Giroux

  Artist, Order, Democracy

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• Good design today requires more vision (a larger point of view versus the single brilliant idea), more consistency (a deeper underlying structure of language and form versus the simple, uniform application of visual elements) and more patience (persistence over time versus creative authoritarianism).

  William Drenttel

  Simple, Persistence, Ideas

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• It will be difficult, even painful, but democracy will prevail in Russia. There will be no dictatorship, although relapses into authoritarianism are possible.

  Mikhail Gorbachev

  Russia, Democracy, Painful

  "'They Were Truly Idiots'". Interview with Matthias Schepp and Christian Neef, www.spiegel.de. August 16, 2011.

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• Authoritarianism is not pretending anymore to be a real alternative to democracy, but we can see many more authoritarian practices and styles basically being smuggled into democratic governments.

  Ivan Krastev

  Real, Government, Practice

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• If you say that you reject violence when it exceeds the limits imposed by the needs of defense, they accuse you of pacifism, without understanding that violence is the whole essence of authoritarianism, just as the repudiation of violence is the whole essence of anarchism.

  Errico Malatesta

  Essence, Understanding, Needs

  Errico Malatesta (2015). “Life and Ideas: The Anarchist Writings of Errico Malatesta”, p.138, PM Press

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• liberty, which means resisting all forms of cultural authoritarianism, be it from the right wing church, black ideologues, black nationalists, or mainstream white media. We have to accent liberty and freedom of expression and thought in all their forms.

  Cornel West

  Mean, Media, Expression

  bell hooks, Cornel West (2016). “Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life”, p.75, Routledge

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• I think the media in America have been absolutely fantastic about the rise of Trump, they've kept a firm eye on the ball: this constitutes democracy, this constitutes transparency, this constitutes fairness, this constitutes the way to behave in a civic society, this constitutes fascism, this constitutes authoritarianism. They're drawing that line, and they're calling him out every time. That's really what needs to happen, and you just have to do that.

  Irvine Welsh

  Eye, Thinking, Media

  Source: www.macleans.ca

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• What, actually, is the difference between communism and fascism? Both are forms of statism, authoritarianism. The only difference between Stalin's communism and Mussolini's fascism is an insignificant detail in organizational structure.

  Leonard Read

  Differences, Details, Individualism

  "Neither Left Nor Right". The Freeman Magazine, January, 1956.

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