Totalitarianism Quotes - Page 6

• Let historians not record that when America was the most powerful nation in the world we passed on the other side of the road and allowed the last hopes for peace and freedom of millions of people to be suffocated by the forces of totalitarianism. And so tonightto you, the great silent majority of my fellow AmericansI ask for your support.

  Richard M. Nixon

  Peace, Powerful, America

  Address to the Nation on VietnamWar, 3 Nov. 1969. The term silent majority is found as early as 1870, when the Economist (19 Nov.) referred to "the silent majority which so seldom appears at the polls." See Petronius 2; Edward Young 1

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• Totalitarianism is patriotism institutionalized.

  Steve Allen

  Patriotism

  Steve Allen (1994). “Reflections”

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• The State's your mother, your father, the totality of your interests. No discipline can be too severe for the man that denies thatby word or deed.

  H. G. Wells

  Mother, Father, Men

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• If this practice [of totalitarianism] is compared with […] [the desert] of tyranny, it seems as if a way had been found to set the desert itself in motion, to let loose a sand storm that could cover all parts of the inhabited earth.
  The conditions under which we exist today in the field of politics are indeed threatened by these devastating sand storms.

  Hannah Arendt

  Practice, Storm, Desert

  Hannah Arendt (1968). “Totalitarianism: Part Three of The Origins of Totalitarianism”, p.200, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Our culture has few taboos that can't be violated, and our establishment has largely given up on setting standards in the first place. Except where Islam is concerned. There, the standards are established under threat of violence, and accepted out of a mix of self-preservation and self-loathing. This is what decadence looks like: a frantic coarseness that "bravely" trashes its own values and traditions, and then knuckles under swiftly to totalitarianism and brute force.

  Ross Douthat

  Self, Political, Islam

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• Since it is difficult to join them together, it is safer to be feared than to be loved when one of the two must be lacking.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Love, Two, Together

  Niccolo Machiavelli (1979). “The Portable Machiavelli”, p.93, Penguin

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• In the same way that slavery was a moral challenge for the 19th century and totalitarianism was a challenge for the 20th century, the challenge that women and girls face around the world is the moral challenge of our time.

  Sheryl WuDunn

  Girl, Challenges, World

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• People who live in the post-totalitarian system know only too well that the question of whether one or several political parties are in power, and how these parties define and label themselves, is of far less importance than the question of whether or not it is possible to live like a human being.

  Vaclav Havel

  Party, People, Political

  Vaclav Havel, John Keane (2016). “The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe”, p.59, Routledge

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• The individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.

  Eric Hoffer

  Effort, Individuality, Literature

  Eric Hoffer (1963). “The Ordeal of Change”

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• One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves.

  Albert Camus

  People, Leader, Slave

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt”, p.182, Vintage

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• Inverted totalitarianism, unlike classical totalitarianism, does not revolve around a demagogue or charismatic leader. It finds expression in the anonymity of the Corporate State. It purports to cherish democracy, patriotism, and the Constitution while manipulating internal levers.

  Chris Hedges

  Expression, Leader, Democracy

  Chris Hedges (2010). “Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle”, p.146, Nation Books

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• Revolution means democracy in today's world, not the enslavement of peoples to the corrupt and degrading horrors of totalitarianism

  Ronald Reagan

  Mean, Democracy, World

  Ronald Reagan (1998). “A Shining City: The Legacy of Ronald Reagan”

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• Ultimately, totalitarianism is the only sort of politics that can truly serve the sky-god's purpose. Any movement of a liberal nature endangers his authority and that of his delegates on earth. One God, one King, one Pope, one master in the factory, one father-leader in the family at home.

  Gore Vidal

  Atheist, Kings, Father

  Gore Vidal (1992). “The Decline and Fall of the American Empire”

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