“ The freedom of the press is one of the great bulwarks of liberty and can never be restrained but by despotic governments. ”
- George Mason- Copy
- 3K
“ Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man. There has never been a really good one, and even those that are most tolerable are arbitrary, cruel, grasping and unintelligent. ”
- H. L. Mencken- Copy
- 2.7K
“ Totalitarian tyranny is the twin of total warfare — which might aptly be termed a reversion to tribal warfare on a larger scale. ”
- B. H. Liddell Hart- Copy
- 1.4K
“ It is clear that there is no classification of the Universe that is not arbitrary and full of conjectures. The reason for this is very simple: we do not know what kind of thing the universe is. ”
- Jorge Luis Borges- Copy
- 3.5K
“ Nor did there want Cornice or frieze with bossy sculpture graven. ”
- John Milton- Copy
- 350
“ Vanity is the most despotic and iniquitous of masters, and I can never be the slave of my own vices. ”
- George Sand- Copy
- 1.5K
“ It is irresponsible to set an arbitrary cap on how much therapy a Medicare beneficiary can receive. It ignores the health needs of our senior population - especially the oldest and sickest. ”
- John Ensign- Copy
- 2.2K
“ The notion of a farseeing and despotic statesman, who can lay down plans for ages yet unborn, is a fancy generated by the pride of the human intellect to which facts give no support. ”
- Walter Bagehot- Copy
- 552
“ When people revolt in a totalitarian society, they rise not against the wickedness of the regime but its weakness. ”
- Eric Hoffer- Copy
- 1.4K
“ Degeneracy follows every autocratic system of violence, for violence inevitably attracts moral inferiors. Time has proven that illustrious tyrants are succeeded by scoundrels. ”
- Albert Einstein- Copy
- 283
“ The burden of the past is only, I think, oppressive when you've got to go on the experience of the avant garde. ”
- Jonathan Miller- Copy
- 169
“ One of the very basic ideas of Post-Modernism is rejection of arbitrary power structures. Different people are sensitive to different kinds of power structures. ”
- Larry Wall- Copy
- 2.8K
“ It is utterly false and cruelly arbitrary to put all the play and learning into childhood, all the work into middle age, and all the regrets into old age. ”
- Margaret Mead- Copy
- 2.3K
“ Ending racial discrimination in jury selection can be accomplished only by eliminating peremptory challenges entirely. ”
- Thurgood Marshall- Copy
- 2.1K
“ Journalists were never intended to be the cheerleaders of a society, the conductors of applause, the sycophants. Tragically, that is their assigned role in authoritarian societies, but not here - not yet. ”
- Chet Huntley- Copy
- 1.6K
“ If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place. ”
- Margaret Mead- Copy
- 906
“ The fundamental article of my political creed is that despotism, or unlimited sovereignty, or absolute power, is the same in a majority of a popular assembly, an aristocratical council, an oligarchical junto, and a single emperor. Equally arbitrary, cruel, bloody, and in every respect diabolical. ”
- John Adams- Copy
- 458
“ We've got a dictatorial president and a Justice Department that does not want Congress involved. Your guy's acting like he's king. His dad was at a 90 percent approval rating and he lost! And the same thing can happen to him! ”
- Dan Burton- Copy
- 3.6K
“ The real stumbling-block of totalitarian regimes is not the spiritual need of men for freedom of thought; it is men's inability to stand the physical and nervous strain of a permanent state of excitement, except during a few years of their youth. ”
- Simone Weil- Copy
- 3.7K
“ The men who are to protect the community against violent aggression easily turn into the most dangerous aggressors. They transgress their mandate. They misuse their power for the oppression of those whom they were expected to defend against oppression… ”
- Ludwig von Mises- Copy
- 3.2K
“ And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and. ”
- Thomas Jefferson- Copy
- 2.7K
“ We're merging with these nonbiological technologies. We're already on that path. I mean, this little Android phone I'm carrying on my belt is not yet inside my physical body, but that's an arbitrary distinction. It is part of who I am. ”
- Ray Kurzweil- Copy
- 3.7K
“ We had all become used to the totalitarian system and accepted it as an unchangeable fact and thus helped to perpetuate it. In other words, we are all — though naturally to differing extents — responsible for the operation of the totalitarian machinery… ”
- Vaclav Havel- Copy
- 4K
“ A totalitarian society which succeeded in perpetuating itself would probably set up a schizophrenic system of thought, in which the laws of common sense held good in everyday life and in certain exact sciences, but could be disregarded by the politician, the historian, and the sociologist. ”
- George Orwell- Copy
- 3.6K
“ What I'm saying is simply that every totalitarian society, no matter how strict, has had its underground. In fact, two undergrounds. There's the underground involved in political resistance and the underground involved in preserving beauty and fun — which is to say, preserving the human spirit. ”
- Tom Robbins- Copy
- 2.4K
“ The worst crime committed by totalitarian mind-sets is that they force their citizens, including their victims, to become complicit in their crimes. Dancing with your jailer, participating in your own execution, that is an act of utmost brutality. ”
- Azar Nafisi- Copy
- 392
“ We take for granted the need to escape the self. Yet the self can also be a refuge. In totalitarian countries the great hunger is for private life. Absorption in the minutiae of an individual existence is the only refuge from the apocalyptic madhouse staged by maniacal saviors of humanity. ”
- Eric Hoffer- Copy
- 1.4K
“ Even though Christ Himself would not deliver us from the power of the Totalitarian State, as He did not deliver Himself, we must see His purpose in it all. Maybe his children are being persecuted by the world in order that they might withdraw themselves from the world… ”
- Fulton J. Sheen- Copy
- 1.9K
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