#dictator

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 polarisation and the barbarism of dictatorships - that made me feel that we had to change this country. ↗

— Georgios A. Papandreou

#been #change #country #dictatorships #difficult

The quality of his being one with the people, of having no artificial or natural barriers between him and them, made it possible for him to be a leader without ever being or thinking of being a dictator. ↗

— Frances Perkins

#barriers #being #between #dictator #ever

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

#democratic #dictatorships #doomed #experiment #fail

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

#america #apartheid #course #dictators #latin

Anywhere, anytime ordinary people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same: freedom, not tyranny; democracy, not dictatorship; the rule of law, not the rule of the secret police. ↗

— Tony Blair

#anywhere #chance #choice #choose #democracy

Sometimes I think that a parody of democracy could be more dangerous than a blatant dictatorship, because that gives people an opportunity to avoid doing anything about it. ↗

— Aung San Suu Kyi

#anything #avoid #because #blatant #could

The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness. ↗

— Niels Bohr

#democracy #dictatorship #openness #secrecy #should

Iraq is a country that has been invaded. It's not a failing state that you want to help. It's a country that was functioning good or bad, with a horrible dictator, but you have invaded. ↗

— Lakhdar Brahimi

#been #country #dictator #failing #functioning

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

#dictators #i #islamic #islamic world #khomeini

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

#dictators #east #justice #middle #middle east