#dictators

Bosses are no more inevitable in state and local governments than dictators are in national governments. They will arise and prosper, nevertheless, if true believers of democracy - citizens devoted to the democratic ideals - do not constantly oppose them. ↗

— Charles Edison

#believers #bosses #citizens #constantly #democracy

I disapprove of lots of decisions made by George Bush: the war, the meddling in the affairs of other countries, the conversations with dictators; it was a dark time. ↗

— Tommy Hilfiger

#bush #conversations #countries #dark #dark time

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

#developing #dictatorships #east #focused #goal

Within a system which denies the existence of basic human rights, fear tends to be the order of the day. Fear of imprisonment, fear of torture, fear of death, fear of losing friends, family, property or means of livelihood, fear of poverty, fear of isolation, fear of failure. A most insidious form of fear is that which masquerades as common sense or even wisdom, condemning as foolish, reckless, insignificant or futile the small, daily acts of courage which help to preserve man's self-respect and inherent human dignity. It is not easy for a people conditioned by fear under the iron rule of the principle that might is right to free themselves from the enervating miasma of fear. Yet even under the most crushing state machinery courage rises up again and again, for fear is not the natural state of civilized man. ↗

— Aung San Suu Kyi

#dictatorship #dignity #fear #freedom #human-rights

You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police ... yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts: words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home -- all the more powerful because forbidden -- terrify them. A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic. ↗

— Winston Churchill

#dictatorship #fear #freedom #government #independent-thought

La libertà è uno stato di grazia e si è liberi solo mentre si lotta per conquistarla. ↗

— Luis Sepúlveda

#chile #dictatorship #freedom #freedom

Dictatorship, by whatever name, is founded on the doctrine that the individual amounts to nothing; that the State is the only one that counts; and that men and women and children were put on earth solely for the purpose of serving the state. ↗

— Harry S. Truman

#government #individual-worth #men

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

Ignorance is an evil weed, which dictators may cultivate among their dupes, but which no democracy can afford among its citizens. ↗

— William Beveridge

#among #citizens #cultivate #democracy #dictators

It's true that General Musharraf opposes my return, seeing me as a symbol of democracy in the country. He is comfortable with dictatorship. I hope better sense prevails. ↗

— Benazir Bhutto

#better sense #comfortable #country #democracy #dictatorship