#totalitarian

Totalitarianism is not only hell, but all the dream of paradise-- the age-old dream of a world where everybody would live in harmony, united by a single common will and faith, without secrets from one another. Andre Breton, too, dreamed of this paradise when he talked about the glass house in which he longed to live. If totalitarianism did not exploit these archetypes, which are deep inside us all and rooted deep in all religions, it could never attract so many people, especially during the early phases of its existence. Once the dream of paradise starts to turn into reality, however, here and there people begin to crop up who stand in its way. and so the rulers of paradise must build a little gulag on the side of Eden. In the course of time this gulag grows ever bigger and more perfect, while the adjoining paradise gets even smaller and poorer. ↗

— Milan Kundera

#paradise #totalitarianism #utopia #age

It is not true that virtually all news in a totalitarian state is false. ↗

— Konrad Zuse

#news #state #totalitarian #totalitarian state #true

Only the freedom of mind can prevent the state from becoming totalitarian and from issuing totalitarian demands. ↗

— Friedrich Durrenmatt

#demands #freedom #issuing #mind #only

A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers. ↗

— Friedrich August von Hayek

#equality #government #material #met #only

The great strength of the totalitarian state is that it forces those who fear it to imitate it. ↗

— Adolf Hitler

#forces #great #imitate #state #strength

As I understand I took most so-called democratic states about 200 years on average to build their democracies. That is why, when we go to sleep under totalitarian rule and wake up in a democracy, it makes me laugh. ↗

— Aleksandr Lebed

#average #build #democracies #democracy #democratic

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

#still-life-with-woodpecker #tom-robbins #totalitarianism #beauty

In the main the Academy helped to frame only laws of an economic or social nature, since owing to the development of the totalitarian regime it became more and more impossible to cooperate in other spheres. ↗

— Hans Frank

#became #cooperate #development #economic #frame

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy? ↗

— Mahatma Gandhi

#democracy #destruction #difference #does #holy

What's certain is that a totalitarian enclave like Cuba's can't continue to exist, so change will definitely come there, eventually. ↗

— Vaclav Havel

#change #come #continue #cuba #definitely