Authoritarianism Quotes

On this page you will find all the quotes on the topic "Authoritarianism". There are currently 52 quotes in our collection about Authoritarianism. Discover the TOP 10 sayings about Authoritarianism!
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  • The practical reason for freedom is that freedom seems to be the only condition under which any kind of substantial moral fiber can be developed - we have tried law, compulsion and authoritarianism of various kinds, and the result is nothing to be proud of.

    Moral Fiber   Law   Proud  
    "On Doing the Right Thing". "The American Mercury" Magazine, 1925.
  • The knock on [Chris] Christie was always the I guy that he was - I felt inordinately talented politician, a smart and in some ways very capable human being, with a personality given toward authoritarianism and bullying and ethical corner-cutting.

    Source: www.msnbc.com
  • Demanding domestic security in times of war invites carelessness in preserving civil liberties and the right of privacy. Frequently the people are only too anxious for their freedoms to be sacrificed on the altar of authoritarianism thought to be necessary to remain safe and secure.

    War   People   Liberty  
    "Bush’s Wars". www.counterpunch.org. September 21, 2001.
  • Authoritarianism is not pretending anymore to be a real alternative to democracy, but we can see many more authoritarian practices and styles basically being smuggled into democratic governments.

  • Good design today requires more vision (a larger point of view versus the single brilliant idea), more consistency (a deeper underlying structure of language and form versus the simple, uniform application of visual elements) and more patience (persistence over time versus creative authoritarianism).

  • It has been well over half a century and I'm glad to say we have taken the right path from authoritarianism to democracy and this is a road of no return.

    BBC Interview, news.bbc.co.uk. March 30, 2004.
  • A republic is not an easy form of government to live under, and when the responsibility of citizenship is evaded, democracy decays and authoritarianism takes over.

    Earl Warren (1972). “A Republic, If You Can Keep It. -”
  • For us Africans, literature must serve a purpose: to expose, embarrass, and fight corruption and authoritarianism. It is understandable why the African artist is utilitarian.

  • In the '30s and '40s, the search for Hungarian national identity led famously to an alliance with Hitler and the destruction of more than a half million of the nation's Jews. And here we are now, more than 70 years later, witnessing a resurgence of xenophobia and authoritarianism, and not just in Eastern Europe.

    "Dear Susan, I Have Some Interesting News for You…". Interview With Marianne Szegedy-Maszak, www.motherjones.com. July 9, 2016.
  • Clarity of language is the first casualty of authoritarianism.

  • You can't turn back technology and you can't turn back authoritarianism. You can't have one hand in the dirt and one hand in the crystal clear water and say that you're clean. That's just the way it is.

    Source: www.complex.com
  • America needs fewer laws, not more prisons. By trying to seize far more power than is necessary over American citizens, the federal government is destroying its own legitimacy. We face a choice not of anarchy or authoritarianism, but a choice of limited government or unlimited government .

    James Bovard (1994). “Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty”, p.6, Palgrave Macmillan
  • We must nevertheless present all possible interpretations for each observation, so that competing theories can be formulated and defended. In science, as elsewhere, intellectual inertia, the fashions of the moment, the weight of institutions, and authoritarianism are always to be feared. Heresies play an essential role by keeping our minds argumentative and alert.

    "Atoms of Silence: an Exploration of Cosmic Evolution". Book by Hubert Reeves, 1984.
  • liberty, which means resisting all forms of cultural authoritarianism, be it from the right wing church, black ideologues, black nationalists, or mainstream white media. We have to accent liberty and freedom of expression and thought in all their forms.

    Mean   Media   Expression  
    bell hooks, Cornel West (2016). “Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life”, p.75, Routledge
  • I categorically deny that. The American left today as I know it - and believe me, I am very familiar with the American left - is going toward authoritarianism, toward totalitarianism. It's becoming the real right in the United States.

    Real   Believe   Today  
    Source: reason.com
  • The libertarian can have no truck with 'left' or 'right' because he regrets any form of authoritarianism - the use of police force to control the creative life of man.

    Regret   Men   Creative  
  • Teachers have been heroes to me, as well as artists and writers, and I'm honored to be among their ranks. There is always a lot of grousing about the academy. I suppose it comes from our all-American anti-authoritarianism.

    Teacher   Hero   Artist  
    Interview with Simmons B. Buntin, www.terrain.org. September 22, 2010.
  • I think the media in America have been absolutely fantastic about the rise of Trump, they've kept a firm eye on the ball: this constitutes democracy, this constitutes transparency, this constitutes fairness, this constitutes the way to behave in a civic society, this constitutes fascism, this constitutes authoritarianism. They're drawing that line, and they're calling him out every time. That's really what needs to happen, and you just have to do that.

    Eye   Thinking   Media  
    Source: www.macleans.ca
  • But let it not be said that we did nothing. Let not those who love the power of the welfare/warfare state label the dissenters of authoritarianism as unpatriotic or uncaring. Patriotism is more closely linked to dissent than it is to conformity and a blind desire for safety and security. Understanding the magnificent rewards of a free society makes us unbashful in its promotion, fully realizing that maximum wealth is created and the greatest chance for peace comes from a society respectful of individual liberty.

    Congressional Record, Volume 153, pt. 10, 2010.
  • Modern authoritarianism, as it's growing inside Europe and now coming to the United States, rests much more on the use of power to protect the guilty than to persecute the innocent. And its motive is not crazy totalitarian utopianism, it's motive is repressive kleptocracy. To steal and to use the powers of the state to protect theft.

    Source: www.cbc.ca
  • We have power... Our power isn’t in a political system, or a religious system, or in an economic system, or in a military system; these are authoritarian systems... they have power... but it’s not reality. The power of our intelligence, individually or collectively IS the power; this is the power that any industrial ruling class truly fears: clear coherent human beings.

  • As one might expect, authoritarianism will at times cause children and students to adopt rebellious positions, defiant of any limit, discipline, or authority. But it will also lead to apathy, excessive obedience, uncritical conformity, lack of resistance against authoritarian discourse, self-abnegation, and fear of freedom.

    Paulo Freire (2005). “Teachers as Cultural Workers: Letters to Those who Dare Teach”
  • Authority is God ordained, but authoritarianism and raw power, in almost all forms, is dangerous.

  • Weak logic, inconsistencies and alienation from the people are common features of authoritarianism. The relentless attempts of totalitarian regimes to prevent free thought and new ideas and the persistent assertion of their own rightness bring on them an intellectual stasis which they project on to the nation at large. Intimidation and propaganda work in a duet of oppression, while the people, lapped in fear and distrust, learn to dissemble and to keep silent.

    "In Quest of Democracy". Essay by Aung San Suu Kyi, 1991.
  • I think what we are confronting now is a new war of ideas. It's not communism versus capitalism, but it is authoritarianism versus democracy and representative government. And that is a threat that here in Europe, they feel acutely. They've seen their countries interfered with, bombarded by cyber-attacks, by Russian propaganda, indeed, by Russian troops.

    Country   War   Thinking  
    Source: abcnews.go.com
  • The use of the word royalty, as fee to a proprietor for the exploitation of a work or property, derives from the period when the sovereign assumed title to all wealth of the realm. It was the struggle for freedom from these encroachments of the state that chiefly marked the Nineteenth Century, and established everywhere constitutional regimes of limited authority. In the Twentieth Century, however, we have witnessed a gradual and almost unrestricted movement back to state authoritarianism, primarily in the economic sphere, accompanied by the spread of state monopoly and intervention.

  • America needs fewer laws, not more prisons.

    Law   America   Liberty  
    James Bovard (2016). “Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty”, p.6, St. Martin's Griffin
  • When we talk about authoritarianism, we conjure up out-of-date visions from the 1930s. But we are no more likely to do authoritarian government the way they did in the 1930s then we're likely to address or talk or do any of our other business in the way they did it in the 1930s.

    "David Frum: 'How Donald Trump Could Build An Autocracy In The U.S.'". "Morning Edition" with Steve Inskeep, www.npr.org. January 31, 2017.
  • To demonize state authoritarianism while ignoring identical albeit contract-consecrated subservient arrangements in the large-scale corporations which control the world economy is fetishism at its worst.

    Bob Black (1986). “The Abolition of Work and Other Essays”, Loompanics Unltd
  • If people want consultative government, the price is increased complexity and delay in arriving at decisions. If they want speed of government, then they must accept a greater degree of authoritarianism. I suspect that the real answer is that most people prefer the latter so long, that is, as government's decisions conform with their own views.

    Real   Government   Views  
    Official Report of Proceedings of the Hong Kong Legislative Council (p. 215), March 27, 1968.
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