140 Authoritarianism Quotes
Following is our list of authoritarianism quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about authoritarian government.
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Famous Authoritarianism Quotes
Intolerance of ambiguity is the mark of an authoritarian personality. — Theodor Adorno
How ever sugarcoated and ambiguous, every form of authoritarianism must start with a belief in some group's greater right to power, whether that right is justified by sex, race, religion or all four. — Gloria Steinem
The definition of an extreme authoritarian is one who is willing blindly to assume that government accusations are true without any evidence presented or opportunity to contest those accusations. — Glenn Greenwald
Authoritarian political ideologies have a vested interest in promoting fear, a sense of the imminence of takeover by aliens and real diseases are useful material. — Susan Sontag
The strengthening of our statehood is, at times, deliberately interpreted as authoritarianism. — Vladimir Putin
Social control is best managed through fear. — Michael Crichton
Clarity of language is the first casualty of authoritarianism. — Robin Morgan
Totalitarianism surpasses autocracy. — Bernard Crick
Whatever crushes individuality is despotism. — John Stuart Mill
It is the low drive for sameness and the hatred of otherness that characterizes all forms of leftism, which inevitably are totalitarian. — Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
If you see someone taking responsibility, give that person authority. If you see someone looking for authority, watch out! — Sayings
If you don’t have a problem with authority at this point, you probably can’t be helped. — Bret Weinstein
Hero-worship is strongest where there is least regard for human freedom. — Herbert Spencer
In a democracy the people choose a leader in whom they trust. Then the chosen leader says, 'Now shut up and obey me.' People and party are then no longer free to interfere in his business. — Max Weber
A man's admiration of absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him. — Alexis de Tocqueville
Short Authoritarianism Quotes
- Democratic India and authoritarian China are destined to be rivals. — Tim Marshall
- America needs fewer laws, not more prisons. — James Bovard
- Russia is leading a movement around the world to spread autocracy and authoritarianism. — Adam Schiff
- There is a single theme behind all our work-we must reduce population levels. — Thomas Ferguson
- Authority is God ordained, but authoritarianism and raw power, in almost all forms, is dangerous. — James Dobson
- My anti-authoritarian instincts let me directly to criminal defense work. — Lynne Stewart
- Intolerance of ambiguity is the mark of an authoritarian personality. — Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno
- Why do economists fall in love with authoritarian governments? — Yasheng Huang
- With Taiwan, it took about 40 years to go from an authoritarian to a democratic society. — Ma Ying-jeou
- Obama is a statist. He's an authoritarian. He doesn't want to govern; he wants to rule. — Rush Limbaugh
Authoritarian Quotes
A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth. Authoritarian institutions and marketers have always known this fact. — Daniel Kahneman
The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries but between authoritarians and libertarians. — George Orwell
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. — Ama Ata Aidoo
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. — Chen Shui-bian
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
Authoritarians have always been here. But the features of a given moment make that way of thinking more or less appealing. Germany in the 1920s, when people are starving, suddenly makes 'populist' answers and scapegoating different groups as the source of the problem much more appealing. — Robert M. Sapolsky
We are at heart so profoundly anarchistic that the only form of state we can imagine living in is Utopian; and so cynical that the only Utopia we can believe in is authoritarian. — Lionel Trilling
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. — Ron Paul
The greatest threat to women (and by extension humanity) is the growth and acceptance of a misogynistic, authoritarian, and violent culture of militarism. — Amina Mama
Rather than us exporting liberal democracy to these countries instead we're importing Chinese style authoritarianism. — Konstantin Kisin
Authoritarian Government Quotes
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
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
The Popular Unity government represented the first attempt anywhere to build a genuinely democratic transition to socialism - a socialism that, owing to its origins, might be guided not by authoritarian bureaucracy, but by democratic self-rule. — Salvador Allende
History proves that all dictatorships, all authoritarian forms of government are transient. Only democratic systems are not transient. Whatever the shortcomings, mankind has not devised anything superior. — Vladimir Putin
Public schools are government-established, politician- and bureaucrat-controlled, fully politicized, taxpayer-supported, authoritarian socialist institutions. In fact, the public-school system is one of the purest examples of socialism existing in America. — Tom L. Johnson
Leadership must be likeable, affable, cordial, and above all emotional. The fashion of authoritarian leadership is gone. Football is about life. You can't be angry all day. — Vicente del Bosque
Authoritarianism and secrecy breed incompetence; the two feed on each other. It's a vicious cycle. Governments with authoritarian tendencies point to what is in fact their own incompetence as the rationale for giving them yet more power. — Josh Marshall
As a teacher, my strategy is to encourage questioning. I'm the least authoritarian professor you'll ever meet. — Niall Ferguson
Asia's governments come in two broad varieties: young, fragile democracies - and older, fragile authoritarian regimes. — Paul Samuelson
The thread of culture that runs through the entire history of punk is also a dedication to challenging the authoritarian. — Greg Graffin
Totalitarianism Quotes
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists. — Hannah Arendt
[Socialistic] economic planning, regulation, and intervention pave the way to totalitarianism by building a power structure that will inevitably be seized by the most power-hungry and unscrupulous. — Friedrich August von Hayek
It’s ridiculous to talk about freedom in a society dominated by huge corporations. What kind of freedom is there inside a corporation? They’re totalitarian institutions - you take orders from above and maybe give them to people below you. There’s about as much freedom as under Stalinism. — Noam Chomsky
The fundamental basis of this nation’s laws was given to Moses on the Mount…If we don’t have a proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in rights for anybody except the State. — Harry S. Truman
A society becomes totalitarian when its structure becomes flagrantly artificial: that is, when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud. — George Orwell
Imagination is a danger thus every totalitarian regime is frightened of the artist. It is the vocation of the prophet to keep alive the ministry of imagination to keep on conjouring and proposing alternative futures to the single one the king wants to urge as the only thinkable one. — Walter Brueggemann
Like so many nice people who seek power, I wanted to force everyone else to be nice. It’s called totalitarianism. — Maajid Nawaz
Totalitarianism is feudalism in the twelfth century sense of the word. — Barbara Amiel
A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude. — Aldous Huxley
Modern totalitarianism can be defined as the establishment, by means of the state of exception, of a legal civil war that allows for the physical elimination not only of political adversaries but of entire categories of citizens who for some reason cannot be integrated into the political system — Giorgio Agamben
Totalitarian Quotes
The only certainty we have is that those who are certain of a way to arrive at worldly salvation, are committed enough to organize around this, and seek power to enforce it, will invariably descend into a bloody totalitarian fascism. — Maajid Nawaz
We know what totalitarian looks like, we know what oppression looks like, we know what the dumb culture of totalitarianism smells like. This is it! It's happening now, and the future of the world is being decided. So, get out there, make your own sites, take action! — Alex Jones
The climate crisis is being used to create totalitarian controls on society by the World Economic Forum, Bill Gates, and all of these megabillionaires. — Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Ukraine and Israel have long-standing historical ties. Our nations have together experienced all the tragedies in recent history - the Holodomor and the Holocaust, the Second World War, and the totalitarian Soviet regime. — Volodymyr Zelenskyy
The aim of totalitarian education has never been to instill convictions but to destroy the capacity to form any. — Hannah Arendt
The United States of America took a giant step toward a totalitarian socialist government when the Supreme Court voted to uphold Obamacare, allowing the individual mandate for the government to force American citizens to buy health insurance whether they want to or not. — Charlie Daniels
A new fascism promises security from the terror of crime. All that is required is that we take away the criminals' rights - which, of course, are our own. Out of our desperation and fear we begin to feel a sense of security from the new totalitarian state. — Gerry Spence
You've got to be careful with opinion polls in totalitarian regimes. — Konstantin Kisin
Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth. — Aldous Huxley
In my campaign I’m not going to be talking a lot about climate. Why is that? Because climate has become a crisis like Covid that the Davos groups and other totalitarian elements in our society have used as a pretext for clamping down totalitarian controls. — Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Totalitarian State Quotes
The history of the twentieth century was dominated by the struggle against totalitarian systems of state power. The twenty-first will no doubt be marked by a struggle to curtail excessive corporate power. — Eric Schlosser
Hamas is a terrorist organization dedicated to annihilating the Jewish state. It runs a theocratic totalitarian state in Gaza, with no individual liberty, and no freedom of speech or press. — Dennis Prager
A tax-supported, compulsory educational system is the complete model of the totalitarian state. — Isabel Paterson
The difference between a welfare state and a totalitarian state is a matter of time. — Ayn Rand
Inverted totalitarianism, unlike classical totalitarianism, does not revolve around a demagogue or charismatic leader. It finds expression in the anonymity of the Corporate State. It purports to cherish democracy, patriotism, and the Constitution while manipulating internal levers. — Chris Hedges
If no divine law is recognized above the law of the State, then the law of man has become absolute in men's eyes--there is then no logical barrier to totalitarianism. — Greg L. Bahnsen
Socialism is inseparably interwoven with totalitarianism and the object worship of the state. — Winston Churchill
I myself was to experience how easily one is taken in by a lying and censored press and radio in a totalitarian state... a steady diet over the years of falsifications and distortions made a certain impression on one's mind and often misled it. — William L. Shirer
The greatest triumphs of propoganda have been accomplished, not by doing something, but by refraining from doing. Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth. — Aldous Huxley
Technological rationality reveals its political character as it becomes the great vehicle of better domination, creating a truely totalitarian universe in which society and nature, mind and body are kept in a state of permanent mobilization for the defense of this universe. — Herbert Marcuse
Totalitarian Government Quotes
A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers. — Friedrich August von Hayek
The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law and particularly to deny him the judgement of his peers is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist. — Winston Churchill
While an equality of rights under a limited government is possible and an essential condition of individual freedom, a claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers. — Friedrich August von Hayek
The European Union should not be prescribing an identity. We know what that's like, when a government tells its people how it should look; what it should be doing. That's the first step towards totalitarianism. — Bernard-Henri Levy
Fifty-one percent of a nation can establish a totalitarian regime, suppress minorities and still remain democratic. — Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
As long as human beings are imperfect, there will always be arguments for extending the power of government to deal with these imperfections. The only logical stopping place is totalitarianism -- unless we realize that tolerating imperfections is the price of freedom. — Thomas Sowell
There is danger that totalitarian governments, not subject to vigorous popular debate, will underestimate the will and unity of democratic societies where vital interests are concerned. — John F. Kennedy
Corporation: a miniature totalitarian state governed by a hierarchy of unelected officials who take a dim view of individualism, free speech, equality and eggheads. The backbone of all Western democracies. — Rick Bayan
I love talking about Kennedy assassination...a great archetypal example of how totalitarian government...sorry, wrong meeting. — Bill Hicks
As soon as government management begins it upsets the natural equilibrium of industrial relations, and each interference only requires further bureaucratic control until the end is the tyranny of the totalitarian state. — Adam Smith
Totalitarian Regimes Quotes
Gun control: The theory that a woman found dead in an alley, raped and strangled with her panty hose, is somehow morally superior to a woman explaining to police how her attacker got that fatal bullet wound. — L. Neil Smith
If someone thinks I'm a dickhead, fine, listen to someone else's record, then. We're not a totalitarian regime; no one's forced to listen to Coldplay. It's actually quite a compliment if you're something that people can stand against. — Chris Martin
For all their faults, right-wing authoritarian regimes more easily accept democratic reforms than left-wing totalitarian states. — Jeane Kirkpatrick
When the United States aligns with dictatorships and totalitarian regimes, it compromises the basic democratic principles of its foundation - namely, life, liberty and justice for all. — Benazir Bhutto
More people have been killed by totalitarian regimes, during times of peace, than in all the wars in the world combined. — John Ringo
There is a totalitarian regime inside every one of us. We are ruled by a ruthless politburo which sets our norms and drives us from one five-year plan to another. The autonomous individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself. — Eric Hoffer
There is an absolutely fundamental hostility on the part of totalitarian regimes toward religion. — Jeane Kirkpatrick
The real point is that totalitarian regimes have claimed jurisdiction over the whole person, and the whole society, and they don't at all believe that we should give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God that which is God's. — Jeane Kirkpatrick
It became clear to the whole world that a totalitarian regime could neither accuse nor transform itself: suicide was not in its nature, it could only kill others. — Svetlana Alliluyeva
Perfection spawns doctrines, dictators and totalitarian ideas. — Antonio Tabucchi
People Writing About Authoritarianism
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More Authoritarianism Quotes
Americans like to talk about (or be told about) Democracy but, when put to the test, usually find it to be an 'inconvenience.' We have opted instead for an authoritarian system disguised as a Democracy. We pay through the nose for an enormous joke-of-a-government, let it push us around, and then wonder how all those assholes got in there. — Frank Zappa
We begin the path toward defeating Mexico's real adversary, who represents authoritarianism and the worst antidemocratic practice, who represents a return to corruption as a system and impunity as conviction. That adversary is Pena Nieto and his party. — Josefina Vazquez Mota
My position and the state will never allow me to become a dictator, but an authoritarian style of rule is characteristic of me, and I have always admitted it. You need to control the country, and the main thing is not to ruin people's lives. — Alexander Lukashenko
I have always had severe problems with Austrians. ... Musical, churchy, uptight... nice legs... hypocritical... authoritarian... always insist their dustbins are very clean. — Peter Greenaway
In its current form, globalization cannot be sustained. Democratic societies will not support it. Authoritarian leaders will fear to impose it. — John J. Sweeney
The Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe. — Mike Lofgren
When we look at these types of things it echoes to lessons we haven't learned from the past. We still don't see Rome as a negative thing; we glorify the Roman Empire. It was a fascist state under the control of an incredibly authoritarian militant pre-emptive striking genocidal regime. — Immortal Technique
It will be difficult, even painful, but democracy will prevail in Russia. There will be no dictatorship, although relapses into authoritarianism are possible. — Mikhail Gorbachev
One of the strange things about violent and authoritarian regimes is they don't like the glare of negative publicity. — Salman Rushdie
Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime. — Potter Stewart
If you say that you reject violence when it exceeds the limits imposed by the needs of defense, they accuse you of pacifism, without understanding that violence is the whole essence of authoritarianism, just as the repudiation of violence is the whole essence of anarchism. — Errico Malatesta
Even the striving for equality by means of a directed economy can result only in an officially enforced inequality - an authoritarian determination of the status of each individual in the new hierarchical order. — Friedrich August von Hayek
Disappointment over nationalistic authoritarian regimes may have contributed to the fact that today religion offers a new and subjectively more convincing language for old political orientations. — Jurgen Habermas
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
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. — David Frum
In emerging democracies like Russia, in authoritarian states like Iran or even Yugoslavia, journalists play a vital role in civil society. In fact, they form the very basis of those new democracies and civil societies. — Christiane Amanpour
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
England has become a squalid, uncomfortable, ugly place ... an intolerant, racist, homophobic, narrow-minded, authoritarian, rat-hole run by vicious, suburban-minded, materialistic philistines. — Hanif Kureishi
A state does not simply fall apart as a result of depression... [Weimar Germany] was not destroyed by economic depression or widespread unemployment, though these naturally contributed to the atmosphere of doom, but because the Weimar Right was resolved to abolish the parliamentary state in favour of a vaguely conceived authoritarian state. — Sebastian Haffner
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. — John James Cowperthwaite
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