137 Totalitarian State Quotes
Following is our list of totalitarian state quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about totalitarianism.
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Famous Totalitarian State Quotes
Totalitarianism surpasses autocracy. — Bernard Crick
Socialism is inseparably interwoven with totalitarianism and the object worship of the state. — Winston Churchill
The difference between a welfare state and a totalitarian state is a matter of time. — Ayn Rand
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
A tax-supported, compulsory educational system is the complete model of the totalitarian state. — Isabel Paterson
Totalitarianism is feudalism in the twelfth century sense of the word. — Barbara Amiel
A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers. — Friedrich August von Hayek
[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
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
Big Government is erecting a panopticon state - one that sees everything, and regulates everything. It’s great “customer service,” except that you can never get out of the store. — Mark Steyn
The state is nothing but an instrument of opression of one class by another - no less so in a democratic republic than in a monarchy. — Friedrich Engels
In a dictatorship there is no choice, the elections are controlled, the police are the military, fear equals control, speech is suppressed, the economy is looted, the people are slaves. — Alex Jones
The State is the altar of political freedom and, like the religious altar, it is maintained for the purpose of human sacrifice. — Emma Goldman
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
The state reserves the right to be the sole interpreter of the needs of society. — Benito Mussolini
Short Totalitarian State Quotes
- A lawn is nature under totalitarian rule. — Michael Pollan
- No state more extensive than the minimal state can be justified. — Robert Nozick
- The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the law. — Aristotle
- Total surveillance is increasingly the general condition of society as a whole. — Michel Foucault
- The state controlling a woman would mean denying her full autonomy and full equality. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg
- When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship. — Harry S Truman
- When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship. — Harry S. Truman
Totalitarian Government Quotes
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
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
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
Totalitarianism Quotes
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
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
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
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
Totalitarian Quotes
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.
If you think propaganda doesn't work, remember your average university, TV, social media consumer is worried about cow farts & an essential trace gas rising from 0.028% to 0.041% of atmosphere, while seeing nothing concerning about inflation or totalitarian medical central planning. — Saifedean Ammous
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
Liberalism will beat totalitarianism by killing it softly, not by mimicking it. — Maajid Nawaz
Inside many liberals is a totalitarian screaming to get out. They don't like to have another point of view in the room that they don't squash and the way they try to squash it is by character assassination and name calling. — David Horowitz
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
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
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
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
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
Authoritarianism 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
Democratic India and authoritarian China are destined to be rivals. — Tim Marshall
The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries but between authoritarians and libertarians. — George Orwell
The strengthening of our statehood is, at times, deliberately interpreted as authoritarianism. — Vladimir Putin
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
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
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
Authoritarian Quotes
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
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
America needs fewer laws, not more prisons. — James Bovard
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
People Writing About Totalitarian State
More Totalitarian State Quotes
A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible. But since, in practice, no one is infallible, it is frequently necessary to rearrange past events in order to show that this or that mistake was not made, or that this or that imaginary triumph actually happened. — George Orwell
Totalitarianism is never content to rule by external means, namely, through the state and a machinery of violence; thanks to its peculiar ideology and the role assigned to it in this apparatus of coercion, totalitarianism has discovered a means of dominating and terrorizing human beings from within. — Hannah Arendt
The totalitarian states can do great things, but there is one thing they cannot do: they cannot give the factory-worker a rifle and tell him to take it home and keep it in his bedroom. That rifle, hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or laborer's cottage, is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there. — George Orwell
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
The totalitarian state is not a force unleashed, the truth is in chains. — Bernard-Henri Levy
The Fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism is totalitarian, and the Fascist State -- a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values -- interprets, develops, and potentiates the whole life of a people. — Benito Mussolini
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. — Mark Skousen
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
Fundamentally, there are only two ways of coordinating the economic activities of millions. One is central direction involving the use of coercion - the technique of the army and of the modern totalitarian state. The other is voluntary cooperation of individuals - the technique of the marketplace. — Milton Friedman
If, when the chips are down, the worlds most powerful nation, the United States of America, acts like a pitiful, helpless giant, the forces of totalitarianism and anarchy will threaten free nations and free institutions throughout the world. — Richard M. Nixon
But I was only a chaotic walker, nobody could stop me; even a totalitarian state was not able to control my daydreams, my poetic fascinations, the pattern of my walking. — Adam Zagajewski
It is not true that virtually all news in a totalitarian state is false. — Konrad Zuse
In some states militant nationalism has gone to the lengths of dictatorship, the cult of the absolute or totalitarian state and the glorification of war. — Arthur Henderson
Russia needs a strong state power and must have it. But I am not calling for totalitarianism. — Vladimir Putin
Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state. — Noam Chomsky
The new soft totalitarianism that is advancing on the left wants to have a state religion. It is an atheist, nihilistic religion - but it is a religion that is obligatory for all — Rocco Buttiglione
Such an atmosphere is un-American, the most un-American thing we have to contend with today. It is the climate of a totalitarian country in which scientists are expected to change their theories to match changes in the police state's propaganda line. — Harry S. Truman
For the totalitarian mind, adherence to state propaganda does not suffice: one must display proper enthusiasm while marching in the parade. — Noam Chomsky
Having gathered all power to itself, [the State] has become the sole focus of all conflict, and it must construct totalitarian defences to match its total exposure. — Anthony de Jasay
We don't have an appreciable American left any more in the United States. What I saw of the SDS in the '60s was very abhorrent to me: Marxism, Leninism, almost the KGB mentality - a police politics that I found completely totalitarian in nature. — Murray Bookchin
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
[T]he theory of output as a whole, which is what the following book purports to provide, is much more easily adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state, than is the theory of production and distribution of a given output produced under the conditions of free competition and a large measure of laissez-faire. — John Maynard Keynes
Doctrine that eliminates or even obscures the function of choice of values and enlistment of desires and emotions in behalf of those chosen weakens personal responsibility for judgment and for action. It thus helps create the attitudes that welcome and support the totalitarian state. — John Dewey
So I began to think maybe it was true that when you were married and had children it was like being brainwashed, and afterward you went about as numb as a slave in a totalitarian state. — Sylvia Plath
The real problem is that "limited government" invariably leads to unlimited government. If history is to be any guide and current experience is to be any guide, we in the United States 200 years ago started out with the notion of limited government - virtually no government interference - and we now have a massive quasi-totalitarian government. — Murray Bookchin
I worry that we don't currently have a democracy in the United States. Instead we have what [political philosopher] Sheldon Wolin has recently labeled a sort of inverted totalitarianism. — Thomas L. Dumm
Only religious fanatics and totalitarian states equate morality with legality. — Linus Torvalds
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