The nightmare in every democracy, the very nightmare, is…

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…

— Harry S. Truman

Culture's worth huge, huge risks. Without culture we're all totalitarian beasts.

— Norman Mailer

“Cult (totalistic type): a group or movement exhibiting a great or excessive devotion or dedication to some person, idea, or thing and employing unethically…

— Louis Jolyon West

“I have never seen a more sublime demonstration of the totalitarian mind, a mind which might be likened unto a system of gears whose…

— Kurt Vonnegut Jr

In a society that restricts individual freedoms and violates human rights, anything that calls itself creative or independent is a pretence. It is impossible…

— Ai Weiwei

Kim Jong Un, like all totalitarian leaders, wants above all to ensure his survival. He is convinced that a nuclear strike capability is necessary…

— Tom Malinowski

Puzzlement and doubt are, however, already crimes in the totalitarian state. The mind that is open for questions is open for dissent. In the…

— Joost Meerloo

“Totalitarian politics—far from being simply antisemitic or racist or imperialist or communist—use and abuse their own ideological and political elements until the basis of…

— Hannah Arendt

“The greater danger to individual freedom comes from totalitarian regimes that regard any dissenting view as a threat to be destroyed—no matter if the…

— William Stevenson

The U.S.S.R. was a totalitarian state in which judges and prosecutors were controlled by the ruling party. The result was injustice, oppression and corruption.

— Anne Applebaum

Were we ever to find ourselves living under a totalitarian regime, place no faith in the mercy of your fellow citizens.

— Michael Portillo

Corporations are totalitarian institutions. Board of directors at the top of managers give orders, everyone follows orders… At the very bottom of command, if…

— Noam Chomsky

“This was laughable, of course, but that’s always the way with totalitarian regimes. Language gets turned on its head. Serfdom is freedom. Repression is…

— Masaji Ishikawa

People who live in the post-totalitarian system know only too well that the question of whether one or several political parties are in power,…

— Vaclav Havel

Dominion is a spy novel, a love story, and also I hope gives some sense of the difficulties faced by dissidents under any totalitarian…

— C.J. Sansom