“We allowed ourselves to accept the politics of inevitability, the sense that history could move in only one direction: toward liberal democracy...We… — Timothy Snyder Copy Share Image
“Both of these positions, inevitability and eternity, are antihistorical. The only thing that stands between them is history itself. History allows us… — Timothy Snyder Copy Share Image
“The second antihistorical way of considering the past is the politics of eternity. Like the politics of inevitability, the politics of eternity… — Timothy Snyder Copy Share Image
“What the glorious retellings of the history of Irgun and Lehi often omit is the Polish connection.” — Timothy Snyder Copy Share Image
“History can familiarize, and it can warn. In the late nineteenth century, just as in the late twentieth century, the expansion of… — Timothy Snyder Copy Share Image
“Does the history of tyranny apply to the United States? Certainly the early Americans who spoke of “eternal vigilance” would have thought… — Timothy Snyder Copy Share Image
“History gives us the company of those who have done and suffered more than we have.” — Timothy Snyder Copy Share Image
“having a passport is not a sign of surrender. On the contrary, it is liberating, since it creates the possibility of new… — Timothy Snyder Copy Share Image
“The European history of the twentieth century shows us that societies can break, democracies can fall, ethics can collapse, and ordinary men… — Timothy Snyder Copy Share Image
“The politics of inevitability is a self-induced intellectual coma. So long as there was a contest between communist and capitalist systems, and… — Timothy Snyder Copy Share Image
“If young people do not begin to make history, politicians and inevitability will destroy it.” — Timothy Snyder Copy Share Image
“When meaning is drawn from killing, the risk is that more killing would bring about more meaning.” — Timothy Snyder Copy Share Image
“It is less appealing, but morally more urgent, to understand the actions of the perpetrators. The moral danger, after all, is never… — Timothy Snyder Copy Share Image
“History permits us to be responsible: not for everything, but for something.” — Timothy Snyder Copy Share Image
“If young people do not begin to make history, politicians of eternity and inevitability will destroy it. And” — Timothy Snyder Copy Share Image
“generations have laid before them. One thing is certain: If young people do not begin to make history, politicians of eternity and… — Timothy Snyder Copy Share Image
“History permits us to be responsible: not for everything, but for something... History gives us the company of those who have done… — Timothy Snyder Copy Share Image
“Does the history of tyranny apply to the United States? Certainly the early Americans who spoke of “eternal vigilance” would have thought… — Timothy Snyder Copy Share Image
“Other forces were at work besides conformism. But without the conformists, the great atrocities would have been impossible.” — Timothy Snyder Copy Share Image
“History allows us to see patterns and make judgments. It sketches for us the structures within which we can seek freedom. It… — Timothy Snyder Copy Share Image
“It is easy to sanctify policies or identities by the deaths of victims. It is less appealing, but morally more urgent, to… — Timothy Snyder Copy Share Image
“If young people do not begin to make history, politicians of eternity and inevitability will destroy it. And to make history, young… — Timothy Snyder Copy Share Image
“Our time is certainly out of joint. We have forgotten history for one reason and, if we are not careful, we will… — Timothy Snyder Copy Share Image
“Nationalism is relativist, since the only truth is the resentment we feel when we contemplate others.” — Timothy Snyder Copy Share Image
“The time is out of joint. O cursed spite,/That ever I was born to set it right!” Thus Hamlet. Yet he concludes: “Nay, come,… — Timothy Snyder Copy Share Image
“the democracies that arose after the First World War (and the Second) often collapsed when a single party seized power in some combination of… — Timothy Snyder Copy Share Image
“salami tactics—slicing off layers of opposition one by one. Most people were distracted, some were imprisoned, and others were outmatched.” — Timothy Snyder Copy Share Image
“We allowed ourselves to accept the politics of inevitability, the sense that history could move in only one direction: toward liberal democracy...We imbibed the… — Timothy Snyder Copy Share Image
“The key to this translation of ideology to politics in both cases was an effective appeal to human experience at the crucial time.” — Timothy Snyder Copy Share Image
“Both of these positions, inevitability and eternity, are antihistorical. The only thing that stands between them is history itself. History allows us to see… — Timothy Snyder Copy Share Image
“The whole notion of disruption is adolescent: It assumes that after the teenagers make a mess, the adults will come and clean it up.… — Timothy Snyder Copy Share Image
“As she observed, “the first essential step on the road to total domination is to kill the juridical person in man.” — Timothy Snyder Copy Share Image
“The first mode is the open hostility to verifiable reality, which takes the form of presenting inventions and lies as if they were facts.” — Timothy Snyder Copy Share Image
“Once we subliminally accept that we are watching a reality show rather than thinking about real life, no image can actually hurt the president… — Timothy Snyder Copy Share Image
“Confidence in duration is the antidote to panic and the tonic of demagogy.” — Timothy Snyder Copy Share Image
