Totalitarian Quotes

A totalitarian dictatorship cannot explain; it can only suppress.

— Robert Payne

In a war a totalitarian state has a free hand.

— Paul Feyerabend

A totalitarian power is mainly busy in keeping itself alive.

— Svetlana Alexievich

A lawn is nature under totalitarian rule.

— Michael Pollan

Democracy is like a totalitarian.

— Ted Yoho

Perfection spawns doctrines, dictators and totalitarian ideas.

— Antonio Tabucchi

I would be opposed to any kind of totalitarian control.

— B. F. Skinner

The Left is totalitarian in its nature

— Dennis Prager

“Every step which leads from capitalism toward planning is necessarily a step nearer to absolutism and dictatorship.”

— Ludwig von Mises

“It is not what a government does with data that defines it; it is what it does to human beings.”

— Garry Kasparov

More people have been killed by totalitarian regimes, during times of peace, than in all the wars in the world combined.

— John Ringo

“In a post-totalitarian dictatorship, the grins of the people are the nightmares of the dictators.”

— Xiaobo Liu

I've always been fascinated by totalitarian regimes. I'm not an admirer of them.

— Sue Townsend

In the realm of totalitarian kitsch, all answers are given in advance and preclude any questions.

— Milan Kundera

The totalitarian toil-state originates in the propertylessness of the majority.

— Louis O. Kelso

For 73 years a totalitarian regime ruled the country. Totalitarian regime.

— Aleksandr Lebed

20th-century totalitarian movements were no more defined by a rejection of Judeo-Christianity than they were defined by a rejection of astrology, alchemy,…

— Steven Pinker

“as eminent political theorist Hannah Arendt saw back in 1951: “Would-be totalitarian rulers usually start their careers by boasting of their past…

— Brooke Gladstone

In matters editorial, I am a believer in totalitarian despotism. Most writers are lazy, difficult, selfish, thoughtless, and unreliable.

— John Derbyshire

The totalitarian, to me, is the enemy - the one that's absolute, the one that wants control over the inside of your…

— Christopher Hitchens

“These people don’t see that if you encourage totalitarian methods, the time may come when they will be used against you instead…

— George Orwell

“For "totalitarian" is not only a terroristic political coordination of society, but also a non-terroristic economic-technical coordination which operates through the manipulation…

— Herbert Marcuse

But I was only a chaotic walker, nobody could stop me; even a totalitarian state was not able to control my daydreams,…

— Adam Zagajewski

“James: And I take back what I said about you being totalitarian. Lucy: It's about time. That term doesn't really suit me.…

— Kristen Tracy

I was repelled by the sleazy reality of the totalitarian countries: politicians were shameless. There were corruption, pollution, shoddy goods, long lines,…

— Antonin Kratochvil

If you surrender everything to the government and give it total power to plan the whole economy, this will not guarantee your…

— Ayn Rand

Technological rationality reveals its political character as it becomes the great vehicle of better domination, creating a truely totalitarian universe in which…

— Herbert Marcuse

A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought…

— George Orwell

The totalitarian states can do great things, but there is one thing they cannot do: they cannot give the factory-worker a rifle…

— George Orwell

The truth is, it's a totalitarian dictatorship when you're making films. You are the boss. You can listen to other people, and…

— Chiwetel Ejiofor

The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law and particularly to…

— Anonymous

History has shown more than once that when people surrender totalitarian powers to their rulers, they are inevitably exercised in the next…

— Jacob G. Hornberger

“A tax-supported, compulsory educational system is the complete model of the totalitarian state...The most vindictive resentment may be expected from the pedagogic…

— Isabel Paterson

“A utopian system, when established by men, is likely to be synonymous with a dystopian depression. The only way for perfect peace…

— Criss Jami

“Religion is a totalitarian belief. It is the wish to be a slave. It is the desire that there be an unalterable,…

— Christopher Hitchens

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

— Kurt Vonnegut

“If the immediate postwar period had been characterized by violent attacks on the existing institutions of civil society, after 1948 the regimes…

— Anne Applebaum

“[Religious belief] is a totalitarian belief. It is the wish to be a slave. It is the desire that there be an…

— Christopher Hitchens

“It all fit. The love of power, the focus on Russia to the exclusion of the rest of the world—with an exception…

— Masha Gessen

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

— Louis Jolyon West