Totalitarianism Quotes

Totalitarianism is feudalism in the twelfth century sense of the word.

— Barbara Amiel

Totalitarianism surpasses autocracy.

— Bernard Crick

The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect.

— George Orwell

The only successful revolution of this century is totalitarianism.

— Bernard-Henri Levy

Totalitarianism, if not fought against, could triumph anywhere.

— George Orwell

Totalitarianism is patriotism institutionalized.

— Steve Allen

Comedy is the only weapon I have to battle totalitarianism.

— Margaret Cho

“Everything not forbidden is compulsory”

— T.H. White

East Germany was so total in its totalitarianism that everything was banned which wasn't compulsory.

— P. J. O'Rourke

“The essential principle of totalitarianism is to make laws that are impossible to obey.”

— Christopher Hitchens

I regard Marxism as the most sinister and the most subtle form of totalitarianism.

— Murray Bookchin

“Terror is a powerful means of policy and one would have to be a hypocrite not to understand this.”

— Leon Trotsky

“Democracy in books is, for the people, by the people, democracy on street is rule of the apes in a land of…

— Abhijit Naskar

And I believe that totalitarianism, if not fought against, could triumph again.

— George Orwell

“Instead, either he wishes to do what other people do (conformism), or he does what other people wish him to do (totalitarianism).”

— Viktor E. Frankl

“And remember, comrades, your resolution must never falter. No argument must lead you astray.”

— George Orwell

Scholars of totalitarianism talk about the importance of this constant movement, this forever war, this need to do battle on behalf of…

— Masha Gessen

“Yes, our country has its shortcomings, but there's no moral equivalency between democracy and totalitarianism…There's no moral equivalency between propaganda and the…

— Ronald Reagan

In his State of the Union speech in January 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt declared America's commitment to Four Freedoms in the struggle…

— Robert Dallek

“Technology is neutral. But the process of technology will cause a free world to become ever freer, and a totalitarian world to…

— Ma Boyong

Having lived through the transition from totalitarianism, I am acutely mindful of the need to never take for granted the basic freedoms…

— Daisaku Ikeda

I worry that we don't currently have a democracy in the United States. Instead we have what [political philosopher] Sheldon Wolin has…

— Thomas L. Dumm

This is naturally the most important thing, the dark traces left by the era of totalitarianism in the human mind, where is…

— Judy Woodruff

“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

My family has been deeply affected by the split of Korea, which divided it in half, basically, before I was born. There's…

— Margaret Cho

“Professional Ketman is reasoned thus: since I find myself in circumstances over which I have no control, and since I have but…

— Czeslaw Milosz

Totalitarianism is never content to rule by external means, namely, through the state and a machinery of violence; thanks to its peculiar…

— Hannah Arendt

“The program of the ruling elite in Orwell's 1984 was: "A foot stamping on a human face forever!" This is naive and…

— William S. Burroughs

If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country, Maybe I could understand some of these illegal injunctions. ...…

— Martin Luther King, Jr

“The Language of the Third Reich by Victor Klemperer (1947); The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt (1951); The Rebel by Albert…

— Timothy Snyder

“Man’s innate yearning for freedom can be suppressed but never destroyed. Totalitarianism cannot renounce violence. If it does, it perishes. Eternal, ceaseless…

— Vasily Grossman

Our culture has few taboos that can't be violated, and our establishment has largely given up on setting standards in the first…

— Ross Douthat

“It was astonishing that the pseudo wreckers, who knew perfectly well that they weren't wreckers, believed that military men and priests were…

— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

“I was hungry when I left Pyongyang. I wasn't hungry just for a bookshop that sold books that weren't about Fat Man…

— Christopher Hitchens

“Equality of condition, though it is certainly a basic requirement for justice, is nevertheless among the greatest and most uncertain ventures of…

— Hannah Arendt

“Totalitarianism is the result of the hypostasis of the political and the correlative lowering of life as well as the individual. This…

— Michel Henry

“Naturalization, on the other hand, also proved to be a failure. The whole naturalization system of European countries fell apart when it…

— Hannah Arendt

“That concentration camps were ultimately provided for the same groups in all countries, even though there were considerable differences in the treatment…

— Hannah Arendt

“He turned over towards the light and lay gazing into the glass paperweight. The inexhaustibly interesting thing was not the fragment of…

— George Orwell

“It is not coincidence that, as Raymond Money puts it, “from the pyramids of Egypt, the rebuilding of Rome after Nero’s fire,…

— Robert A. Caro