Quote by Maurice Merleau-Ponty

“[...] dictatorship, the most extreme form of tyranny, can never lead to social liberation.”

— Noam Chomsky

“Liberation from dictatorships ultimately depends on the people's ability to liberate themselves.”

— Gene Sharp

“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

“Freedom lost to any regime, be it communist or liberal, steals the very breath of democracy”

— James William Steven Parker

“To the less privileged it was this arbitrariness that made the regime's power feel so oppressive. There were no clear principles or regulations which…

— Orlando Figes

“How could one want an equalitarian and free society to issue from an authoritarian organisation? It is impossible.”

— James Guillaume

“every totalitarian regime forms a type of human being on whom it relies for its stability. The shaping of the New Man is the…

— Masha Gessen

“Arbitrary government operating by force, by terror, must destroy the best, the boldest dissenters in sheer self-defence; soon it finds itself destroying all who,…

— Edward Crankshaw

“Believers in liberal freedom should worry not whether their regime can prevail in competition with authoritarian ones, but whether they can prevail against their…

— Michael Ignatieff

“liberalism and democracy, with all of their limitations, are what remains after every utopia and extremist scheme based on blood and territory has been…

— Robert D. Kaplan

“Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations get corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”

— Benjamin Franklin

“Most the power of authoritarianism is freely given.”

— Timothy Snyder