Top 60 Dictators Quotes

Dictators fall when they’re overconfident; they stay in power when they’re paranoid.

Britain has supported theocrats and dictators as long as it served British business interests, whether under Tory or Labour rule.

Dictators are ludicrous characters, and, you know, in my career and in my life, I’ve always enjoyed sort of inhabiting these ludicrous, larger-than-life characters that somehow exist in the real world.

It’s time to bury the unreal, failed ‘realism’ of those who have long thought that dictators brought stability.

When it comes to tyrants, dictators and terrorists, strength and the threat of force is the only language they understand.

Mobs and dictators were made for each other, and when mobs appear, dictators will soon flourish.

One of the most perplexing political questions of the late 20th century is how new democracies should punish deposed dictators and their associates. Victims cry for justice, but leaders of new regimes must decide to what extent it is possible, moral or prudent to pursue evildoers of the past.

Perfection spawns doctrines, dictators and totalitarian ideas.

When demagogues and dictators ban art, this is the reason: art is the great solvent of obedient fundamentalism.

Everything Republicans once claimed to advocate – entitlement reform, free trade, standing up to dictators, encouraging the march of freedom around the world – turns out to be negotiable and reversible, depending on Donald Trump’s whims and the furies of his base.

The Internet is empowering everybody. It’s empowering Democrats. It’s empowering dictators. It’s empowering criminals. It’s empowering people who are doing really wonderful and creative things.

Dictators are interesting, no?

Really, no-one is bad except for serial killers and dictators.

If you really want to help the rest of the world, what you’ve got to do is encourage free markets, private property rights and the strong rule of law and get rid of the dictators in a lot of these countries.

When the dictators and the opportunists are gone, the cross will still stand before us and something in us will say, ‘That is the real thing.’

The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

There are dictators a bit worse than me, no? I’m the lesser evil already.

Dictators never invent their own opportunities.

I disapprove of lots of decisions made by George Bush: the war, the meddling in the affairs of other countries, the conversations with dictators; it was a dark time.

A universal draft is most often the instrument of Third World dictators.

To understand why dictators fall, it helps to recognise factors that produce a perfect anti-dictatorial storm. Barring missteps such as those that led to Gaddafi’s undoing, a dictator’s survival can be at risk because of newness in office, poor health, or old age combined with economic trouble.

For years, successive Arab dictators have tried to keep discontent at bay by distracting people with the Israeli-Arab conflict.

There are, of course, all sorts of other unpleasant regimes outside the walls as well – the military dictators of Latin America and the apartheid regime of South Africa.

Our actions to overthrow secular dictators in Iraq and Libya, and attempts now to do the same in Syria, have resulted in tremendous loss of life, failed nations, and even worse humanitarian crises while strengthening the very terrorist organizations that have declared war on America.

You can’t pay for healthcare if we’re sending a trillion dollars a year to dictators.

Latin America seemed to be a land where there were only dictators, revolutionaries, catastrophes. Now we know that Latin America can produce also artists, musicians, painters, thinkers, and novelists.

I am a socialist, so I am not worried about socialism. I am worried about dictators who are putting everyone into a socialist state for their own benefit.

History reminds us that dictators and despots arise during times of severe economic crisis.

When Tunisians overthrew Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 29 days and Egyptians Hosni Mubarak in 18 days, it was an appropriate rebuke to dictators and Bin Laden.

Dictators don’t come from elections.

As journalists, we cannot swallow the official line without question. We should challenge almost everything that dictators, presidents and officials say.

Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people.

Warlords, dictators and terrorists are normally okay with the U.S., as long as they do the bidding of U.S. corporate interests.

I’ve recorded 25 or 30 albums. I know that sometimes when you work with producers who are kinda dictators, it doesn’t help you make a better record.

Even socialist dictators have an interest in gorgeous supermodels.

Italy in the 1920s, Germany in the ’30s, East Germany in the ’50s, Czechoslovakia in the ’60s, the Latin American dictatorships in the ’70s, China in the ’80s and ’90s – all dictatorships and would-be dictators target newspapers and journalists.

Khomeini was not a puppet like Arafat or Qaddafi or the many other dictators I met in the Islamic world. He was a sort of Pope, a sort of king – a real leader.

Mubarak was adept, as were many other U.S.-backed dictators, at playing the sane middle to the ‘lunatics with beards’ he so often used as bogeymen to guarantee the support of foreign allies.

I’ve had meetings with Fidel Castro. I’ve had meetings with Kim Il-Sung. I’ve had meetings with other dictators. I’ve met with the Butcher of Beijing. You know, I think it’s important to hear, you know, each other’s perspective.

Dictators cause the world’s worst problems: all the collapsed states, and all the devastated economies. All the vapid cases of corruption, grand theft, and naked plunder of the treasury are caused by dictators, leaving in their wake trails of wanton destruction, horrendous carnage and human debris.

The problem was Le Corbusier was a genius and an enormous artist, but he tried to resolve problems to which there is no solution. So the idea to demolish the centre of Paris in order to adapt it to the car – he drew it! – is something not even the most bloody dictators conceived.

‘The End of America’ details the 10 steps that would-be dictators always take in seeking to close an open society; it argued that the Bush administration had been advancing each one.

Bashar al-Assad’s henchmen stomped on the hands of famed Syrian cartoonist Ali Farzat. Our dictators tailor wounds to suit their victims’ occupations.

We cannot forget the little things we take for granted in America that remain the disdain of dictators and terrorists throughout the world.

There are some showrunners who run their room like dictators, from what I hear.

It is from weakness that people reach for dictators and concentrated government power. Only the strong can be free. And only the productive can be strong.

It’s pretty well known that the CIA has been installing friendly dictators around the world for years.

Bush II’s democracy crusade and Obama’s embrace of the Arab Spring have unleashed and empowered forces less receptive to America’s wishes and will than the despots and dictators deposed with our approval.

In the ’60s, I did many satirical portraits of dictators.

Reading develops cognitive skills. It trains our minds to think critically and to question what you are told. This is why dictators censor or ban books. It’s why it was illegal to teach slaves to read. It’s why girls in developing countries have acid thrown in their faces when they walk to school.

We immerse ourselves in escapist mass entertainment, such as ‘reality T.V.’ programs. We support fanatical politicians and preachers. Our politicians, in turn, support dictators and tyrants in other countries, all in the name of ‘security’ and ‘stability’. And we arm ourselves to the teeth, and pray to God to be saved.

When Mubarak does die, he will be remembered as the most bland of those military men turned dictators: compare him with Gamal Abdel-Nasser and Anwar Sadat. The legacies most associated with him are a network of bridges and highways and ‘stability.’

The people will demand answers from all the dictators and the people who have not allowed this country to function.

I’ve played so many historical characters because most horrible dictators are short, fat, middle-aged men.

The uprising in Egypt was initiated by the young generation. The uprising achieved two things. One is it made the lives of dictators impossible. Today, if you are looking for a safe job, don’t become a dictator.

Bosses are no more inevitable in state and local governments than dictators are in national governments. They will arise and prosper, nevertheless, if true believers of democracy – citizens devoted to the democratic ideals – do not constantly oppose them.

Tyrants and dictators have incited hatred against ethnic and religious minorities for centuries in order to consolidate power for themselves.

Corporations are the new dictators.