Top 70 Authoritarian Quotes

The one source of criticism even the most repressive authoritarian leader cannot silence is the outside world. Autocrats are usually thin-skinned and like to be admired, so at least, at first, they often seek to be praised abroad.

I was essentially trained by World War II vets who combined a progressive view of life with a deep distrust of anything authoritarian.

This country is becoming increasingly authoritarian. It’s based on capital punishment.

We think about democracy, and that’s the word that Americans love to use, ‘democracy,’ and that’s how we characterize our system. But if democracy just means going to vote, it’s pretty meaningless. Russia has democracy in that sense. Most authoritarian regimes have democracy in that sense.

If there is an authoritarian structure at St. Hill it has been brought into being by the government itself. St. Hill is trying to correct itself. It doesn’t know what it’s trying to correct because nobody has told it what to correct.

To be a parent, you must be authoritarian. If the Zambians want to succeed, they must learn to work hard, and they should not expect to be treated with kid gloves.

Donald Trump, despite his campaign promises, this is not a guy who is going to be willing to send executive power that belongs to the legislative branch back to the legislative branch. I mean, Donald Trump is going to try to amass and consolidate power, given that he’s an authoritarian.

We live in very volatile times. And it is super necessary that all of us resist this move toward the militarization and establishment of a more and more authoritarian regime, not just in the United States but in Europe and elsewhere.

In authoritarian societies, cultural institutions tend to become ideological proxies – think of the National Ballet in Cuba or the East German gymnastics team.

Artemis women often have difficult childhoods. She’s the kid who seeks comfort in the woods, or animals, or books. If trapped in an authoritarian family, she blends in to get by – but keeps a fierce autonomy inside her head and heart, looking to the day she breaks free.

However vain our entire political class or organizations are, in the name of cynicism we cannot bend towards authoritarian populism.

In its current form, globalization cannot be sustained. Democratic societies will not support it. Authoritarian leaders will fear to impose it.

Vladimir Putin has to create foreign enemies, and he also has to justify… he has to claim… he can’t acknowledge that there’s a legitimate protest against his authoritarian rule, so he’s got to blame it on Hilary Clinton.

We boast of being one of the oldest democracies in existence and it is a point of pride for many of us that British society represents a beacon of hope for repressed peoples living in authoritarian states around the world.

Throughout history, people with few educational or economic resources and little bargaining power have often looked to authoritarian, ruthless people to stand up for them.

The Egyptian experience suggests that social media can greatly accelerate the death of already dying authoritarian regimes.

The struggle of democratic secularism, religious tolerance, individual freedom and feminism against authoritarian patriarchal religion, culture and morality is going on all over the world – including the Islamic world, where dissidents are regularly jailed, killed, exiled or merely intimidated and silenced.

I believe in it so passionately because anywhere you look in the world, where governments become too big or become authoritarian, speech and expression is one of the first fundamental freedoms to go.

Hong Kong people stand in the front line to confront authoritarian suppression.

We do not believe in authoritarian rule.

Universities are some of the few places left where a struggle for the commons, for public life, if not democracy itself, can be made visible through the medium of collective voices and social movements energized by the need for a politics and way of life counter to authoritarian capitalism.

The definition of an extreme authoritarian is one who is willing blindly to assume that government accusations are true without any evidence presented or opportunity to contest those accusations.

University of California students can look forward to the same authoritarian management style Secretary Napolitano brought to the Department of Homeland Security, hardly a bastion of free speech and open government.

Let me clarify this very definitely. This is not an authoritarian organization.

Those who abhors democracy would rarely immigrate to an authoritarian state if they have to.

I think the Chinese model is one that appeals more and more in the developing world. People see that an authoritarian state can hold onto power, can hold on to stability and can drive the economy forward.

In Austria, a rather authoritarian Catholic country, the role of the social admonisher traditionally fell to artists because there were no great political thinkers.

North Korea aside, most authoritarian governments have already accepted the growth of the Internet culture as inevitable; they have little choice but to find ways to shape it in accord with their own narratives – or risk having their narratives shaped by others.

Older people still see socialism and communism as dangerous, authoritarian political systems, whereas younger people are more likely to see them as economic systems, and to care far less one way or another.

Disappointment over nationalistic authoritarian regimes may have contributed to the fact that today religion offers a new and subjectively more convincing language for old political orientations.

America is always a good target for a populist. In many countries, particularly authoritarian systems, if you want to get an extra bonus, you bash the Americans.

My view of Trump is that, while he has done some extremely noxious things, in general his worst feature, his most authoritarian feature, really is his public presentation.

In fact, despite the fact that he’s somehow managed to brand himself as a moderate choice, Michael Bloomberg’s record is actually that of an authoritarian nightmare.

After ‘Homeland,’ I was offered a lot of very authoritarian, square, angry boss types, but I wanted to do something different. Casting directors are surprised when they look at my CV and see all the work I’ve done, from Shakespeare to playing Nelson Mandela.

In the face of a rising China, along with authoritarian regimes from Brazil to the Philippines to Turkey to Russia, and the constant presence of belligerent non-state actors, we need to reform our military to deal with asymmetrical threats.

Authoritarian political ideologies have a vested interest in promoting fear, a sense of the imminence of takeover by aliens and real diseases are useful material.

Free nations of the world cannot allow Taiwan, a beacon of democracy, to be subdued by an authoritarian China.

The thread of culture that runs through the entire history of punk is also a dedication to challenging the authoritarian.

America’s gravest moral evil, chattel slavery, was defeated by an authoritarian president in a religious civil war, not by proceduralism or constitutional debate.

You in the West have been sold the idea that the only options in the Arab world are between authoritarian regimes and Islamic jihadists. That’s obviously bogus.

History proves that all dictatorships, all authoritarian forms of government are transient. Only democratic systems are not transient. Whatever the shortcomings, mankind has not devised anything superior.

When I was doing ‘Family Ties,’ I was not quite that mellow as a real father. In fact, my wife used to call me Captain Von Trapp from ‘The Sound of Music.’ I tended to be a little more authoritarian. I had been a very disciplined child myself, so I made the mistake of thinking one size fits all.

In America, we must always place constitutional values over authoritarian control.

The words we spoke and our entire punk performance aimed to express our disapproval of a specific political event: the patriarchs’ support of Vladimir Putin, who has taken an authoritarian and anti-feminist course.

As an Asst. Secretary of State, I often urged authoritarian governments around the world not to use emergency powers to defy their legislatures, courts, and laws.

I didn’t listen to anyone. I was so violent, so authoritarian, only listening to what I wanted and myself.

China’s leaders seek to subordinate the rights of the individual to the will of the Communist Party. They exert government control over companies and subvert the privacy and freedom of their citizens with an authoritarian surveillance state.

The most interesting stuff happens when an authoritarian government removes itself a little and gives this margin of freedom. And then art is grabbed with both hands.

Libraries have had a long history of dealing with authoritarian organizations demanding reader records – who’s read what – and this has led to people being rounded up and killed.

Well, wolves will pretty rarely hunt. You’re vulnerable if you’re on your own or injured. But for lone wolves, get up high, show them that you’re not injured, face ’em off, be authoritarian with it, and look ’em in the eye.