Saturday 23 June 2012

Dictators - Quotes

A dictator's chief problem is keeping the stomachs of his subjects full while keeping their heads empty. - Evan Esar

Dictators ride to and fro on tigers from which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry. - Winston Churchill

Have you any idea how much tyrants fear the people they oppress? All of them realize that, one day, amongst their many victims, there is sure to be one who rises against them and strikes back! - J. K. Rowling

Ignorance is an evil weed, which dictators may cultivate among their dupes, but which no democracy can afford among its citizens. - William Henry Beveridge

It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own. - Herbert Hoover

No form of government can survive that excludes dictatorship when the life of the nation is at stake. - Clinton Rossiter

The true essence of a dictatorship is in fact not its regularity but its unpredictability and caprice; those who live under it must never be able to relax, must never be quite sure if they have followed the rules correctly or not. - Christopher Hitchins

To be sure, dictators are crafty, evil geniuses with awesome firepower at their disposal. They are also brutally efficient at intimidation, terrorism, and mass slaughter. However, a force is able to dominate because the counterforce is either non-existent or weak. - George B. N. Ayittey

You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police ... yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts: words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home – all the more powerful because forbidden – terrify them. A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic. - Winston Churchill

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