Vaclav Havel Quotes

The National Socialist Party will prevent in the future, by force if necessary, all meetings and lectures which are likely to exercise a depressing influence on the German state.

Only the freedom of mind can prevent the state from becoming totalitarian and from issuing totalitarian demands.

The first people totalitarians destroy or silence are men of ideas and free minds.

Spend most of the day reading fascisti pamphlets. They certainly have turned the whole country into an army. From cradle to grave one is cast in the mould of fascismo and there can be no escape…. It is certainly a socialist experiment in that it destroys individuality. It also destroys liberty.

With the suppression of all political parties, the bases were laid for the totalitarian state.

In any authoritarian society, the possessor of power dictates, and if you try and step outside, he will come after you. This is equally true of Sovietism, of China and of Iran, and in our time it has happened a lot in Islam. The point is that it's worse when the authoritarianism is supported by something supernatural.

The U.S.S.R. was a totalitarian state in which judges and prosecutors were controlled by the ruling party. The result was injustice, oppression and corruption.

In the Franco era, we couldn't defend our ideas.

We're approaching the end of a bloody century plagued by a terrible political invention, totalitarianism. Optimism comes less easily today, not because democracy is less vigorous, but because democracy's enemies have refined their instruments of repression.

It's very worrying at this time in the world that any point of view should be prohibited, that's banned, there are heretics that should be burned at the stake.

A state of society where men may not speak their minds cannot long endure.

In contrast, fear societies are societies in which dissent is banned.

Freedom of speech is always under attack by Fascist mentality, which exists in all parts of the world, unfortunately.

Communism feeds on aggression, hatred, and the imprisonment of men's minds and souls. This shall not take root in the United States.

To be a member of the Communist Party is to have a taste of the police state. It is a diluted taste but is bitter and unforgettable.

All through human history, tyrannies have tried to enforce obedience by prohibiting disrespect for the symbols of their power. The swastika is only one example of many in recent history.

Political or religious dissenters are the plague of every totalitarian regime.

The one reason we know that every totalitarian government must fail is that no totalitarian government is prepared to face the consequence of free universities.

Whatever may be the immediate gains and losses, the dangers to our safety arising from political suppression are always greater than the dangers to that safety arising from political freedom.

It was only a generation ago that we learned that the burning of books may precede the burning of people.

There are men—now in power in this country—who do not respect dissent, who cannot cope with turmoil, and who believe that the people of America are ready to support repression so long as it is done with a quiet voice and a business suit.

Fig leaves of democratic procedure … hide the nakedness of Stalinist dictatorship

All the people who might oppose the regime have been absolutely silenced. The central idea behind it is to make the rising generation worship their chief and get ready to "save civilization" from the Jews, from Communism and from democracy -- thus preparing the way for a Nazified world where all freedom of the individual, of education, and of the churches is to be totally suppressed.

It is worse to suppress dissent than to run the risk of heresy.

Than Shwe ordered the confiscation of all cell phones and laptops and computers so no reportage could come out of Burma. It seemed clear that a demon, something diabolical, rather than something compassionate and human was in charge of Burma.