Authoritarian quotes:

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Authoritarian systems evolve. Authoritarianism in the Internet Age is not your old Cold War authoritarianism. -- Rebecca MacKinnon
In its current form, globalization cannot be sustained. Democratic societies will not support it. Authoritarian leaders will fear to impose it. -- John J. Sweeney
In its current form, globalization cannot be sustained. Democratic societies will not support it. Authoritarian leaders will fear to impose it. -- John J. Sweeney
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. -- Susan Sontag
Authoritarian governments are now trying to ensure that the increasingly free flow of ideas and information through cyberspace fuels their economies without threatening their political power. -- Ian Bremmer
Authoritarianism is not pretending anymore to be a real alternative to democracy, but we can see many more authoritarian practices and styles basically being smuggled into democratic governments. -- Ivan Krastev
Democracy acknowledges the right to differ as well as the duty to settle differences peacefully. Authoritarian governments see criticism of their actions and doctrines as a challenge to combat. -- Aung San Suu Kyi
Authoritarian, paralyzing, circular, occasionally elliptical stock phrases, also jocularly referred to as nuggets of wisdom, are a malignant plague, one of the very worst ever to ravage the earth. -- Jose Saramago
A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth. Authoritarian institutions and marketers have always known this fact. -- Daniel Kahneman
Authoritarianism and secrecy breed incompetence; the two feed on each other. It's a vicious cycle. Governments with authoritarian tendencies point to what is in fact their own incompetence as the rationale for giving them yet more power. -- Josh Marshall
If the Socialism is Authoritarian; if there are Governments armed with economic power as they are now with political power; if, in a word, we are to have Industrial Tyrannies, then the last state of man will be worse than the first. -- Oscar Wilde
This country is becoming increasingly authoritarian. It's based on capital punishment. -- Kate Millett
Asia's governments come in two broad varieties: young, fragile democracies - and older, fragile authoritarian regimes. -- Paul Samuelson
Obama is a statist. He's an authoritarian. He doesn't want to govern; he wants to rule. -- Rush Limbaugh
One of the strange things about violent and authoritarian regimes is they don't like the glare of negative publicity. -- Salman Rushdie
The thread of culture that runs through the entire history of punk is also a dedication to challenging the authoritarian. -- Greg Graffin
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. -- Jurgen Habermas
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. -- Mohamed ElBaradei
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. -- Mohamed ElBaradei
Leadership must be likeable, affable, cordial, and above all emotional. The fashion of authoritarian leadership is gone. Football is about life. You can't be angry all day. -- Vicente del Bosque
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. -- Vladimir Putin
Faster roads are not always safer roads - and virtually all societies, democratic or authoritarian, prefer safety over speed, even if many of their citizens enjoy fast driving. -- Evgeny Morozov
I'm a good authoritarian figure; I don't know why. 'Can you be a cop?' Sure. 'Can you be a Marine?' Absolutely. Well, at least in a movie. -- Henry Rollins
It is often in the name of cultural integrity as well as social stability and national security that democratic reforms based on human rights are resisted by authoritarian governments. -- Aung San Suu Kyi
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. -- Glenn Greenwald
We are at heart so profoundly anarchistic that the only form of state we can imagine living in is Utopian; and so cynical that the only Utopia we can believe in is authoritarian. -- Lionel Trilling
Even the striving for equality by means of a directed economy can result only in an officially enforced inequality - an authoritarian determination of the status of each individual in the new hierarchical order. -- Friedrich August von Hayek
The authoritarian sets up some book, or man, or tradition to establish the truth. The freethinker sets up reason and private judgment to discover the truth... It takes the highest courage to utter unpopular truths. -- Herbert Spencer
My authoritarian and quick manner of making decisions led me to have serious problems and to be accused of being ultraconservative. I have never been a right-winger. It was my authoritarian way of making decisions that created problems. -- Pope Francis
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. -- Bear Grylls
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. -- Ellen Willis
In many cases, Obama's exercise of authoritarian power is criminal. His executive branch is responsible for violations of the Arms Export Control Act in shipping weapons to Syria, the Espionage Act in Libya, and IRS law with regard to the targeting of conservative groups. -- Ben Shapiro
And so I have studied, I have to tell you, revolutions and uprisings for a long time. They are all slightly different, but what they all look for is some kind of a mechanism to go from an authoritarian system to an open, democratic system. -- Madeleine Albright
Obama might think of himself as one, but he is not a dictator. We are not a banana republic yet. This is not an authoritarian form of government. This is a constitutional republic, and the president doesn't allow or disallow. The president can't buy or purchase. -- Rush Limbaugh
We see the tendency in the world to criticise democracy and sometimes even to say that authoritarian countries like China are more efficient. That is very short-sighted. China looks efficient only because it can sacrifice most people's rights. This is not something the west should be happy about. -- Ai Weiwei
The response of anybody interested in liberty is that we all have a say and the ability to have an argument is exactly what liberty is, even though it may never be resolved. In any authoritarian society the possessor of power dictates, and if you try and step outside he will come after you. -- Salman Rushdie
The crisis of democracy in the West is not the result of falling in love with another system. In Europe and America people who are disillusioned with democracy do not dream about the Chinese model or any other form of authoritarian rule. They do not dream about government that controls Internet and puts in prison those daring to disagree. -- Ivan Krastev
Donald Trump really has authoritarian, dictatorial instincts. -- Rashid Khalidi
Why do economists fall in love with authoritarian governments? -- Yasheng Huang
Intolerance of ambiguity is the mark of an authoritarian personality. -- Theodor Adorno
My anti-authoritarian instincts let me directly to criminal defense work. -- Lynne Stewart
Let me clarify this very definitely. This is not an authoritarian organization. -- L. Ron Hubbard
Trump has a lot of authoritarian tendencies that need to be a serious concern. -- Jonathan Chait
No authoritarian leader cedes power easily or turns it over to bodies he cannot control. -- Stephen Kinzer
With Taiwan, it took about 40 years to go from an authoritarian to a democratic society. -- Ma Ying-jeou
Those who abhors democracy would rarely immigrate to an authoritarian state if they have to -- Joe Chung
Those who abhors democracy would rarely immigrate to an authoritarian state if they have to. -- Joe Chung
My message is simple - freedom works a lot better than the authoritarian style of government. -- Ron Paul
In every country today, there is politics. It may be authoritarian politics, but there is politics. -- Hillary Clinton
Comics can be pernicious, fascist propaganda or anti-authoritarian. The ones that shaped me were particularly anti-authoritarian. -- Art Spiegelman
For all their faults, right-wing authoritarian regimes more easily accept democratic reforms than left-wing totalitarian states. -- Jeane Kirkpatrick
The question is: Particularly in the post-9/11 era, are societies becoming more liberal or more authoritarian? -- Edward Snowden
The hallmark of an authoritarian idiot is yelling TERRORIST-LOVER! at anyone questioning the definition of Terrorist. -- Glenn Greenwald
A crowded society is a restrictive society; an overcrowded society becomes an authoritarian, repressive and murderous society. -- Edward Abbey
Sexually awakened women, affirmed and recognized as such, would mean the complete collapse of the authoritarian ideology -- Wilhelm Reich
The Egyptian experience suggests that social media can greatly accelerate the death of already dying authoritarian regimes. -- Evgeny Morozov
As a teacher, my strategy is to encourage questioning. I'm the least authoritarian professor you'll ever meet. -- Niall Ferguson
Sometimes it's easier for people who are in authority to be authoritarian, because people know where you stand. -- Meryl Streep
The hope in the hearts of millions of national socialists can be fulfilled only by an authoritarian government. -- Franz von Papen
Terrorism is about magnifying one mediagenic act of violence into one hundred billion acts of terrorized authoritarian idiocy. -- Cory Doctorow
We have created stability, which is a necessary condition for development. But I can't call this system authoritarian. -- Vladimir Putin
To make no decision in regard to the growth of authoritarian government is already a decision for it. -- Francis A. Schaeffer
In a sense [Joseph] Albers was an authoritarian teacher. He had rules about most things and very definite ideas. -- Michael Craig-Martin
Free nations of the world cannot allow Taiwan, a beacon of democracy, to be subdued by an authoritarian China. -- Nick Lampson
Democracy is essentially anti-authoritarian--that is, it not only demands the right but imposes the responsibility of thinking for ourselves. -- John Dryden
You really don't create an authoritarian society unless you control the personal choices including the sexual choices of the people. -- Hugh Hefner
England has become a squalid, uncomfortable, ugly place ... an intolerant, racist, homophobic, narrow-minded, authoritarian, rat-hole run by vicious, suburban-minded, materialistic philistines. -- Hanif Kureishi
The working class had imposed upon them a sterile and authoritarian educational system which mirrored the ethos of the corporate workplace. -- Anthony M. Platt
Today's Catholic church seems to reward authoritarian personalities who are clearly ill, violent, sexually obsessed and unable to remember the past. -- Matthew Fox
There is an authoritarian strain in all of Leftism-- because the bigger the government, the more it controls other peoples' lives -- Dennis Prager
The individual act of obedience is the cornerstone not only of the strength of authoritarian society but also of its weakness. -- Robert Anton Wilson
As every authoritarian regime knows, association can be a dangerous thing. From discussion it is only a few steps to action ... -- Ann Scott
Are our competitors - for example, China, which is a deeply authoritarian nation - becoming more authoritarian or more liberal over time? -- Edward Snowden
Even more than comparing society to a family, comparing it to a body makes an authoritarian ordering of society seem inevitable, immutable. -- Susan Sontag
I have always had severe problems with Austrians. ... Musical, churchy, uptight... nice legs... hypocritical... authoritarian... always insist their dustbins are very clean. -- Peter Greenaway
Besides problems of traditional societies, the Caucasus has to cope with quite a few unsettled territorial conflicts that also nurture authoritarian governmental structures. -- Garry Kasparov
The greatest threat to women (and by extension humanity) is the growth and acceptance of a misogynistic, authoritarian, and violent culture of militarism. -- Amina Mama
I'm more authoritarian with the orchestras than I used to be. You need to hold your ground, I've noticed, or you'll be swept aside. -- Laurence Equilbey
For me, religion is serious business - a farrago of authoritarian nonsense, misogyny and humble pie, the eternal enemy of human happiness and freedom. -- Katha Pollitt
In its more authoritarian forms, religion punishes questioning and rewards gullibility. Faith is not a function of stupidity, but a frequent cause of it. -- Wendy Kaminer
It remains to be seen, for example whether China can continue to develop as a market economy while still retaining an authoritarian communist political system. -- Peter Dicken
Democracy can only spring from practising it early, and democratic action was not to expected from young people brought up under a close authoritarian system. -- Dora Russell
The underlying reason for this is the Europeans' fear that Islamists could gain power. Many still consider authoritarian Arab regimes to be the lesser evil. -- Alvaro de Vasconcelos
The thing about Iran is there are many political factions and it's not quite the dictatorial, authoritarian state with one person always making every single decision ... -- Hooman Majd
Private property creates for the individual a sphere in which he is free of the state. It sets limits to the operation of the authoritarian will. -- Ludwig von Mises
What royal families are very good at doing is surviving and reinventing themselves. That's true whether it's a constitutional monarchy in Britain or an authoritarian monarchy. -- Robert Lacey
I'm going to put people in my place, so when the history of this administration is written at least there's an authoritarian voice saying exactly what happened. -- George W. Bush
No democracy is born perfect, and none ever gets to be perfect. Yet democracy is superior to authoritarian and totalitarian regimes because, unlike them, democracy is perfectible. -- Mario Vargas Llosa
There is also poetry written to be shouted in a square in front of an enthusiastic crowd. This occurs especially in countries where authoritarian regimes are in power. -- Eugenio Montale
There's no authoritarian structure at Reed College, but the education is conservative. So what you have is a lot of students who are very authentically looking for truth. -- Donald Miller
I ask myself whether Russia is moving in the direction of democracy. I don't believe it is! Bit by bit, Russia is slipping back into an authoritarian empire. -- Vladimir Sorokin
In the twentieth century the number of people killed by their own governments under authoritarian regimes is four times the number killed in all this century's wars combined. -- John Shattuck
Parents who discipline their child by discussing the consequences of their actions produce children who have better moral development , compared to children whose parents use authoritarian methods and punishment. -- Simon Baron-Cohen
Public schools are government-established, politician- and bureaucrat-controlled, fully politicized, taxpayer-supported, authoritarian socialist institutions. In fact, the public-school system is one of the purest examples of socialism existing in America. -- Tom L. Johnson
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. -- Brewster Kahle
RELIGION: A set of beliefs held as dogmas, dominating the conduct of life, going beyond or contrary to evidence, and inculcated by methods which are emotional or authoritarian, not intellectual. -- Bertrand Russell
Dr. [ Peter R.] Breggin's book can show you how to take your child back from the authoritarian state that wants to dope your child up because he may be misbehaving. -- Michael Savage
There's an element of clowning and entertainment to Trump, that makes it surreal and hard to understand to what extent he is pretending to be a fascist or an authoritarian. -- Jonathan Chait
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. -- Doug LaMalfa
There's a tradition in the history of dissent in authoritarian countries of a certain kind of dissident, and their form of dissent is to live their lives as normally as possible. -- Evan Osnos
During the Cold War era, the issue was the containment of Soviet influence, and we tolerated many an authoritarian regime as long as they were useful to us in this respect. -- Zalmay Khalilzad
I've never conspired to overthrow the government; all I did was report on the Arab Spring and suggest that something similar might happen in Ethiopia if the authoritarian regime didn't reform. -- Eskinder Nega
Journalists were never intended to be the cheerleaders of a society, the conductors of applause, the sycophants. Tragically, that is their assigned role in authoritarian societies, but not here - not yet. -- Chet Huntley
In recent years... forces have developed in our government over which we have no control, and these forces have an authoritarian approach to justice - meaning, they tell you what justice is. -- Jim Garrison
The people at the NSA aren't trying to ruin your life. They're not trying to put you in authoritarian dystopia. These are normal people trying to do good work in hard circumstances. -- Edward Snowden
Through the inspiration of Vaclav's words, the courage of his dissidence and the integrity of his leadership, Czechoslovakia successfully transitioned from an authoritarian state to a free democracy at the heart of Europe. -- Michael D. Higgins
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. -- Nadezhda Tolokonnikova
Commander, I always used to consider that you had a definite anti-authoritarian streak in you." "Sir?" "It seems that you have managed to retain this even though you are authority." "Sir?" "That's practically zen. -- Terry Pratchett
Women's liberation, if it abolishes the patriarchal family, will abolish a necessary substructure of the authoritarian state, and once that withers away Marx will have come true willy-nilly, so let's get on with it. -- Germaine Greer
I am deeply concerned that Sri Lanka, despite the opportunity provided by the end of the war to construct a new vibrant, all-embracing state, is showing signs of heading in an increasingly authoritarian direction. -- Navi Pillay
Why should workers agree to be slaves in a basically authoritarian structure? They should have control over it themselves. Why shouldn't communities have a dominant voice in running the institutions that affect their lives? -- Noam Chomsky
The elimination of individual capitalists and the replacement of private capitalism by state capitalism in Russia has not in the least altered the typical helpless and authoritarian character structure of the masses of people. -- Wilhelm Reich
That the more authoritarian organizations survive and prevail goes generally unnoticed because people focus on the objectives of organizations, which are many and varied, rather than on their structures, which lend to be similar. -- Robert Shea
The politics of the family are the politics of a nation. Just as the authoritarian family is the authoritarian state in microcosm, the democratic family is the best training ground for life in a democracy. -- Letty Cottin Pogrebin
In emerging democracies like Russia, in authoritarian states like Iran or even Yugoslavia, journalists play a vital role in civil society. In fact, they form the very basis of those new democracies and civil societies. -- Christiane Amanpour
In Russia an authoritarian leader is running the country. You can't fight Putin with elections because he controls them. That's why demonstrations are the most effective approach. Unfortunately Russia has sunk to this primitive level. -- Alexei Navalny
The Popular Unity government represented the first attempt anywhere to build a genuinely democratic transition to socialism a socialism that, owing to its origins, might be guided not by authoritarian bureaucracy, but by democratic self-rule. -- Salvador Allende
The market is sovereign and in the magic economy of the small entrepreneur there is no authoritarian center... in the political sphere... the equilibrium of powers prevails, and hence there is no chance of despotism. -- C. Wright Mills

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