#dictators

If Greece had gone through a very normal political life, I may have not been in politics. But just the fact that I lived through huge upheavals and very difficult struggles and polarisation and the barbarism of dictatorships - that made me feel that we had to change this country. ↗

— Georgios A. Papandreou

#been #change #country #dictatorships #difficult

When the United States was founded, the very idea of a nation premised on democratic principles of freedom and tolerance was viewed by the vast majority of the world as an experiment doomed to fail. Dictatorships, monarchies, and theocracies had for many centuries ruled the world. ↗

— Eliot Spitzer

#democratic #dictatorships #doomed #experiment #fail

They have been talking about a dictatorship and they were right because there's a dictatorship and there's a government that has been fighting that dictatorship, the dictatorship of the media. ↗

— Rafael Correa

#because #been #dictatorship #fighting #government

Perfection spawns doctrines, dictators and totalitarian ideas. ↗

— Antonio Tabucchi

#doctrines #ideas #perfection #totalitarian

There is, of course, nothing wrong in a program that aims to please everybody, except that as a rule it is a prelude to dictatorship. ↗

— J. Christopher Herold

#napoleon #age

Wir sind das Volk!" Dieser Satz hat uns gelehrt, dass wir, wenn wir unserer Sehnsucht glauben und ihr vertrauen, die Angst verlieren können. Eine Angst, die willfährige Dienerin jeder Art von nicht legitimierter Herrschaft ist, die uns ohnmächtig macht, die uns bindet. In dem Augenblick aber, in dem wir unsere Angst als Angst benennen und Anpassung und Angst als Geschwisterkinder erkennen, sind wir möglicherweise bereit zu erproben: Können wir auch ohne sie leben? In genau diesem Augenblick wachsen uns jene Kräfte zu, die eine ganze Gesellschaft verändern können. ↗

— Joachim Gauck

#civil-rights #courage #democracy #dictatorship #empowerment

Is is true that dictators never dream because they can change their smallest fantasies into realities if they want to? ↗

— Alfred de Musset

#dictators #dreams #change

Dictatorships usually exist primarily because of the internal power distribution in the home country. The population and society are too weak to cause the dictatorship serious problems, wealth and power are concentrated in too few hands. Although dictatorships may benefit from or be somewhat weakened by international actions, their continuation is dependent primarily on internal factors. ↗

— Gene Sharp

#resistance #home

Dictators are not in the business of allowing elections that could remove them from their thrones. ↗

— Gene Sharp

#elections #business

A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it. ↗

— George W. Bush

#dictatorship #easier #heck #lot #question