Just as the 99% of Soviet citizens who supported the Soviet regime in 1985 was no indication of what the people inside the USSR really thought, the army of true believers that we think we see in the Arab world is an illusion.
Interpretation
The support of a regime does not truly reflect the beliefs of the people within it.
This quote highlights the discrepancy between outward appearances and the inner reality of people's sentiments. It cautions against assuming that visible support or agreement, such as that expressed by a large group, genuinely represents the thoughts and beliefs of individuals, as many may conform for various reasons while harboring private doubts or dissent.
In practice
In a discussion about political demonstrations, this quote can emphasize the complexity of public opinion.
By helping readers understand these mechanics, I hope they will appreciate why freedom is for everyone, why it is essential for our security and why the free world plays a critically important role in advancing democracy around the globe.
Believe me, the drug of freedom is universally potent.
They tried their best to find a place where I was isolated. But all the resources of a superpower cannot isolate the man who hears a voice of freedom, a voice I heard from the very chamber of my soul.
In contrast, fear societies are societies in which dissent is banned.
My optimism is not based primarily on the successful march of democracy in recent times but rather is based on the experience of having lived in a fear society and studied the mechanics of tyranny that sustain such a society.
The two most important things that can be done to promote democracy in the world is first, to bring moral clarity back to world affairs and second, to link international policies to the advance of democracy around the globe.
It's a weird city because the uglier the weather, the more beautiful the city. And the uglier the buildings, the more coherent the city.
[W]e must never allow the future to collapse under the burden of memory.
When it is understood that one loses joy and happiness in the attempt to possess them, the essence of natural farming will be realized. The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.
I'll be damned if death wears my sadness for glad rags.
At the very time that philosophers of the most enterprising benevolence were founding in Greece those institutions which have rendered it the wonder and luminary of the world, am I required to believe that the weak and wicked king of an obscure and barbarous nation, a murderer, a traitor and a tyrant, was the man after God's own heart?
As bad as it might be to destroy a creature made in God's image, it might be very much worse to be creating them after images of one's own.
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