Fascism says what you and I experience as facts or what reporters experience as facts are irrelevant. All that matters are impressions and emotions and myths.
Timothy D. SnyderRead
Modern tyrants are terror managers. Do not allow your shock to be turned against your freedom.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote warns against allowing fear and shock from oppressive leaders to restrict our freedoms.
Timothy D. Snyder's quote highlights the tactics used by modern tyrants to manipulate and control populations through fear. It serves as a reminder that while such oppressive figures may create terror to maintain their power, individuals must remain vigilant and not let this fear undermine their own freedom and autonomy. The call to action is a reminder to resist the impulses that allow tyrants to exploit societal distress for their gain.
Themes
FreedomTyrannyFearOppressionResistance
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech advocating for civil liberties during a political rally.
More from Timothy D. Snyder
All quotes βDefend an institution. Follow the courts or the media, or a court or a newspaper. Do not speak of 'our institutions' unless you are making them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions don't protect themselves. They go down like dominoes unless each is defended from the beginning.
Timothy D. SnyderRead
Brittle masculinity, in the right setting, becomes political atrocity. Strength brings problems; weakness brings others, but weakness posing as strength is the most dangerous of all.
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If we don't have access to facts, we can't trust each other. Without trust, there's no law. Without law, there's no democracy.
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Totalitarianism is not about some state that appears out of nowhere and suddenly is all-powerful. There can't be any such thing. Totalitarianism starts when the difference between your public life and your private life is effaced.
Timothy D. SnyderRead
The 20th century shows that the form of government that we take for granted, a constitutional democratic republic with checks and balances and a rule of law - that form of government is usually temporary.
Timothy D. SnyderRead
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