Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes

The Arab Spring, with all of its failings and failures, exposed the lie that if we are to live, then we must live as slaves. It was an attempt to undermine not only the orthodoxy of dictatorship but also an international political orthodoxy where every activity must be approved by the profit logic of the 'ledger.'

We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.

No one argues that we should have imposed a dictatorship in Afghanistan having liberated the country. Similarly, we weren't about to impose a dictatorship in Iraq having liberated the country.

No dictatorship can have any other aim but that of self-perpetuation, and it can beget only slavery in the people tolerating it; freedom can be created only by freedom, that is, by a universal rebellion on the part of the people and free organization of the toiling masses from the bottom up.

The Chinese people are not a new kind of human nature. Human nature in China is the same as it is elsewhere. When you start in a tyrannical regime to hand out freedom there is no place to draw that line and expect that line to hold. And so it’s only a matter of time before this regime comes down

The glorious spectacle of eighteen millions of people, struggling to burst their chains and be free.

The bounty you must pay for freedom is to give the strength of your arms to put down tyranny. One short hour will deliver our country from the oppressor; and freedom in religion, peace and tranquility, equal laws and an improved country will be the prize.

I say that the most inefficient, wasteful self-government is worth more than the most efficient dictatorship.

Colombians! I will not speak to you of freedom, because if I keep my promises, you will be more than free. You will be respected…. Besides in a dictatorship who can speak of freedom.

Across the region, those rights that we take for granted are being claimed with joy by those who are prying loose the grip of an iron fist.

The price of toppling Gadhafi will be steep. But Libyans will topple him, and in doing so, they will bring down with him the castles of fear our dictators thought they had fortified.

When the people contend for their liberty, they seldom get anything by their victory but new masters.

Everywhere that freedom stirs, let tyrants fear.

Freedom is contagious. That's why despots fear it so much.

No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our history has determined the very existence of politics, the cause of freedom versus tyranny.

There is no doubt that, with the exception of a very small number of people close to a vicious regime, the people of Iraq have been liberated and they understand that they've been liberated.

Getting rid of the dictator is only a first step in establishing a free society. The dictatorship must also be disassembled.

The desire for liberty has also made itself felt as struggle against domestic tyranny or arbitrary rule.

Anywhere, anytime ordinary people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same: freedom, not tyranny; democracy, not dictatorship; the rule of law, not the rule of the secret police.

Ultimately, freedom and democracy are stronger than fear and tyranny.

During my last voyage to America, I enjoyed the happiness of seeing that revolution completed, and, thinking of the one that would probably occur in France, I said in a speech to Congress, published everywhere except in the 'French Gazette,' 'May this revolution serve as a lesson to oppressors and as an example to the oppressed!'

There is no stopping the world's tendency to throw off imposed restraints, the religious authority that is based on the ignorance of the many, the political authority that is based on the knowledge of the few.

Perhaps the fact that we have seen millions voting themselves into complete dependence on a tyrant has made our generation understand that to choose one's government is not necessarily to secure freedom.

The tyrant has fallen, and Iraq is free.

Give me liberty or give me death.