Edward Snowden Quotes

Fascism and communism have not entirely disappeared but have been sidelined certainly, and liberal democracy has come to be accepted, in theory at least, around the world, if not always in practice.

Democratization is not democracy; it is a slogan for the temporary liberalization handed down from an autocrat. Glasnost is not free speech; only free speech, constitutionally guaranteed, is free speech.

China has seen a great deal of economic progress. It's certainly rather of a miracle. The growing role of the market in the economy will force China to open up its political system over time and to move toward a more democratic society. So taken as a whole, the one real failure in this whole business has been Russia.

We have to implant democracies where there are now dictatorships.

The free world should not wait for dictatorial regimes to consent to reform.

The peaceful path out of totalitarianism has never been tested.

No idea holds greater sway in the minds of educated Americans that the belief that it is possible to democratize governments anytime and anywhere under any circumstances .

There are many democracies in our Arab and Islamic countries, but unfortunately, they are all false democracies.

We had a revolution 2 years ago, and we see a people moving from a completely authoritarian system into a democracy. They don’t know how democracy works. They don’t know the ingredients of a democracy.

The surest way to make our youth suspect that there may be something in Communism would be for the government to outlaw it.

If the Chinese government gets carried away with denying basic rights, then there will be a pushback from within.

The problem in Burma is the problem in Egypt, the problem you refer to in Yemen, and the problem in a lot of these countries in the world: that you can get stuck in the process of transition, in what’s been called a competitive authoritarian… a pseudo democratic regime.

Russia is leading a movement around the world to spread autocracy and authoritarianism.

Two significant developments in the past several decades have been the collapse of communism as an ideology and the general acceptance, in rhetoric, if not practice, of liberal democracy.

In China we can criticize Darwin but not the government. In America you can criticize the government but not Darwin.

If China don't free up the political side, its economic growth will come to an end - while it is still at a very low level.

The chief difference [between totalitarian and free countries] is that only the totalitarians appear clearly to know how they want to achieve that result, while the free world has only its past achievements to show, being by its very nature unable to offer any detailed "plan" for further growth.

China, in the last – less than half a century, has become one of the great democracies of the world.

We are no longer facing a contest betweenDemocracy and Communism. The conflict today is between Democracy and authoritarianism.

There is a disturbing reincarnation of socialist and nationalist dictatorships raising their heads around the world and even in our own back yard. You see it in places like Venezuela and Bolivia, stoked in no small part by Cuba, and also in Central Asia, and troubling trends in Russia and China.

China is trying to become America without democracy while America is trying to become France without cheese calories.

I never subscribed to what you might call the neo-Conservative position that somehow, at the barrel of a gun, overnight, liberty and democracy could be conjured up.

I believe in it so passionately because anywhere you look in the world, where governments become too big or become authoritarian, speech and expression is one of the first fundamental freedoms to go.

North Korea is like China was 30-plus years ago. Through our contact, we are certain they will become more open and more liberated.

You look at something like Russia, or you look at something like China, where you actually allow free markets to go in. And you haven't seen the change that we, in the western world, would probably like. You still have a bit of a dictatorship - some people would say more than a bit of a dictatorship - in Russia and in China.