John le Carre Quotes

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 National Socialist Party will prevent in the future, by force if necessary, all meetings and lectures which are likely to exercise a depressing influence on the German state.

Fascism is more of a natural state than democracy. To assume blithely that we can export democracy into any country we choose can serve paradoxically to encourage more fascism at home and abroad. Democracy is a state of grace that is attained only by those countries who have a host of individuals not only ready to enjoy freedom but to undergo the heavy labor of maintaining it.

Having lived through the transition from totalitarianism, I am acutely mindful of the need to never take for granted the basic freedoms of thought, expression and belief that democracy brings.

Freedom only for the members of the government, only for the members of the Party - though they are quite numerous - is no freedom at all.

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

Authoritarianism provides a kind of negative stability. Democracy creates space to do a lot of things, sometimes bad things, dangerous things.

The one reason we know that every totalitarian government must fail is that no totalitarian government is prepared to face the consequence of free universities.

A totalitarian state will harmonize in Spain the operation of all the capabilities and energy in the country

Our liberty cannot depend on the good intention of those in power.

One thing my father said was that if you find yourself in a country where you have to carry papers, you know it has a lousy government.

We do not want to see a Hong Kong that enjoys freedoms on paper, but whose autonomous status conceals the workings of a totalitarian state beneath.

We do not want to see a Hong Kong that enjoys freedoms on paper but whose autonomous status conceals the workings of a totalitarian state.

There will be no more protests. No more dissension. No more violence. There will be only one voice. The voice of Ravinia. The voice of Halla. Your voice." "There goes freedom of speech," I said.

Churchill knew instinctively what was wrong with communism - that it repressed liberty; that it replaced individual discretion with state control; that it entailed the curtailment of democracy, and therefore that it was tyrannous.

Without democracy freedom is a chimera

Under the rule of a repressive whole, liberty can be made into a powerful instrument of domination.

It is not true that virtually all news in a totalitarian state is false.

Right now, we have no possibility of politics because we have a one-party state.

The deadliest foe of democracy is not autocracy but liberty frenzied.

A state of society where men may not speak their minds cannot long endure.

In our modern age - in the age of free information - I don't think there is any place for dictatorships.

I have lived under totalitarian Communism, so I prize freedom as much as anyone and have long fought for freedom of conscience and speech.

Only the freedom of mind can prevent the state from becoming totalitarian and from issuing totalitarian demands.

Also, when you escape a Communist regime, you treasure liberty and you understand that as government and state expand, liberty must contract.