Jon Stewart Quotes

Some people only speak of freedom of speech while they're out of power. Once they're in power, they're ruthless in suppressing the rights of others.

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

It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own.

When you have a person in power who punishes people for speaking their mind, it's truly dangerous.

Numerous politicians have seized absolute power and muzzled the press. Never in history has the press seized absolute power and muzzled the politicians.

We must ask the high cadres ... When you suppressed the rights of others to express freely their political views, did you secure your own?

If winning is the only value, why debate when you can suppress?

Secrecy is the freedom tyrants dream of.

The more complete the despotism, the more smoothly all things move on the surface.

They have been talking about a dictatorship and they were right because there's a dictatorship and there's a government that has been fighting that dictatorship, the dictatorship of the media.

Under conditions of tyranny it is far easier to act than to think.

I've met quite a few dictators up close and personal in my life.

There are men—now in power in this country—who do not respect dissent, who cannot cope with turmoil, and who believe that the people of America are ready to support repression so long as it is done with a quiet voice and a business suit.

The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing.

A writer who will not lie cannot live or work under Fascism

In every Revolution a dictator is needed to save the state by force, or censors to save it by virtue.

A despot doesn't fear eloquent writers preaching freedom—he fears a drunken poet who may crack a joke that will take hold.

The political lives of tyrants play out human affairs with a special intensity: the death of a democratic leader long after his retirement is a private matter, but the death of a tyrant is always a political act that reflects the character of his power.

What Trump is not smart enough to even grasp is that the kind of popularity that Putin has can only be achieved in the context of retro-totalitarianism.

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.

Despots play their part in the works of thinkers. Fettered words are terrible words. The writer doubles and trebles the power of his writing when a ruler imposes silence on the people. Something emerges from that enforced silence, a mysterious fullness which filters through and becomes steely in the thought.

The fact is that certain themes cannot be celebrated in words, and tyranny is one of them. No one ever wrote a good book in praise of the Inquisition.

Now comes the reign of iron.

Will dissent be permitted? The answer to that question will determine whether the society is a free society or a fear society.

The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance.