Hannah Arendt Quotes

The control of information is something the elite always does, particularly in a despotic form of government. Information, knowledge, is power. If you can control information, you can control people.

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.

No truly sophisticated proponent of repression would be stupid enough to shatter the facade of democratic institutions.

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.

Many Communist government officials have a rigid, dictatorial power, but they live in constant suspicion and fear of anything that might undermine the power they have.

Totalitarianism is patriotism institutionalized.

I've always been fascinated by totalitarian regimes. I'm not an admirer of them.

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.

Even the most repressive regimes seek to maintain the fiction that they have the people’s interest at heart.

Every dictator uses religion as a prop to keep himself in power.

Their ideology requires them to get power but never give up power.

The radical Left wants control over the lives of the American people and will sink to any depths to get it.

In the realm of totalitarian kitsch, all answers are given in advance and preclude any questions.

Totalitarianism is when people believe they can punish their way to perfection.

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

Any excuse will serve a tyrant.

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

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

If I were dictator, I'd have a catch-all crime of disrespect.

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

Authoritarian political ideologies have a vested interest in promoting fear, a sense of the imminence of takeover by aliens and real diseases are useful material.

It is well known that the Soviet Union closely regulates all organizations and movements, including religion.

Despotism is a long crime.

It has been claimed at times that our modern age of technology facilitates dictatorship.

Pervading nationalism imposes its dominion on man today in many different forms and with an aggressiveness that spares no one. The challenge that is already with us is the temptation to accept as true freedom what in reality is only a new form of slavery.