Natan Sharansky Quotes

I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.

In contrast, fear societies are societies in which dissent is banned.

Some people still believe you should just fall in line with what's going on - and that's scary. It makes a mockery of freedom of speech.

Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.

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

Has there ever been a society which has died of dissent? Several have died of conformity in our lifetime.

[…] the underlying problem is the soft progressive totalitarianism that seeks to compel submission to its creed. A powerful cultural establishment, now reinforced by political dominion in Washington, won’t tolerate deviance. Instead of learning to live at peace with the reality of pluralism, the essence of a successful democracy, it demands concordance with all of its ever-changing strictures. It ascribes dissent not to honest disagreement, differing experiences, diverse intellectual traditions or the basic human instinct for autonomy, but to malice and ignorance.

I grew up under a dictatorship. I knew what it meant for people to not have the ability to freely express themselves.

Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.

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

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

The Chinese have made a faustian pact with the government, agreeing to forsake demands for political and intellectual freedom in exchange for more material comfort. They live prosperous lives in which any expression of pain is forbidden.

Persecution is the first law of society because it is always easier to suppress criticism than to meet it.

Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled.

Hero-worship is strongest where there is least regard for human freedom.

Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself.

No member of any society has a right to teach any doctrine contrary to what the society holds to be true.

The committee will be composed of open-minded people who agree with me.

Whatever crushes individuality is despotism.

The difference between being out of step with a dictator and being out of step with the democratic majority is practically negligible. The important thing is to be in step.

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.

In most of the countries where the people don’t like their government, we are now allowed to ask whether people like their government.

Such is the terror--the crushing fear--which is inspired by one man over that multitude, which now submits to his decrees with a zeal, apparently as ardent, as it is certainly abject and submissive. There is not a complaint heard. The calm and dark waters of despotism are never disturbed by the slightest ripple. Not a breath of free thought or manly speech passes over them, but they lie dead and deep, into which every vestige of the people's liberty and freedom has sunk and disappeared.

Political correctness is the natural continuum from the party line. What we are seeing once again is a self-appointed group of vigilantes imposing their views on others. It is a heritage of communism, but they don't seem to see this.

There is social intimidation by the self-appointed brigades of the thought police… they exist in every society, whether they are of the religious, nationalistic or atheistic variety. Dogmatists, who are convinced that they know better, that only the way they think is acceptable and who would deprive others of their right to hear differing and discordant voices.. They try to achieve this by either silencing the author or scaring away the public.