Junot Diaz Quotes

Partly, I'm worried that no one is saying anything because they are afraid of being seen as politically correct.

The silence of peoples is something kings should study.

[People] just don't seem to want to give [Donald Trump] any kind of berth at all, let alone a wide berth, to govern.

People are afraid that they're going to upset somebody on top, and so there's a real sense of, I've got to be quiet, I don't want to be fired.

Donald Trump never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Here's an issue where his concern is this line with public opinion, but the way he deals with it is actually puts him in a super minority in terms of people who are able to somehow bring himself to support his language and demeanor.

No maxim can be more pernicious than that which would teach us to consult the temper of the times, and to tell only so much as we imagine our contemporaries will be able to bear.

I should just keep me mouth shut, I just upset people.

I'm sure there was people in Australia that told Peter Norman that hey, man, you shouldn't have done what you did, you shouldn't have gotten involved in those individuals, it wasn't your business.

The one thing ... that is truly ugly is the climate of hate and intimidation, created by a noisy few, which makes the decent majority reluctant to air in public their views on anything controversial. ... Where all pretend to be thinking alike, it's likely that no one is thinking at all.

The greatest fear people have is that of being themselves.

Silence is so often applauded and those who speak out are often called tasteless.

I think a lot of the people that stand by Donald Trump are deplorable. And the things that they say are deplorable.

I wonder at what point do you stop doing what you think is right and you start doing what the majority of the American people want?

At some point, you realize that people might be laughing at your jokes because they're afraid not to laugh.

I keep my mouth shut now. I've turned into a professional coward.

I don't care about Donald Trump himself. I care and I worry about the very big base that supports him because this kind of language would have been absolutely nonexistent maybe 15, 20 - by the way, I follow the American elections, and I have never seen someone who is that offensive. I have seen people who are stupid. But stupid and offensive, that's new.

A woman who does not know herself has no choice other than to live with other people’s evaluations. But no one can adapt perfectly to public opinion. And herein lies the source of their destruction.

Donald Trump among wishy-washy people, who decide one day they want him, and they want his endorsement, they support him, and the next day they don't. It's much better for him to take the message directly to the people.

I'm sure even in America, where you have, like, free speech people self-censor themself. And it's not - it happens because of different reasons. Because maybe it's politically incorrect, it doesn't have to really to be put in jail.

Weak logic, inconsistencies and alienation from the people are common features of authoritarianism. The relentless attempts of totalitarian regimes to prevent free thought and new ideas and the persistent assertion of their own rightness bring on them an intellectual stasis which they project on to the nation at large. Intimidation and propaganda work in a duet of oppression, while the people, lapped in fear and distrust, learn to dissemble and to keep silent.

Public opinion, - a tyrant, sitting in the dark, wrapt up in mystification and vague terrors of obscurity; deriving power no one knows from whom ... - but irresistible in its power to quell thought, to repress action, to silence conviction.

It does not do to rely too much on silent majorities, Evey, for silence is a fragile thing, one loud noise, and its gone. But the people are so cowed and disorganised. A few might take the opportunity to protest, but it'll just be a voice crying in the wilderness. Noise is relative to the silence preceding it. The more absolute the hush, the more shocking the thunderclap. Our masters have not heard the people's voice for generations, Evey and it is much, much louder than they care to remember.

The idea of what the public will think prevents the public from ever thinking at all, and acts as a spell on the exercise of private judgment.

It's a big country out there and there are tens of millions of Americans who like what the president [Donald Trump] is doing.