Eskinder Nega Quotes

The revolutionary government is the despotism of liberty

When the people contend for their liberty, they seldom get anything by their victory but new masters.

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

The ultimate failures of dictatorship cost humanity far more than the temporary failures of democracy.

it is impossible to preserve freedom anywhere when the zealots take over and the rule of law is ignored

Revolution means democracy in today's world, not the enslavement of peoples to the corrupt and degrading horrors of totalitarianism

These individuals are tyrants, and so they hate democracy. They are bigots, zealots, and persecutors, and so they hate Americas freedom tolerance, and respect for all people. The terrorists of Sept. 11 live and flourish in darkness. They cannot survive in the liberating and inspirational sunlight of American freedom and democracy.

In past history popularly elected governments have been no better and sometimes far worse than overt tyrannies.

But on the other hand government takes away a certain amount of liberty and in some countries it takes away all of liberty. And it will, everywhere, if people who fight government do not fight government any longer.

Men like me, who merely wish to establish political freedom, will in such circumstances lose all their influence, and others will get influence who may become dangerous to all established interests whatsoever.

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

When one makes a Revolution, one cannot mark time; one must always go forward - or go back. He who now talks about the 'freedom of the press' goes backward, and halts our headlong course towards Socialism.

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

The world will not accept dictatorship or domination.

A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny.

Because if you lived, as I did, several years under Nazi totalitarianism, and then 20 years in communist totalitarianism, you would certainly realize how precious freedom is, and how easy it is to lose your freedom.

All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it.

Fundamentalists are not friends of democracy. And that includes your fundamentalists in the United States.

Revolution may not be pro-Western or democratic.

Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.

A State infinitely worse than that which the most inflamed Zealot, the most violent Republican or Enthusiast even pretended to dread before the Rebellion commenced.

Saddam, as most tyrants, was a total control freak. He wanted total control of his regime. Total control of the country. And to introduce a wild card like Al Qaeda in any sense was just something he would not do.

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

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.

Despotism can only exist in darkness, and there are too many lights now in the political firmament to permit it to remain anywhere, as it has heretofore done, almost everywhere.