Mario Vargas Llosa Quotes

Africa has more dictators per capita than any other continent.

The whole administrative, judicial, and legislative machinery obeys a single will, the caprice of General Porfirio Diaz, who during his long administration has shown that the principal motive that guides him is to maintain himself in power and at any cost.

There are, of course, all sorts of other unpleasant regimes outside the walls as well - the military dictators of Latin America and the apartheid regime of South Africa.

Every one of the world's dictatorships can and does claim to be acting in the name of the people.

Dictators cause the world's worst problems: all the collapsed states, and all the devastated economies. All the vapid cases of corruption, grand theft, and naked plunder of the treasury are caused by dictators, leaving in their wake trails of wanton destruction, horrendous carnage and human debris.

Growing up in Pakistan in the 1980s, I lived in the shadow of a tyrannical state.

…In certain parts of Latin America, the seizure of the vast majority of the wealth by an oligarchy of owners bereft of social consciousness, the practical absence or the shortcomings of a rule of law, military dictators making a mockery of elementary human rights, the corruption of certain powerful officials, the savage practices of some foreign capital interests constitute factors which nourish a passion for revolt among those who thus consider themselves the powerless victims of a new colonialism in the technological, financial, monetary, or economic order.

When despots rule, cartoonists die.

Germany is a despotism, with mock constitutionalism. There is the dictature of capitalism represented by junkerdom, militarism, and police. All independent organizations of working men were forbidden.

Nigeria first entered...'the dismal tunnel' on January 15, 1966, when the military overthrew all the institutions of a democratically elected government... If there is light at the end of this tunnel, it is imperceptible to anyone not paid to see it.

He [Rafael Trujillo] had his torture chambers. He had his political assassinations. But he kept law and order, cleaned the place up, made it sanitary, built public works, and he didn’t bother the United States. So that was fine with us.

We've been saying Putin is a dictator for years who doesn't care about the law.

Enlightened despots are mythical creatures; real despots seem more interested in stealing money or installing their sons after them.

We have a war dictator who was not elected, he snuck in. so he punishes people that threaten him in any way, or even say something he doesn't like. It has no resemblance to democracy.

Military dictatorship, you can focus on it, you can fight it directly. It's a band of power-driven people.

More harm was done in the 20th century by faceless bureaucrats than tyrant dictators.

Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people.

I grew up in the shadow of the Trujillato, saw how the regime had ravaged so many families.

For 73 years a totalitarian regime ruled the country. Totalitarian regime.

I grew up in a dictatorship in East Africa.

Dictators are interesting, no?

Dictators, unlike Democrats, depend on a small coterie to sustain their power. These backers, generally drawn from the military, the senior civil service, and family or clan members, have a synergistic relationship with their dictator. The dictator delivers opportunities for them to become rich, and they protect him from being overthrown.

I lived in a dictatorship in Brazil, and I was arrested three times. I felt in my flesh what it is to live under such a regime and experience deprivation of freedom.

Nondemocratic regimes imperil the security of the world. They stay in power by controlling their populations. This control invariably requires an increasing amount of repression. To justify this repression and maintain internal stability, external enemies must be manufactured.

When a dictatorship controls the political life of a country, responsible opposition cannot develop, and dissent is driven underground and toward the extreme. And to draw attention away from their social and economic failures, dictators place blame on other countries and other races, and stir the hatred that leads to violence. This status quo of despotism and anger cannot be ignored or appeased, kept in a box or bought off.