Tim Robbins Quotes

Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.

Secrecy is the freedom tyrants dream of.

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

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.

It is dangerous to speak the truth to tyrants.

The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing.

One need only watch totalitarians at work to see that once men gain power over other men’s minds, that power is never used sparingly and wisely, but lavishly and brutally and with unspeakable results.

The one indisputable reality of dictatorship is that dissent, insult, and malevolent language do not go unpunished if it is allowed at all.

If winning is the only value, why debate when you can suppress?

The enemies of freedom do not argue; they shout and they shoot.

If your regime is not strong enough to handle a joke, then you don't have a regime.

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.

Numerous politicians have seized absolute power and muzzled the press. Never in history has the press seized absolute power and muzzled the politicians.

Who were the fools who spread the story that brute force cannot kill ideas? Nothing is easier. And once they are dead they are no more than corpses.

History’s most important lesson is that it has not been possible to make coercion compatible with the truth.

Anyone who goes against my decisions, I liquidate him

Silence coerced by law—the argument of force in its worst form.

Dissenters will become food for crocodiles.

It is the old practice of despots to use a part of the people to keep the rest in order.

We must ask the high cadres ... When you suppressed the rights of others to express freely their political views, did you secure your own?

Some people only speak of freedom of speech while they're out of power. Once they're in power, they're ruthless in suppressing the rights of others.

The fact is that certain themes cannot be celebrated in words, and tyranny is one of them. No one ever wrote a good book in praise of the Inquisition.

I not only weaken the opposition, I’m going to make them dead ... and if anyone is strong enough to try to hold a demonstration, I will beat all those dogs and put them in a cage.

Military dictatorship is born from the power of the gun, and so it undermines the concept of the rule of law and gives birth to a culture of might, a culture of weapons, violence and intolerance.