Repressive Regimes Quotes

It is dangerous to speak the truth to tyrants.

Even the most repressive regimes seek to maintain the fiction that they have the people’s interest at heart.

Russia’s back yard is littered with authoritarian regimes—Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Uzbekistan, to name a few—whose leaders seem to view positions as lifetime appointments.

Dictators never invent their own opportunities.

Since armed conflicts and repressive regimes may pose dangers beyond the borders of the countries concerned, all democratic nations have an interest in overcoming collective action problems and promoting open societies all over the world. The earlier preventative actions begins, the less costly and more effective it is likely to be.

The fact that oppressive and corrupt regimes can borrow money in the name of the whole country means that the country's future generations will be weighed down by interest and repayment burdens, even if the money has been frittered away in some frivolous way, embezzled or used for weapons to suppress the country's population.

The United States does have the highest rate of incarceration in the world dwarfing the rates of even highly repressive regimes like Russia, China or Iran. This reflects a radical shift in criminal justice policy, a stunning development that virtually no one - not even the best criminologists - predicted forty years ago.

After more than two decades of traveling with American presidents and chief diplomats - on visits to places that have included some of the world's most repressive nations - I am used to watching leaders disappear behind closed doors.

For a writer, personal freedom is not so important. It is not individual freedom that guarantees the greatness of literature; otherwise, writers in democratic countries would be superior to all others. Some of the greatest writers wrote under dictatorship - Shakespeare, Cervantes.

Violence of the state is sublimated—it takes a very dull form.

Defending human rights should be an important objective of foreign policy, and that, too, will sometimes be hard to reconcile with an economic agenda, especially when it comes to dealing with rich but repressive players like China and Russia.

The more dubious and uncertain an instrument violence has become in international relations, the more it has gained in reputation and appeal in domestic affairs, specifically in the matter of revolution.

Trade, tourism, cultural exchange, and participation in international institutions all serve to erode the legitimacy of repressive regimes.

Liberation movements - operating surreptitiously and conspiratorially - thrive on discipline and suspicion, and punish deviation or dissent.

To understand why dictators have a problem with making peace - or at least a genuine peace - the link between the nature of a regime and its external behavior must be understood.

I'm fascinated by the ways people under repressive regimes still manage to share information - and joy.

The Government, … always quenches in blood any democratic manifestation

Most of the nations around the world are led by tyrants and dictators and thugs who are leading their countries for one reason.

Striking bargains with repressive regimes does require making moral compromises .

Repressive regimes do not endure change willingly - and Venezuela is no exception.

The promotion of human rights cannot be about exhortation alone. At times, it must be coupled with painstaking diplomacy. I know that engagement with repressive regimes lacks the satisfying purity of indignation. But I also know that sanctions without outreach -- condemnation without discussion -- can carry forward only a crippling status quo. No repressive regime can move down a new path unless it has the choice of an open door.

Attempts at reform, when they fail, strengthen despotism, as he that struggles tightens those cords he does not succeed in breaking.

The Chinese are good at repression and can be pretty ruthless about it.