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On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century QUOTES

On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century QUOTES

121 " The seemingly distant traumas of fascism, Nazism, and communism seemed to be receding into irrelevance. We allowed ourselves to accept the politics of inevitability, the sense that history could move in only one direction: toward liberal democracy. "

― Timothy Snyder , On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

122 " Having old friends is the politics of last resort. And making new ones is the first step toward change. "

― Timothy Snyder , On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

123 " Remember professional ethics. When political leaders set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become more important. It is hard to subvert a rule-of-law state without lawyers, or to hold show trials without judges. Authoritarians need obedient civil servants, and concentration camp directors seek businessmen interested in cheap labor. "

― Timothy Snyder , On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

124 " The American abolitionist Wendell Phillips did in fact say that “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” He added that “the manna of popular liberty must be gathered each day or it is rotten. "

― Timothy Snyder , On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

125 " Remember that email is skywriting. "

― Timothy Snyder , On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

126 " Be kind to our language. Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does. Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey that thing you think everyone is saying. Make an effort to separate yourself from the internet. Read books. "

― Timothy Snyder , On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

127 " He places the sign in his window so that he can withdraw into daily life without trouble from the authorities. When everyone else follows the same logic, the public sphere is covered with signs of loyalty, and resistance becomes unthinkable. "

― Timothy Snyder , On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

128 " People who assure you that you can only gain security at the price of liberty usually want to deny you both. You "

― Timothy Snyder , On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

129 " If we can avoid doing violence to the minds of unseen others on the internet, others will learn to do the same. And then perhaps our internet traffic will cease to look like one, great bloody accident. "

― Timothy Snyder , On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

130 " Stand out. Someone has to. It is easy to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different. But without that unease, there is no freedom. Remember Rosa Parks. The moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow. "

― Timothy Snyder , On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

131 " When politicians today invoke terrorism they are speaking, of course, of an actual danger. But when they try to train us to surrender freedom in the name of safety, we should be on our guard. There is no necessary tradeoff between the two. Sometimes we do indeed gain one by losing the other, and sometimes not. People who assure you that you can only gain security at the price of liberty usually want to deny you both. "

― Timothy Snyder , On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

132 " Figure things out for yourself. Spend more time with long articles. Subsidize investigative journalism by subscribing to print media. Realize that some of what is on the internet is there to harm you. Learn about sites that investigate propaganda campaigns (some of which come from abroad). Take responsibility for what you communicate with others. "

― Timothy Snyder , On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

133 " Make new friends and march with them. For resistance to succeed, two boundaries must be crossed. First, ideas about change must engage people of various backgrounds who do not agree about everything. Second, people must find themselves in places that are not their homes, and among groups who were not previously their friends. "

― Timothy Snyder , On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

134 " It is your ability to discern facts that makes you an individual, and our collective trust in common knowledge that makes us a society. The individual who investigates is also the citizen who builds. The leader who dislikes the investigators is a potential tyrant. "

― Timothy Snyder , On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

135 " Tyrants seek the hook on which to hang you. Try not to have hooks. "

― Timothy Snyder , On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

136 " Much needs to be done to fix the gerrymandered system so that each citizen has one equal vote, and so that each vote can be simply counted by a fellow citizen. We need paper ballots, because they cannot be tampered with remotely and can always be recounted. "

― Timothy Snyder , On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

137 " The time is out of joint. O cursed spite,/That ever I was born to set it right!” Thus Hamlet. Yet he concludes: “Nay, come, let’s go together. "

― Timothy Snyder , On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

138 " People who assure you that you can only gain security at the price of liberty usually want to deny you both. "

― Timothy Snyder , On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

139 " A nationalist encourages us to be our worst, and then tells us that we are the best. "

― Timothy Snyder , On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

140 " We might be tempted to think that our democratic heritage automatically protects us from such threats. This is a misguided reflex. Our own tradition demands that we examine history to understand the deep sources of tyranny, and to consider the proper responses to it. We are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism in the twentieth century. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so. "

― Timothy Snyder , On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century