suppression quotes

I have seen how leaders rule by intimidation. Leaders who demonize and dehumanize entire groups of people often do so because they have nothing else to offer. And I have seen how places that stifle the voices and dismiss the potential of their citizens are diminished: how they are less vital, less hopeful, less free.

It is difficult to violently suppress people in the long run, as the example of the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries has shown.

Don’t join the book burners. Do not think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed.

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.

A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism.