George Orwell, 1984

The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. "Necessitous men are not free men." People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

Maximilien Robespierre

The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant.

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— darren32359.bsky.social (@darren32359.bsky.social) August 1, 2025 at 6:03 AM

Mark Milley, United States Army General

We don't take an oath to a king, or queen, or a tyrant or a dictator. And we don't take an oath to a wannabe dictator …we take an oath to the Constitution … and we're willing to die to protect it.

"We don't take an oath to a king, or queen, or a tyrant or a dictator. And we don't take an oath to a wannabe dictator ...we take an oath to the Constitution ... and we're willing to die to protect it".

- Mark Milley (2023)
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— The Intellectualist (@highbrow_nobrow) May 25, 2025

Noam Chomsky

So you can control people. Make him believe that he is the reason for his delay and that you are coming to save him.

Noam Chomsky

If you want to conquer a people, create an imaginary enemy who seems more dangerous than you, then be their savior.

Albert Camus

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your way of existence is an act of rebellion.

Doctor Who

You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit their views.

Dr Who classic and still relevant

Katha Pollitt

When you consider that God could have commanded anything he wanted--anything!--the Ten [Commandments] have got to rank as one of the great missed moral opportunities of all time. How different history would have been had he clearly and unmistakably forbidden war, tyranny, taking over other people's countries, slavery, exploitation of workers, cruelty to children, wife-beating, stoning, treating women--or anyone--as chattel or inferior beings.

Harry S. Truman

Education has been defined as a bulwark against the acids of fascism and communism. Neither of these totalitarian forms of government can survive examination by educated men and women.

Karis Nemik's Manifesto, Andor

There will be times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy. Remember this. Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts of insurrection are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy. There are whole armies, battalions that have no idea that they've already enlisted in the cause. Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward. And then remember this. The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that. And know this, the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance will have flooded the banks of the Empire's authority and then there will be one too many. One single thing will break the siege. Remember this. Try.

C.S. Lewis, "God in the Dock: Essays on Theology (Making of Modern Theology)"

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.