Fascism says what you and I experience as facts or what reporters experience as facts are irrelevant. All that matters are impressions and emotions and myths.
Timothy D. SnyderRead
Brittle masculinity, in the right setting, becomes political atrocity. Strength brings problems; weakness brings others, but weakness posing as strength is the most dangerous of all.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the dangers of false strength in masculinity, suggesting that the pretense of strength can lead to significant societal issues.
Timothy D. Snyder's quote delves into the complexities of masculinity and its societal implications, arguing that while both strength and weakness can present challenges, the most perilous situation arises when weakness is masked as strength. In the right context, this false bravado can spark severe political consequences, indicating that authentic masculinity should not be defined by dominance but rather by self-awareness and integrity.
Themes
MasculinityStrengthPoliticsAtrocityDanger
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion about toxic masculinity in relation to current political events.
More from Timothy D. Snyder
All quotes βDefend an institution. Follow the courts or the media, or a court or a newspaper. Do not speak of 'our institutions' unless you are making them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions don't protect themselves. They go down like dominoes unless each is defended from the beginning.
Timothy D. SnyderRead
If we don't have access to facts, we can't trust each other. Without trust, there's no law. Without law, there's no democracy.
Timothy D. SnyderRead
Totalitarianism is not about some state that appears out of nowhere and suddenly is all-powerful. There can't be any such thing. Totalitarianism starts when the difference between your public life and your private life is effaced.
Timothy D. SnyderRead
The 20th century shows that the form of government that we take for granted, a constitutional democratic republic with checks and balances and a rule of law - that form of government is usually temporary.
Timothy D. SnyderRead
Most Americans are exceptionalists; we think we live outside of history.
Timothy D. SnyderRead
Similar quotes
An aged man is but a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick
William Butler YeatsRead
I have nothing to say of my working life, only that a tie is a noose, and inverted though it is, it will hang a man nonetheless if he's not careful.
Yann MartelRead
In the morning a man walks with his whole body; in the evening, only with his legs.
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead
Something wonderful begins to happen with the simple realization that life, like an automobile, is driven from the inside out, not the other way around. As you focus more on becoming more peaceful with where you are, rather than focusing on where you would rather be, you begin to find peace right now, in the present. Then, as you move around, try new things, and meet new people, you carry that sense of inner peace with you. It's absolutely true that, "Wherever you go, there you are.
Richard CarlsonRead
Creation destroys as it goes, throws down one tree for the rise of another. But ideal mankind would abolish death, multiply itself million upon million, rear up city upon city, save every parasite alive, until the accumulation of mere existence is swollen to a horror.
D. H. LawrenceRead
What difference is there in the color of the soul?
Solomon NorthupRead