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
The minor choices we make are themselves a kind of vote. Our words and gestures, or their absence, count very much.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Our everyday choices have significant impacts and signify our values.
Timothy D. Snyder's quote emphasizes that even the smallest decisions and expressions shape the world around us. Every choice we make, whether vocal or silent, reflects our beliefs and priorities, influencing both ourselves and those around us, much like a vote that contributes to the larger societal outcome.
Themes
ChoicesImpactVoteWordsGesturesValues
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech about social responsibility, you can quote this to inspire conscious decision-making.
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
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.
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
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