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
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Totalitarianism emerges when the distinction between public and private life disappears.
Timothy D. Snyder highlights the gradual emergence of totalitarianism rather than a sudden takeover. He argues that such a regime begins to take shape when individuals can no longer differentiate between their private thoughts and public expressions, leading to a controlled and oppressive society where freedom is severely compromised.
Themes
TotalitarianismFreedomPublic LifePrivate LifeOppression
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of maintaining civil liberties.
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
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
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