{"quotes":[{"text":"If a nation is leaving democracy and choosing fascism, it means that it is taking itself from a peaceful garden to a bloody slaughter house!","author":"Mehmet Murat ildan","tags":["democracy","democracy-in-america","dictators","dictatorship","dictatorships","fascism","fascism","fascism","fascism","fascismo","ildan-wisdom","ildan-wise-sayings","ildan-words","mehmet-murat-ildan","mehmet-murat-ildan","nation","nations","nations","nations","trump","turkish-aphorisms","turkish-","turkish-literature","turkish-playwrights","turkish","turkish","turkish-sayings","turkish-thinkers","turkish-wisdom-words","turkish-writers"],"id":32234,"author_id":"Mehmet+Murat+ildan"},{"text":"The lesson we are indebted to Egypt for, our future generations learned that in the face of oppression silence is never golden.","author":"Aysha Taryam","tags":["arabspring","democracy","dictators","dictatorship","egypt","philosophy","politics","revolution"],"id":44818,"author_id":"Aysha+Taryam"},{"text":"Just as the poet is a menace to conformity, he is also a constant threat to political dictators. He is always on the verge of blowing up the assembly line of political power.","author":"Rollo May","tags":["creative-person","dictators","poet","political-power"],"id":50934,"author_id":"Rollo+May"},{"text":"We live in an age of equivocal competency: if you want, you can be a competent dictator, a competent self-promoter, a competent terrorist. Just because you can do something well does not mean you should be doing it.","author":"Clifford Cohen","tags":["dictators","dictatorship","politics","racism","self-promotion","terrorism","tyranny"],"id":62860,"author_id":"Clifford+Cohen"},{"text":"Kadafi is a zombie in a pillbox hat, that's what he is!","author":"Bill Maher","tags":["dictators","politics"],"id":65496,"author_id":"Bill+Maher"},{"text":"No man is a complete ruler or dictator. He is only the mouthpiece for the wishes of his followers. As long as he expresses those wishes, he leads them.","author":"Louis L'Amour","tags":["dictators","leaders","rulers"],"id":73495,"author_id":"Louis+L%27Amour"},{"text":"Where everyone wants to be a leader, it makes one a follower to want to be a leader, and a leader to know what to follow.","author":"Criss Jami","tags":["arrogance","ity","chaos","development","dictators","dictatorship","followers","humility","leaders","leadership","learning","narcissism","pandemonium","power","pride","rulers"],"id":166492,"author_id":"Criss+Jami"},{"text":"As centuries of dictators have known, an illiterate crowd is the easiest to rule; since the craft of reading cannot be untaught once it has been acquired, the second-best recourse is to limit its scope.","author":"Alberto Manguel","tags":["censorship","dictators","illiteracy","reading"],"id":183197,"author_id":"Alberto+Manguel"},{"text":"This light of history is pitiless; it has a strange and divine quality that, luminous as it is, and precisely because it is luminous, often casts a shadow just where we saw a radiance; out of the same man it makes two different phantoms, and the one attacks and punishes the other, the darkness of the despot struggles with the splendor of the captain. Hence a truer measure in the final judgment of the nations. Babylon violated diminishes Alexander; Rome enslaved diminishes Caesar; massacred Jerusalem diminishes Titus. Tyranny follows the tyrant. Woe to the man who leaves behind a shadow that bears his form.","author":"Victor Hugo","tags":["dictators","history","kings","legacy"],"id":190502,"author_id":"Victor+Hugo"},{"text":"What is it with Dictators and Writers, anyway? Since before the infamous Caesar-Ovid war they've had beef. Like the Fantastic Four and Galactus, like the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, like the Teen Titans and Deathstroke, Foreman and Ali, Morrison and Crouch, Sammy and Sergio, they seemed destined to be eternally linked in the Halls of Battle. Rushdie claims that tyrants and scribblers are natural antagonists, but I think that's too simple; it lets writers off pretty easy. Dictators, in my opinion, just know competition when they see it. Same with writers. Like, after all, recognizes like.","author":"Junot Díaz","tags":["dictators","fiction","writers"],"id":196905,"author_id":"Junot+D%C3%ADaz"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":22,"pages":3,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}