Quotesia
Home
Authors
Popular authors
Joseph Brodsky
Walt Whitman
Aristotle
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Robert Half
Emily Dickinson
All authors
Today's birthdays
1991 - Quavo
1840 - Emile Zola
1805 - Hans Christian Andersen
1940 - Penelope Keith
1979 - Lindy Booth
1960 - Linford Christie
Today's birthdays
Popular professions
President
Celebrity
Comedian
Athlete
Chef
Coach
All professions
Authors by letter
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
All authors
Topics
Top Quotes
Quotesia
Favorite authors
Timothy D. Snyder Quotes
Timothy D. Snyder Quotes
Timothy D. Snyder
American
Author
Born:
Aug 18
,
1969
Democracy
Law
People
Think
Will
You
Related authors:
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Frederick Douglass
Helen Keller
Henry David Thoreau
Joyce Meyer
Mark Twain
Og Mandino
Zig Ziglar
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. Snyder
You
Experience
Emotions
Matters
Says
Facts
Myths
Impressions
Reporters
Irrelevant
Fascism
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. Snyder
Strength
Dangerous
Political
Problems
Setting
Others
Weakness
Atrocity
Masculinity
Most
Becomes
Right
Brings
Posing
To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle.
Timothy D. Snyder
Freedom
Nothing
Abandon
Facts
True
Then
Spectacle
Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience.
Timothy D. Snyder
Democracy
Experience
Communism
Our
Saw
Advantage
Wiser
Learn
Yield
Than
American
Might
Who
Europeans
Fascism
If you want to avoid criticism, then you shouldn't be a historian, because historians are trying to understand and explain. If you're trying to please people, then you should go into the fashion business, or the candy business.
Timothy D. Snyder
Fashion
You
Business
People
Criticism
Please
Because
Understand
Go
Historian
Historians
Trying
Candy
Want
Explain
Then
Should
Avoid
When listening to politicians, distinguish certain words. Look out for the expansive use of 'terrorism' and 'extremism.' Be alive to the fatal notions of 'exception' and 'emergency.' Be angry about the treacherous use of patriotic vocabulary.
Timothy D. Snyder
Angry
Terrorism
Words
Listening
Politicians
Extremism
Alive
Distinguish
Out
About
Vocabulary
Emergency
Exception
Look
Expansive
Patriotic
Certain
Use
Notions
Treacherous
Fatal
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. Snyder
Life
Totalitarianism
Starts
State
Out
All-Powerful
Some
About
Between
Private
Private Life
Any
Difference
Public
Public Life
Your
Appears
Suddenly
Nowhere
Thing
Courage does not mean not fearing or not grieving. It does mean recognizing and resisting terror management right away, from the moment of the attack, precisely when it seems most difficult to do so.
Timothy D. Snyder
Courage
Management
Difficult
Recognizing
Fearing
Seems
Attack
Most
Terror
Does
Precisely
Grieving
Mean
Moment
Away
Right
Right Away
Resisting
Democracy only has substance if there's the rule of law. That is, if people believe that the votes are going to be counted, and they are counted. If they believe that there's a judiciary out there that will make sense of things if there's some challenge. If there isn't rule of law, people will be afraid to vote the way they want to vote.
Timothy D. Snyder
Democracy
Vote
People
Law
Challenge
Will
Judiciary
Sense
Believe
Rule
Way
Rule Of Law
Out
Some
Only
Counted
Votes
Make
Going
Substance
Afraid
Want
Things
If it turns out that there are emotions and values that are more numerous and more vibrant than indifference and hatred, things are going to be okay. That depends on us.
Timothy D. Snyder
Emotions
Values
Hatred
Numerous
Okay
Out
Indifference
More
Than
Going
Vibrant
Depends
Us
Turns
Things
Defend 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. Snyder
You
Speak
Beginning
Down
Our
Unless
Follow
Institution
Like
Institutions
Protect
Court
Making
Courts
Go
Behalf
Them
Newspaper
Themselves
Acting
Yours
Each
Media
Defend
Defended
People who lived in the 1920s and '30s and '40s were not so different from us. In some ways, they were probably better citizens than we are. They had longer attention spans, for example. Educated people tended to read a bit more than we did.
Timothy D. Snyder
People
Better
Example
Bit
Ways
Citizens
Some
More
Had
Attention
Attention Spans
Longer
For Example
Read
Educated
Educated People
Were
Than
Did
Different
Spans
Us
Who
Lived
When a terrorist attack comes, you will not necessarily know who did it. What you can know is that certain kinds of leaders will use that to suspend your rights.
Timothy D. Snyder
You
Rights
Will
Kinds
Attack
Leaders
Know
Terrorist
Terrorist Attack
Did
Suspend
Certain
Use
Your
Who
Necessarily
What we ended up with, from Bill Clinton onward, is a status quo party and an 'undo the system' party, where the Democrats became the status quo party and the Republicans became the 'undo the system' party.
Timothy D. Snyder
Party
System
Status
Status Quo
Onward
Became
Democrats
Clinton
Undo
Up
Ended
Where
Quo
Republicans
Bill
Bill Clinton
We can only see as much and we can only go as far as our languages take us.
Timothy D. Snyder
Our
See
Only
Take
Go
As Far As
Far
Us
Much
Languages
The minor choices we make are themselves a kind of vote. Our words and gestures, or their absence, count very much.
Timothy D. Snyder
Vote
Words
Our
Kind
Minor
Absence
Count
Make
Very
Gestures
Themselves
Much
Choices
Republics, like other forms of government, exist in history and can rise and fall.
Timothy D. Snyder
Government
History
Fall
Other
Rise
Like
Exist
Forms
Republics
It is aspiring tyrants who say that 'civil liberties end when an attack on our safety begins.' Conversely, leaders who wish to preserve the rule of law find other ways to speak about real terrorist threats, and certainly do not invent them or deliberately make them worse.
Timothy D. Snyder
Speak
Law
Safety
Invent
Wish
Other
Our
Rule
Worse
Rule Of Law
Say
Tyrants
Ways
Liberties
Find
Civil
Civil Liberties
Threats
About
Deliberately
Attack
Leaders
Make
Terrorist
Real
End
Begins
Them
Certainly
Aspiring
Who
Preserve
In the descent from a world of factual discourse into a world of emotions and alternative realities, the first step you take, whether you're the Russian media, whether you're Breitbart, is that you manufacture lots of stuff that isn't true. The second step is that you claim that everyone is like this.
Timothy D. Snyder
You
Emotions
World
First
Everyone
Claim
Russian
Take
Factual
Step
True
Stuff
Like
Alternative
First Step
Discourse
Lots
Whether
Realities
Manufacture
Descent
Media
Second
I thought I was going to grow up and become a diplomat and negotiate nuclear arms.
Timothy D. Snyder
Thought
Become
Negotiate
Diplomat
Arms
Up
Going
Grow
Grow Up
Nuclear
Nuclear Arms
There's a basic problem with the history of the Holocaust. The people who do it don't know the necessary languages.
Timothy D. Snyder
History
People
Problem
Know
The History Of
Holocaust
Languages
Who
Basic
Necessary
It's easy for us to congratulate ourselves on our own moral superiority when compared to the 1930s, but I'm not sure that we're actually right about that. In most of the West, we simply haven't been tested in the same way. And when we are tested, we often fail.
Timothy D. Snyder
Own
Our
Way
Ourselves
Moral
Easy
About
Superiority
Simply
Fail
Most
Sure
Tested
Been
West
Same
Often
Us
Congratulate
Compared
Actually
Right
I worry about global anti-Semitism - not just as a bad idea that originates from bad people, but also as something that arises as a challenge to global order.
Timothy D. Snyder
People
Bad People
Challenge
Anti-Semitism
Worry
Bad
About
Bad Idea
Something
Arises
Idea
Global
Also
Just
Order
It is unclear how much money Trump has, but it is not enough to matter in Russia. If he keeps up his pose as the tough billionaire, he will be flattered by the Russian media, scorned by those who matter in Russia, and then easily crushed by men far richer and smarter than he.
Timothy D. Snyder
Money
Matter
Will
Men
Tough
Crushed
Enough
Those
Easily
Russia
Russian
Unclear
He
Smarter
How
How Much
How Much Money
His
Trump
Scorned
Up
Than
Flattered
Far
Then
Much
Richer
Who
Billionaire
Media
Keeps
Pose
Most Americans are exceptionalists; we think we live outside of history.
Timothy D. Snyder
History
Live
Think
Outside
Most
American
Getting out to protest, this is something real and, I would say, something patriotic. Part of the new authoritarianism is to get people to prefer fiction and inaction to reality and action.
Timothy D. Snyder
Reality
People
Action
Say
Out
Would
Something
Part
New
Protest
Real
Authoritarianism
Get
Getting
Fiction
Patriotic
Inaction
Prefer
Load more quotes
No more Timothy D. Snyder quotes
Haven't find the right quote? Try quotes from authors related to Timothy D. Snyder.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Frederick Douglass
Helen Keller
Henry David Thoreau