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Dorothy Thompson Quotes

1893–1961 United States

Dorothy Celene Thompson (July 9, 1893 – January 30, 1961) was an American journalist and radio broadcaster. She was the first American journalist to be expelled from Nazi Germany, in 1934, and was one of the few female news commentators broadcasting on radio during the 1930s.

United States
Authors
Journalists
Methodists
Non-fiction authors

Also known as: Thompson, Dorothy

Random Dorothy Thompson quote

60 quotes

No people ever recognize their dictator in advance. He never stands for election on the platform of dictatorship.

To have felt too much is to end in feeling nothing.

Can one preach at home inequality of races and nations and advocate abroad good-will towards all men?

Let the Record Speak (1939)

Unity, in Fascist terms, means uniformity; freedom of conscience means insubordination; co-ordination means coercion.

Let the Record Speak (1939)

Patriotism is the cheapest form of self-exaltation.

I Saw Hitler (1932)

A slave has no morality, because he cannot choose between good and evil. He has only a derivative morality—that of his masters.

Dorothy Thompson's Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)

The hotels are entirely run by the Moscow Soviet, which seems to have picked its employees rather for their political reliability than for their experience or cleverness at hotel management.

The New Russia (1928)

The object of liberty is to give men and women a chance to be their best selves. That is its first and last purpose.

Dorothy Thompson's Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)

I know now that there are things for which I am prepared to die.

Dilemma of a Pacifist (1937)

What confuses the mind of the average American is that the American collectivist calls himself a Liberal, and has pre-empted a word which has a totally different philosophy behind it.

Dorothy Thompson's Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)

All my life I have been a pacifist. All my life I have hated war and loved peace.

Dorothy Thompson's Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)

William Penn summed up the ideal of human liberty in the remark: 'Men must either be governed by God or they must be ruled by tyrants.'

Dorothy Thompson's Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)

Having first robbed the Jews, the Nazis are beginning to rob the Church, and later will almost certainly expropriate what is left of the bourgeoisie property.

A continually reaffirmed thesis of communism is that its objectives cannot be realized without ruthless violence nor within the framework of a constitutional order.

The Truth about Communism (1948)

The object of mankind is not to live in a perfectly functioning universe, but to live in a tolerable universe, which means one suited to the nature and aspirations of human beings.

Dorothy Thompson's Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)

Age is not measured by years. Nature does not equally distribute energy. Some people are born old and tired while others are going strong at seventy.

The Courage to be Happy (1957)

The eyes alone are notable. Dark gray and hyperthyroidic, they have the peculiar shine which often distinguishes geniuses, alcoholics, and hysterics.

I Saw Hitler (1932)

Someday, when women realize that the object of their emancipation is not to make them more like men, but more powerfully womanly, and therefore of greater use to men and themselves and society.

Dorothy Thompson's Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)

It does not matter how 'courageous' a writer may be. Courage becomes useless, for a courageous writer who is not published is not a writer at all.

To say that it 'unconstitutional' to outlaw and prosecute such a movement is merely to admit that democracies can devise no legal means to protect themselves.

The Truth about Communism (1948)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Dorothy Thompson (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.