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Spineless politics do not change the mind of a tyrant. The sharpest means would still be too mild.

— Friedrich Kellner Diary (1939)

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More quotes by Friedrich Kellner

To trample democracy with one’s feet and give power to a single man over almost eighty million people is so terrible one can really tremble over the things that will come.

Diary (1939)

Why only hate? Where does love remain? Or at least a little decency toward other people? We think we can behave against everyone in the exact same rabid way we did against the Jews: to smash, crush--and even exterminate.

Diary (1939)

The world will rightfully be outraged over so much inhumanity, and it will ignite a hatred that can never be extinguished. . . . How long will this reign of terror continue?

Diary (1939)

We can hold up under everything if only we have the certainty the monster Hitler with his insatiable bloodletting and plundering will have committed soon his last shameful deed.

Diary (1939)

Terror is trump. Methods of common brutal suppression are considered sanctified laws. "Old Fighters" are saints, and from the district leader upwards there are only Gods!

Diary (1939)

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Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.

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Every Communist must grasp the truth: Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

Mao Zedong

Three-fourths of the Italian economy, industrial and agricultural, is in the hands of the state.

Benito Mussolini

Fear and destructiveness are the major emotional sources of fascism, eros belongs mainly to democracy.

Theodor Adorno The Authoritarian Personality (1950)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Friedrich Kellner (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.