Dorothy Thompson Quotes

A great many people say that there is a great battle going on in the world: between Fascism and Communism. Fascism is represented as Capitalism in its ultimate and final form, when it controls the state wholly. Communism is represented as the final expression of democracy. But this theory was invented by fascists and communists. To a democrat, looking on, it seems like a sham battle.

[P]rivate enterprise and initiative, willing to take risks in the hope of gain, allowed to function in freedom, have produced the greatest wealth ever known in the history of mankind. And that if you stop this process and turn everything over to government, the activity will slow down, inventiveness will cease, and we shall get not equalization of riches, but equalization of poverty.

Fascism, Nazism, and Communism are all Collectivism. In this respect they are all alike.

Merely to ban the Communist Party as such would be useless. It would revive, as it did in Canada, under another name.

It is an interesting and somewhat macabre parlor game to play at a large gathering of one’s acquaintances: to speculate who in a showdown would go Nazi.

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.

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

Indeed, gaiety is singularly lacking everywhere in Russia. What is intense and joyful goes into pioneer work and not into amusement. Only in the company of young communists and artists can one find stimulation.

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.’

On the subject of the constitution Hitler was more explicit, though there again, I had to interrupt an address to an unseen gallery. ‘I will get into power legally. I will abolish this parliament and the Weimar constitution afterward. I will found an authority-state, from the lowest cell to the highest instance; everywhere there will be responsibility and authority above, discipline and obedience below.’ So that’s that for the Republic.

Millions of Germans follow Hitler because he has proclaimed war upon the banks, upon the trusts, upon 'loan-capital.' He has asserted time and time again that he will abolish the rule of one class by another.

To be a liberal means to believe in human freedom. It means to believe in human beings. It means to champion that form of social and political order which releases the greatest amount of human energy; permits greatest liberty for individuals and groups, in planning and living their lives; cherishes freedom of speech, freedom of conscience and freedom of action, limited by only one thing: the protection of the freedom of others.

And now the beginning of the expropriation of church lands in Austria, have all revealed the true face of National Socialism, which more and more among pious Germans is called, under their breaths, ‘the brown Bolshevism.’

He fits easily into whatever pattern is successful. That is his sole measure of value—success. Nazism as a minority movement would not attract him. As a movement likely to attain power, it would.

The Vatican newspaper in Rome, Osservatore Romano, said of National Socialism, ‘It is the most inhumane of all heresies. Hitler is true to his role of anti-Christ.’