Timothy D. Snyder quotes

Americans can accept that the American Dream will not work out for them; what has been heartbreaking for so many is the sense that their children will have it even worse. (Timothy D. Snyder)
If we don't have access to facts, we can't trust each other. Without trust, there's no law. Without law, there's no democracy. View quote
Timothy D. Snyder
The Belarusian failure therefore provides a useful test. Here we have an "ethnic group” which is the largest by far in the area in question. According to the Russian imperial census of 1897, more people spoke Belarusian in Vil'na province than all other languages combined. In Vil'na, Minsk, Grodno, Mogilev, and Vitebsk provinces, contiguous territories of historic Lithuania, speakers of Belarusian were three quarters of the population. In the twentieth century, this "ethnic group” did not become a modern nation. In combination with Lithuanian and Polish successes, this Belarusian failure helps us to perceive what national movements actually need. View quote
Timothy D. Snyder
To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. View quote
Timothy D. Snyder
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. View quote
Timothy D. Snyder
The 20th century shows that the form of government that we take for granted, a constitutional democratic republic with checks and balances and a rule of law - that form of government is usually temporary. View quote
Timothy D. Snyder
Most Americans are exceptionalists; we think we live outside of history. View quote
Timothy D. Snyder
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. View quote
Timothy D. Snyder
For the Russians, the displacement of the Holocaust is calculated and cynical. It's not emotional; they don't care about the Holocaust one way or another. They only care about it insofar as they can use it to manipulate a German sense of guilt. View quote
Timothy D. Snyder
Modern tyrants are terror managers. Do not allow your shock to be turned against your freedom. View quote
Timothy D. Snyder
One thing that I would like to get across is that even the most horrible events do have explanations that we can understand. And it's not always comfortable for us to understand, because in order to understand, we have to see how we're not so far away from the people in question. (Timothy D. Snyder)
We can only see as much and we can only go as far as our languages take us. View quote
Timothy D. Snyder
I thought I was going to grow up and become a diplomat and negotiate nuclear arms. View quote
Timothy D. Snyder
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. View quote
Timothy D. Snyder
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. View quote
Timothy D. Snyder
Get the screens out of your room and surround yourself with books. View quote
Timothy D. Snyder
The Constitution is worth saving, the rule of law is worth saving, democracy is worth saving, but these things can and will be lost if everyone waits around for someone else. View quote
Timothy D. Snyder
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. View quote
Timothy D. Snyder
There's a basic problem with the history of the Holocaust. The people who do it don't know the necessary languages. View quote
Timothy D. Snyder
The premise of Russian foreign policy to the West is that the rule of law is one big joke; the practice of Russian foreign policy is to find prominent people in the West who agree. View quote
Timothy D. Snyder
I think, whatever ideological coloration we think actually applies to Trump, we can be pretty confident that he sees the American state as a mechanism to make sure that people called Trump are rich forever. (Timothy D. Snyder)
Republics, like other forms of government, exist in history and can rise and fall. View quote
Timothy D. Snyder
The aspiring tyrants of today have not forgotten the lesson of 1933: that acts of terror - real or fake, provoked or accidental - can provide the occasion to deal a death blow to democracy. View quote
Timothy D. Snyder
Trump bankrupted six companies but succeeded on the biggest of stages. He is the champion of failures. View quote
Timothy D. Snyder
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. View quote
Timothy D. Snyder