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Comic Books

"We're not supposed to be a country that instinctively hates the foreign and spies on itself."

Film—Live-Action

Dr Wilhelm Stuckart: You notice all the SS? They have little idea what is lawful and no respect for what they do know.
Dr Friedrich Kritzinger: Certainly not these gentlemen. To them, laws are like ice cream: easily melted. I suspect that is why this meeting - which is under my department after all - has been called by the SS. They always want to meet. The SS love to meet. And at each meeting they want something more, always something more - until they have everything.

Literature

"That instant stripped away Caine's success and fame; stripped away the thousands of fans who crowded around him in this immense overheated room; stripped the power of the Administrator caste and the status of the Studio Chairmanship; stripped every part of him that lay over his most fundamental baseline. The baseline of his soul was Labor.
Every Laborer knows that trouble with Soapy is the last trouble you ever have.
"Administrator Hari Khapur Michaelson. You are under arrest."
- Blade of Tyshalle, by Matthew Stover

Live-Action TV

ISB Major Partagaz: What do we do here?
Legrett: Sir?
Partagaz: What is our purpose, Legrett?
Partagaz: I open the question to the room. What do we do in this building? Why are we here? Anyone.
Dedra Meero: We're here to further security objectives by collecting intelligence, providing useful analysis, and conducting effective covert action, sir.
Partagaz: Very good, Dedra! That is verbatim from the ISB mission statement and wrong. Security is an illusion. You want security, call the Navy! Launch a regiment of troopers! We are healthcare providers. We treat sickness. We identify symptoms, we locate germs, whether they arise from within or have come from the outside. The longer we wait to identify a disorder, the harder it is to treat the disease. Do you understand my meaning, Legrett?

Troi: (as Rakal, to guard) You may wait outside. Make certain we're not disturbed.
(the guard leaves)
Troi: (unnerved) They're terrified of me.
N'Vek: The purpose of the Tal Shiar is to ensure loyalty. To defy them is to invite imprisonment or death.
Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Face Of The Enemy"

Music

"Welcome to your life
There's no turning back
Even while we sleep
We will find you
Acting on your best behavior
Turn your back on Mother Nature
Everybody wants to rule the world"
—"Everybody Wants To Rule The World", Tears for Fears

Tabletop Games

"So great has been the calamitousness of these times, and such the inveterate malice of the heretics, that there has been nothing ever so clear in our statement of faith, nothing so surely settled, which they, at the instigation of the enemy of the human race, have not defiled by some sort of error. For which cause the holy Inquisition hath made it Its especial care to condemn and anathematise the principal errors of the heretics of our time, and to deliver and teach the true and Imperial doctrine; even as It has condemned, anathematised, and decreed."
Decalaration of Inquisitorial Mandate, Warhammer 40,000

Real Life

"No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
James Madison, from "Political Observations," 1795

“Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure.
Bertrand Russell

"There is no problem down to the smallest egotistical longing which the Gestapo cannot solve. Regarded in this way we are, if a joke is permitted, looked upon as a cross between a general maid and the dustbin of the Reich."

"We have to know everything."
Erich Mielke, head of East Germany's Stasi police

"...the Republic is in danger. Yes, danger from within and without. We need law and order! Without law and order our nation cannot survive."

"The Stalin regime is based not on the Soviets, Party ideals, the power of the Political Bureau or Stalin’s personality, but on the organization and the techniques of the Soviet political police where Stalin plays the role of the first policeman. "
Abdurakhman Avtorkhanov

"The early Bolsheviks may have been angels or demons, according as one chooses to regard them, but at any rate they were not sensible men. They were not introducing a Wellsian Utopia but a Rule of the Saints, which like the English Rule of the Saints, was a military despotism enlivened by witchcraft trials."
George Orwell, Wells, Hitler and the World State

"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all."
H.L. Mencken

"My connection to Putin is mystical. We meet each other in our dreams. Which is the best place. No one eavesdrops there."
Aleksandr Prokhanov

"Theoretically, half a nation can now monitor the movements of the other half. Better we enslave ourselves, the priests chant, than they do."


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