On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

by Timothy Snyder

Americans today are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism in the twentieth century. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so.

The mistake is to assume that rulers who came to power through institutions cannot change or destroy those very institutions—even when that is exactly what they have announced that they will do.

Life is political, not because the world cares about how you feel, but because the world reacts to what you do.

we are hit by wave upon wave but never see the ocean.

The path of least resistance leads directly from inevitability to eternity.