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  "title": "It Can't Happen Here",
  "slug": "it-cant-happen-here",
  "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis/it-cant-happen-here",
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  "author": {
    "name": "Sinclair Lewis",
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      "slug": "under-a-tyranny",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis/it-cant-happen-here/under-a-tyranny",
      "text": "Under a tyranny, most friends are a liability. One quarter of them turn \"reasonable\" and become your enemies, one quarter are afraid to speak, and one quarter are killed and you die with them. But the blessed final quarter keep you alive.",
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      "slug": "no-one-abhors",
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      "text": "\"No one abhors violence more than I do. Still, you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs—\"\n\n\"Hell and damnation!\"\n\n\"Why, Pater!\"\n\n\"Don't call me 'Pater'! If I ever hear that 'can't make an omelet' phrase again, I'll start doing a little murder myself! It's used to justify every atrocity under every despotism, Fascist or Nazi or Communist or American labor war. Omelet! Eggs! By God, sir, men's souls and blood are not eggshells for tyrants to break!\"",
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      "slug": "so-debated-doremus",
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      "text": "So debated Doremus, like some hundreds of thousands of other craftsmen, teachers, lawyers, what-not, in some dozens of countries under a dictatorship, who were aware enough to resent the tyranny, conscientious enough not to take its bribes cynically, yet not so abnormally courageous as to go willingly to exile or dungeon or chopping-block—particularly when they \"had wives and families to support.\"",
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      "slug": "i-know-the",
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      "text": "I know the Press only too well. Almost all editors hide away in spider-dens, men without thought of Family or Public Interest or the humble delights of jaunts out-of-doors, plotting how they can put over their lies, and advance their own positions and fill their greedy pocketbooks by calumniating Statesmen who have given their all for the common good and who are vulnerable because they stand out in the fierce Light that beats around the Throne.",
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      "slug": "why-are-you",
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      "text": "\"Why are you so afraid of the word 'Fascism,' Doremus? Just a word—just a word! And might not be so bad, with all the lazy bums we got panhandling relief nowadays, and living on my income tax and yours—not so worse to have a real Strong Man, like Hitler or Mussolini—like Napoleon or Bismarck in the good old days—and have 'em really run the country and make it efficient and prosperous again. 'Nother words, have a doctor who won't take any back-chat, but really boss the patient and make him get well whether he likes it or not!\"",
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      "slug": "he-was-an-actor",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis/it-cant-happen-here/he-was-an-actor",
      "text": "He was an actor of genius. There was no more overwhelming actor on the stage, in the motion pictures, nor even in the pulpit. He would whirl arms, bang tables, glare from mad eyes, vomit Biblical wrath from a gaping mouth; but he would also coo like a nursing mother, beseech like an aching lover, and in between tricks would coldly and almost contemptuously jab his crowds with figures and facts—figures and facts that were inescapable even when, as often happened, they were entirely incorrect.",
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