# Quote — Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny

> Americans today are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism in the twentieth century.

- Author: [Timothy Snyder](https://www.leafyquotes.com/timothy-snyder.md)
- Book: [On Tyranny](https://www.leafyquotes.com/timothy-snyder/on-tyranny.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Timothy_D._Snyder#On_Tyranny_(2017)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/timothy-snyder/on-tyranny/americans-today-are

## More from this book

> Fascists rejected reason... denying objective truth in favor of glorious myth articulated by leaders who claimed to give voice to the people.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/timothy-snyder/on-tyranny/fascists-rejected-reason.md)

> Since the American colonies declared their independence... [m]any... democracies... failed, in circumstances that in some important respects resemble our own.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/timothy-snyder/on-tyranny/since-the-american.md)

> As they knew, Aristotle warned that inequality brought instability, while Plato believed that demagogues exploited free speech to install themselves as tyrants. In founding a democratic republic upon law and establishing a system of checks and balances, the Founding Fathers sought to avoid the evil that they, like the ancient philosophers, called tyranny.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/timothy-snyder/on-tyranny/as-they-knew.md)