Mussolini Quotes
Obviously the government of [Mussolini's] time, out of fear that German power might lead to complete victory, preferred to ally itself with Hitler's Germany rather than opposing it ... The racial laws were the worst fault of Mussolini as a leader, who in so many other ways did well.
Silvio Berlusconi
If we had allowed things to drift, everything would have gone from bad to worse. Nasser would have become a kind of Moslem Mussolini, and our friends in Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and even Iran would gradually have been brought down. His efforts would have spread westwards, and Libya and North Africa would have been brought under his control.
Anthony Eden
What is patriotism but love of the good things we ate in our childhood? I have said elsewhere that the loyalty to Uncle Sam is the loyalty to doughnuts and ham and sweet potatoes and the loyalty to the German Vaterland is the loyalty to Pfannkuchen and Christmas Stollen. As for international understanding, I feel that macaroni has done more for our appreciation of Italy than Mussolini... in food, as in death, we feel the essential brotherhood of mankind.
Lin Yutang
The MEChA slogan is "Por la Raza todo. Fuera de La Raza nada," which translates, "For the race, everything. Outside of the race, nothing." The MEChA slogan seems a conscious echo of the Fascist slogan of Mussolini: "Everything for the state, nothing outside the state, nothing above the state."
Pat Buchanan
With two lunatics like Mussolini and Hitler you can never be sure of anything. But I am determined to keep the country out of war. ...[Hankey] thinks sanctions were put in [the Covenant of the League of Nations] at the request of the Americans. Likely enough, as they would be the first to run away from enforcing them. You will not get our people for a long time yet to be willing to pledge themselves to go to war for objects in the east of Europe.
Stanley Baldwin
Stalin is the perfect example of what I was talking about. To simply call him corrupt tells us nothing useful. What circumstances put him into power? What objective pressures, as well as subjective characteristics, led him to make the decisions he made? I'm currently reading Trotsky's writings from 1932 (scary how accurately he predicts the way WWII would play out), and analyzing the details of why Stalin did as he did is far more complex and useful than just, 'power corrupts.'
And it is even more true for the other great dictators of the 20th Century: I don't think you can even say that Hitler and Mussolini were corrupt: they came to power in order to do the very things they did.
Steven Brust