Gay marriage is a divisive issue in France, where Fillon has vowed to block adoption by same-sex couples. The battle against Islamism also remains a rallying cry; Fillon's campaign manifesto is called 'Conquering Islamic Totalitarianism'.

Totalitarianism is feudalism in the twelfth century sense of the word.

Democracy's a very fragile thing. You have to take care of democracy. As soon as you stop being responsible to it and allow it to turn into scare tactics, it's no longer democracy, is it? It's something else. It may be an inch away from totalitarianism.

In his State of the Union speech in January 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt declared America's commitment to Four Freedoms in the struggle against Nazi totalitarianism. Among them was the freedom from fear.

Russia needs a strong state power and must have it. But I am not calling for totalitarianism.

A society that is all self-interest and no comradeship is not a society at all. But a society that is all comradeship and no self-interest is also not a society; it is a sect - or, on the largest scale, totalitarianism.

As with fascism, the rise of Islamic totalitarianism has partly to do with its populist appeal to the class resentments of an economically oppressed population and to anger at political subordination and humiliation.

Vietnam was a terrible mistake for the United States. But like Iraq, Vietnam was a badly chosen battlefield in a larger conflict with totalitarianism that America had no choice but to pursue.

In our fervor to halt the potential spread of totalitarianism, what incredible precedent are we setting in Vietnam? By marching our legions through the countryside of foreign continents, burning homes, laying waste to the land, and indiscriminately killing friend and foe alike?

A real totalitarianism is at work in the world and wants to impose its views not only on Arab Muslims, but on the West. The same way that they veil women, Islamic radicals want to veil cartoons in the press.

To declare the Cold War over, and declare democracy has won out over totalitarianism, is a measure of arrogance and wrong-headedness.

Having lived through the transition from totalitarianism, I am acutely mindful of the need to never take for granted the basic freedoms of thought, expression and belief that democracy brings.

The strongest argument against totalitarianism may be a recognition of a universal human nature; that all humans have innate desires for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The doctrine of the blank slate... is a totalitarian's dream.

Totalitarianism is patriotism institutionalized.

Liberalism is totalitarianism with a human face.

You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.

Totalitarianism spells simplification: an enormous reduction in the variety of aims, motives, interests, human types, and, above all, in the categories and units of power.

I have read somewhere that in a totalitarian system martyrdom does better than thought.

I suspect that in our loathing of totalitarianism, there is infused a good deal of admiration for its efficiency.

It belongs among the refinements of totalitarian government in our century that they don't permit their opponents to die a great, dramatic martyr's death for their convictions.