"Dictatorships breed oppression, dictatorships breed servility, dictatorships breed cruelty; more loathsome still is the fact that they breed idiocy. Bellboys babbling orders, portraits of caudillos, prearranged cheers or insults, walls covered with names, unanimous ceremonies, mere discipline usurping the place of clear thinking. Fighting these sad monotonies is one of the duties of a writer."
Excerpt from a 1946 address by Jorge Borges quoted in Borges: A Life by Edwin Williamson, published by Viking Books, UK, 2004, p. 295.