Laudator Temporis Acti

Winston Churchill, "Are Parliaments Obsolete?" Pearson's Magazine (June 1934), quoted in Martin Gilbert, ed., Churchill: The Power of Words (London: Bantam Press, 2012), p. 193:

We are confronted with the monstrosity of the Totalitarian State. All are to think alike. No one is to disagree. To point out an obvious mistake or miscalculation is to be convicted of heresy and treason. Every link with the past, even with the most glorious traditions, has been severed.

[....]

Venerable pastors, upright magistrates, world famous scientists and philosophers, capable statesmen, independent minded manly citizens, frail poor old women of unfashionable opinions, are invaded, bullied and brutalised by gangs of armed hooligans to resist whom is a capital offence.

[....]

Is there anything in all this which should lead us, the English-speaking world, to repudiate the famous chain of events which has made us what we are? — to cast away our Parliament, our habeas corpus, our rights and many freedoms, our tolerances, our decencies? On the contrary, ought we not betimes to buttress and fortify our ancient constitution, and to make sure that it is not ignorantly or lightly deranged? What a lamentable result it would be if the British and American democracies when enfranchised squandered in a few short years or even between some night and morning all the long-stored hard-won treasures of our island civilisation. It must not be.