The tragedy of fascism and Nazism should have taught us that totalitarianism establishes itself through banal men, and the true antidote is a religion that prevents one from adoring men who pretend to be gods, for it teaches us to love instead the inner God of moral conscience, and to defend liberty with absolute devotion.
Maurizio Viroli, As If God Existed: Religion and Liberty in the History of Italy (Princeton University Press, 2012).