Category: Thought

One reason, perhaps, why the politician today is slow to take up methods which are a commonplace in business life is that he has such ready entry to the media of communication on which his power depends. 
The newspaperman looks to him for news. And by his power of giving or withholding information the politician can often effectively censor political news. But being dependent, every day of the year and for year after year, upon certain politicians for news, the newspaper reporters are obliged to work in harmony with their news sources.

Edward Bernays, Propaganda (1928).

All models are wrong; some models are useful.

Variants of this statement can be found throughout the writings of George Edward Pelham Box (1919–2013), including writings with co-authors.

In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians called it “Christmas” and went to church; the Jews called it “Hanukkah” and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People passing each other on the street would say “Merry Christmas!” or “Happy Hanukkah!” or (to the atheists) “Look out for the wall!”

Dave Barry, in “Christmas Shopping: A Survivor’s Guide.”

The aim of untold millions is to be free to do exactly as they choose and for someone else to pay when things go wrong.

Anthony Daniels writing as Theodore Dalrymple, Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass (2001).

The only difference between “propaganda” and “education,” really, is in the point of view. The advocacy of what we believe in is education. The advocacy of what we don’t believe in is propaganda.

Edward Bernays, Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923).

Where fashion in clothes, bodily adornment, and music are concerned, it is the underclass that increasingly sets the pace. Never before has there been so much downward cultural aspiration.

Anthony Daniels writing as Theodore Dalrymple, Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass (2001).

Domination to-day is not a product of armies or navies or wealth or policies. It is a domination based on the one hand upon accomplished unity, and on the other hand upon the fact that opposition is generally characterized by a high degree of disunity.

Edward Bernays, Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923).

You’ve got to tell the world how to treat you. If the world tells you how you are going to be treated, you are in trouble.

James Baldwin and Margaret Mead: A Rap on Race (1971).

They constantly try to escape 
From the darkness outside and within 
By dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good.

Thomas Stearns Eliot, Choruses from The Rock (1934).

When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter, 
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.

W. H. Auden, Epitaph on a Tyrant (1939).