Category: Thought

Propaganda does not aim to elevate man, but to make him serve.

Jacques Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes (1962).

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.

Edward Bernays, Propaganda (1928), p. 10.

Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.

Noam Chomsky, interview on WBAI, January 1992.

If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing about it? The recent practice of propaganda has proved that it is possible, at least up to a certain point and within certain limits.

Edward Bernays, Propaganda (1928).

Propaganda is a monologue that is not looking for an answer, but an echo.

W. H. Auden, A Short Defense of Poetry (October 1967).

Our most dangerous tendency is to expect too much of government, and at the same time do for it too little.

President Warren Gamaliel Harding, inaugural address (March 4, 1921).

Without property rights, no other rights are possible.

Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness (1964).

Man was created for social intercourse; but social intercourse cannot be maintained without a sense of justice; then man must have been created with a sense of justice.

Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis W. Gilmer, June 7, 1816.

No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another; and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him: every man is under the natural duty of contributing to the necessities of the society; and this is all the laws should enforce on him: and, no man having a natural right to be the judge between himself and another, it is his natural duty to submit to the umpirage of an impartial third. [W]hen the laws have declared and enforced all this, they have fulfilled their functions, and the idea is quite unfounded that on entering into society we give up any natural right.

Thomas Jefferson to Francis W. Gilmore, June 7, 1816.

Man is the only living species that has the power to act as his own destroyer — and that is the way he has acted through most of his history.

Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness (1964).