Edward Bernays: Propaganda

“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

Source: Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923), p. 212

Education

“While, under the handicraft of small-unit system of production was that typical a century ago, demand created the supply, today supply must actively seek to create its corresponding demand. A single factory, potentially capable of supplying a whole continent with its particular product, cannot afford to wait until the public asks for its product; it must maintain constant touch, through advertising and propaganda, with the vast public in order to assure itself the continuous demand which alone will make its costly plant profitable. This entails a vastly more complex system of distribution than formerly.”

Edward Bernays book Propaganda

Page 84
Propaganda (1928)

Waiting

“Propaganda is of no use to the politician unless he has something to say which the public, consciously or unconsciously, wants to hear.”

Edward Bernays book Propaganda

Page 123
Propaganda (1928)

“Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government.”

Edward Bernays book Propaganda

Source: Propaganda (1928), p. 48

“The best defense against propaganda: more propaganda.”

Edward Bernays

Quoted in L. Tye The Father of Spin (1998) p. 102

“When I came back to the United States, I decided that if you could use propaganda for war, you could certainly use it for peace. And "propaganda" got to be a bad word because of the Germans using it, so what I did was to try and find some other words. So we found the words "counsel on public relations."”

Edward Bernays

Quoted in Adam Curtis' The Century of the Self (2002)

War , Peace