Edward Bernays citations (31 citations)

Source: Propaganda (1928), p. 37 
Contexte: 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. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.

“The public relations counsel, therefore, is a creator of news for whatever medium he chooses to transmit ideas. It is his duty to create news no matter what the medium which broadcasts this news.”

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Edward Bernays

Source: Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923), p. 171

“If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing it?”

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Edward Bernays livre Propagande

Page 71 (1928 edition?)
Propaganda (1928)

“Who are the men, who, without our realizing it, give us our ideas, tell us whom to admire and whom to despise, what to believe about the ownership of public utilities.. about immigration who tell us how our houses should be designed, what furniture we should put into them, what menus we should serve at our table, what kind of shirts we must wear, what sports we should indulge in, what plays we should see, what charities we should support, what pictures we should admire, what slang we should affect, what jokes we should laugh at?”

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Edward Bernays livre Propagande

Source: Propaganda (1928), p.59

“This is an age of mass production. In the mass production of materials a broad technique has been developed and applied to their distribution. In this age, too, there must be a technique for the mass distribution of ideas.”

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Edward Bernays

"Manipulating Public Opinion", American Journal of Sociology 33 (May, 1928), p. 958–971

“Let us assume that our problem is the intensification in the public mind of the prestige of a hotel. The problem for the public relations counsel is to create in the public mind the close relationship between the hotel and a number of ideas that represent the things the hotel desires to stand for in the public mind.”

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Edward Bernays

Source: Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923), p. 168

“But when the example of the leader is not at hand and the herd must think for itself, it does so by means of clichés, pat words or images which stand for a whole group of ideas or experiences. Not many years ago, it was only necessary to tag a political candidate with the word interests to stampede millions of people into voting against him, because anything associated with "the interests" seemed necessary corrupt. Recently the word Bolshevik has performed a similar service for persons who wished to frighten the public away from a line of action.
By playing upon a old cliché, or manipulating a new one, the propagandist can sometimes swing a whole mass group emotions.”

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Edward Bernays livre Propagande

Page 74
Propaganda (1928)

“When Napoleon said, 'Circumstance? I make circumstance‚' he expressed very nearly the spirit of the public relations counsel's work.”

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Edward Bernays

Source: Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923), p. 51

“The best place to find things: the public library.”

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Edward Bernays

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

“Goebbels […] was using my book Crystallizing Public Opinion as a basis for his destructive campaign against the Jews of Germany. This shocked me.”

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Edward Bernays

Biography of an Idea: Memoirs of Public Relations Counsel (1965)

“If you can influence the leaders, either with or without their conscious cooperation, you automatically influence the group which they sway. But men do not need to be actually gathered together in a public meeting or in a street riot, to be subject to the influences of mass psychology. Because man is by nature gregarious he feels himself to be member of a herd, even when he is alone in his room with the curtains drawn. His mind retains the patterns which have been stamped on it by the group influences.”

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Edward Bernays livre Propagande

Page 73 (1928 edition)
Propaganda (1928)

“For the same reason I read the National Geographic, I like to see places I will never visit.”

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Edward Bernays

Quoted in L. Tye The Father of Spin (1998) p. 102
On why he read Playboy

“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.”

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Edward Bernays livre Propagande

Page 84
Propaganda (1928)

“In almost every act of our lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons […] who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world.”

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Edward Bernays livre Propagande

Source: Propaganda (1928), p. 37–38

“The engineering of consent is the very essence of the democratic process, the freedom to persuade and suggest.”

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Edward Bernays

"The Engineering of Consent", Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science No. 250 (March 1947), p. 113; Reprinted in Edward L. Bernays, Howard Walden Cutler, The Engineering of Consent, University of Oklahoma Press, 1955