“If the psychic energies of the average mass of people watching a football game or a musical comedy could be diverted into the rational channels of a freedom movement, they would be invincible.”

— Wilhelm Reich, book The Mass Psychology of Fascism

Source: The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933), Ch. 1 : Ideology As Material Power, Section 4 : The Social Function of Sexual Suppression

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 4, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "If the psychic energies of the average mass of people watching a football game or a musical comedy could be diverted in…" by Wilhelm Reich?

Wilhelm Reich89

Austrian-American psychoanalyst 1897–1957

Erma Bombeck (1927–1996) When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent le…

“I was very different from most kids. I would stay home and write and put on shows when other people would go to the football game, and… I think I just put all that energy into wanting to get out of there and do something with my life.”

Chris Colfer (1990) actor, singer, book author

Interview Quotes, Random Quotes

“There was such a dense concentration of energy there [Vietnam], American and essentially adolescent, if that energy could have been channeled into anything more than noise, waste and pain it would have lighted up Indochina for a thousand years.”

Michael Herr book Dispatches

Dispatches (1977)

“Can you appreciate music without playing it? Yes, you can. You can appreciate baseball without playing it. Many people attend a football game merely for the crowd, the excitement, the color.”

Jascha Heifetz (1901–1987) Lithuanian violinist

Heifetz official web site http://www.jaschaheifetz.com/about/quotes.html

“Football is the ballet of the masses.”

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975) Russian composer and pianist

“Creating an action score can be quite challenging because action music can become too overwhelming. If all the music in the game is high energy it will become monotonous. I set out to build a pace in the score, so that there would be a variety of emotions and energy levels in the music. The challenge became to create these different music styles while still maintaining an action feel.”

Jesper Kyd (1972) musician

Go! Game! Music! interview

“Life is chaotic and unpredictable. If a butterfly flaps its wings in
one part of the world, it could cause people at the opposite end of the globe to watch a Discovery Channel special on butterflies”

Stephen Colbert book I Am America (And So Can You!)

Source: I Am America

“Music for me is like a balsam. I always whish that when people are watching me or listening to me, they take with them this energy I receive from God.”

Simone Bittencourt de Oliveira (1949) Brazilian singer

Rede Globo, 1995

“There’s no need either for music to make people think! … It would be enough if music could make people listen”

Claude Debussy (1862–1918) French composer

Letter to Paul Dukas (1901)
Context: I confess that I am no longer thinking in musical terms, or at least not much, even though I believe with all my heart that Music remains for all time the finest means of expression we have. It’s just that I find the actual pieces — whether they’re old or modern, which is in any case merely a matter of dates — so totally poverty-stricken, manifesting an inability to see beyond the work-table. They smell of the lamp, not of the sun. And then, overshadowing everything, there’s the desire to amaze one’s colleagues with arresting harmonies, quite unnecessary for the most part. In short, these days especially, music is devoid of emotional impact. I feel that, without descending to the level of the gossip column or the novel, it should be possible to solve the problem somehow. There’s no need either for music to make people think! … It would be enough if music could make people listen, despite themselves and despite their petty mundane troubles, and never mind if they’re incapable of expressing anything resembling an opinion. It would be enough if they could no longer recognize their own grey, dull faces, if they felt that for a moment they had been dreaming of an imaginary country, that’s to say, one that can’t be found on the map.

“We've been remarkably consistent, haven't lost a game and we have played stylish football. We have entertained people who just love football.”

Arsène Wenger (1949) French footballer and manager

Tottenham 2-2 Arsenal (25 April 2004) http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/a/arsenal/3650757.stm <br class="br">Interviews

“If the psychic energies of the average mass of people watching a football game or a musical comedy could be diverted into the rational channels of a freedom movement, they would be invincible.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Wilhelm Reich89

Related quotes

Related topics