„It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.“
— Mark Twain American author and humorist 1835 - 1910
Variant: It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.
„Politics is a great art. It succeeds at convincing the people that they have to pay for what has been stolen from them.“
Aphorisms. Magnum in Parvo (2000)
Andrzej Majewski13
Polish writer and photographer 1966Related quotes
„My definition of art has always been the same. It is about freedom of expression, a new way of communication. It is never about exhibiting in museums or about hanging it on the wall. Art should live in the heart of the people. Ordinary people should have the same ability to understand art as anybody else. I don’t think art is elite or mysterious. I don’t think anybody can separate art from politics. The intention to separate art from politics is itself a very political intention.“
— Ai Weiwei Chinese concept artist 1957
2010-
„Politics: the art of convincing decent people to forget the lesser of two evils is also evil.“
— Edward Snowden American whistleblower and former National Security Agency contractor 1983
Twitter June 11, 2016 https://twitter.com/snowden/status/741584993009438720?lang=en
„We have moved from an age in which government leaders sought to do what was best for the people to one in which the political leadership is convinced it knows what is best for the people, whether they like it or not.“
— Ralph Peters American military officer, writer, pundit 1952
Source: 2000s, Beyond Terror: Strategy in a Changing World (2002), p. 133
„Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.“
— Paul Valéry French poet, essayist, and philosopher 1871 - 1945
Tel Quel (1943)
„With so many people doing so much writing, great writing is hard to find ... If you succeed in attaining a position that allows you to do something great, if you do something that really is great, and if you realize that it’s great, there’s still one more hurdle: You have to convince others that it’s great. This will require writing.“
— Leslie Lamport American computer scientist 1941
As quoted in [Nathan, David E., Computer scientist Leslie Lamport to grads: If you can’t write, it won’t compute, https://www.brandeis.edu/now/2017/may/commencement-lamport.html, Brandeis University, 17 January 2020, May 21, 2017]
„We hired truly great people and gave them the room to do great work. A lot of companies […] hire people to tell them what to do. We hire people to tell us what to do. We figure we're paying them all this money; their job is to figure out what to do and tell us.“
— Steve Jobs American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc. 1955 - 2011
Steve Jobs, 1996, Fresh Air radio interview by Terry Gross, npr.org http://www.npr.org/2011/10/06/141115121/steve-jobs-computer-science-is-a-liberal-art, audio 26:30/31:05
The management philosophy here really is to give people enough rope to hang themselves. We hire people to tell us what to do. That's what we pay them for.
Steve Jobs 1982, interview in InfoWorld March 4, 1982, p.15 books.google https://books.google.fr/books?id=gT4EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA15&dq=rope
1990s
„Great people have great egos; maybe that's what makes them great.“
— Paul Arden writer 1940 - 2008
„I cannot be convinced that great artists are moralists. Art is first appearances, then meaning.“
— Camille Paglia American writer 1947
Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 166
„For thousands of years people have been trying to force other people to think their way. Did they succeed? No. Will they succeed? No. Why? Because brute force is not an argument.“
— Robert G. Ingersoll Union United States Army officer 1833 - 1899
The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)
„Politics is the art of stopping people from minding their own business.“
— Paul Valéry French poet, essayist, and philosopher 1871 - 1945
Tel Quel (1943)
„We stand guard over works of art, but species representing the work of aeons are stolen from under our noses.“
— Aldo Leopold American writer and scientist 1887 - 1948
"Preface".
1930s, Game Management, 1933
„What is the fear of the "gay agenda" that has so upset people? Do people think that if gay people are given a place at the table, they'll be so convincing we'll all end up blowing them? What is the issue? "You know, I'm straight, but you've made such a convincing argument…"“
— Jon Stewart American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian 1962
Stand-up performance at RIT (2005)
„I have often been called a political opportunist simply because I've had friendships with those from varied spheres of the political scenario. It's risky to even have hi and hello relations now with persons from a particular domain. But I think it has got more to do with that spectrum than it has to do with the people in it.“
— Amitabh Bachchan Indian actor 1942
„I want to convince you that these kinds of personal explanations of success don't work. People don't rise from nothing…. It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn't.“
— Malcolm Gladwell journalist and science writer 1963
Source: Outliers: The Story of Success
„Politics is the art of making the people believe that they are in power, when in fact, they have none.“
— Mumia Abu-Jamal Prisoner, Journalist, Broadcaster, Author, Activist 1954
"Is Obama's Victory Ours?" http://www.prisonradio.org/ObamaJuneMumia.htm 06-05-08
„People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.“
— Dale Carnegie American writer and lecturer 1888 - 1955
Dale Carnegie, quoted in Permission to Play : Taking Time to Renew Your Smile (2003) by Jill Murphy Long, p. 69