“I think there are two ways in which people are controlled. First of all frighten people and secondly, demoralize them.”

Interview with Michael Moore in the movie Sicko (2007).
2000s

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Tony Benn69

British Labour Party politician 1925–2014

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“In the coming months the need is for the people of this country to do two things. First, to increase the national production; and, secondly, to exercise restraint in demands for increased incomes and self-control in expenditure. … I am confident that in peace just as we did in war, Britain will conquer them by determination, hard work, and by the cooperation of all.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

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“I don't think young people are as demoralized as the media and government would like us to think. The obvious sign of that is how strong and how close personal connections are and how much people are able to build a life for themselves, despite all this stuff that's been thrown at them.”

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“One of the best ways of enslaving a people is to keep them from education… The second way of enslaving a people is to suppress the sources of information, not only by burning books but by controlling all the other ways in which ideas are transmitted.”

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11 May 1943
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“Destiny is important, see, but people go wrong when they think it controls them. It's the other way around.”

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“The way to deal with worldly people is to frighten them by repeating their scandalous whisperings aloud.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

1900s, Love Among the Artists (1900)

“I can't help it when people are frightened," says Merricat. "I always want to frighten them more.”

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“So we will stick to our word, which means a change of the basis of society; it may frighten people, but it will at least warn them that there is something to be frightened about, which will be no less dangerous for being ignored; and also it may encourage some people, and will mean to them at least not a fear, but a hope.”

William Morris (1834–1896) author, designer, and craftsman

Signs of Change (1888), How We Live And How We Might Live
Context: The word Revolution, which we Socialists are so often forced to use, has a terrible sound in most people's ears, even when we have explained to them that it does not necessarily mean a change accompanied by riot and all kinds of violence, and cannot mean a change made mechanically and in the teeth of opinion by a group of men who have somehow managed to seize on the executive power for the moment. Even when we explain that we use the word revolution in its etymological sense, and mean by it a change in the basis of society, people are scared at the idea of such a vast change, and beg that you will speak of reform and not revolution. As, however, we Socialists do not at all mean by our word revolution what these worthy people mean by their word reform, I can't help thinking that it would be a mistake to use it, whatever projects we might conceal beneath its harmless envelope. So we will stick to our word, which means a change of the basis of society; it may frighten people, but it will at least warn them that there is something to be frightened about, which will be no less dangerous for being ignored; and also it may encourage some people, and will mean to them at least not a fear, but a hope.

“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and the corporations which grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Respectfully Quoted says this is "obviously spurious", noting that the OED's earliest citation for the word "deflation" is from 1920. The earliest known appearance of this quote is from 1935 (Testimony of Charles C. Mayer, Hearings Before the Committee on Banking and Currency, House of Representatives, Seventy-fourth Congress, First Session, on H.R. 5357, p. 799)
Misattributed

“In order to judge of the form to be given to this institution, it will be proper to take a view of the ends to be served by it. These were, — first, to protect the people against their rulers, secondly, to protect the people against the transient impressions into which they themselves might be led.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

Remarks on the institution of the Senate, in debates in the Constitutional Convention, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (26 June 1787) Journal of the Federal Convention, edited by E. H. Scott (1893), pp. 241 – 242
1780s

“I found that the only way I could control this sorrow was not to think of [it] at all, which was almost as painful as the loss itself.”

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Source: Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast

“I think there are two ways in which people are controlled. First of all frighten people and secondly, demoralize them.”

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Tony Benn69

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