“Conspiracy theory was tremendously popular, always and forever. People wanted such catastrophes to mean something more than mere individual madness, and so the hunt was on.”

— Kim Stanley Robinson , book Green Mars

Source: Green Mars (1993), Chapter 9, “The Spur of the Moment” (p. 450)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update July 1, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Conspiracy theory was tremendously popular, always and forever. People wanted such catastrophes to mean something more …" by Kim Stanley Robinson?

Kim Stanley Robinson 98

American science fiction writer 1952

Related quotes

“The People is always worth more than individuals.”

Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) French revolutionary lawyer and politician

As quoted in Portrayals of Revolution, Images, Debates, and Patterns of Thought on the French Revolution, p. 27, by Noel Parker, Southern Illinois University Press

“People are always selling the idea that people with mental illness are suffering. I think madness can be an escape. If things are not so good, you maybe want to imagine something better. In madness, I thought I was the most important person in the world.”

John Nash (1928–2015) American mathematician and Nobel Prize laureate

As quoted in " A Brilliant Madness A Beautiful Madness http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/nash/ (2002), PBS TV program; also cited in Doing Psychiatry Wrong: A Critical and Prescriptive Look at a Faltering Profession (2013) by René J. Muller, p. 62
2000s

“Madness is something rare in individuals — but in groups, parties, peoples, and ages, it is the rule.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Beyond Good and Evil

Variant: In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
Source: Beyond Good and Evil

“The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory is that conspiracy theorists actually believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is chaotic.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

"The Mindscape of Alan Moore" (2003)
Context: The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory is that conspiracy theorists actually believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is chaotic. The truth is, that it is not the Jewish banking conspiracy or the grey aliens or the 12 foot reptiloids from another dimension that are in control. The truth is more frightening, nobody is in control. The world is rudderless.

“… I fail to believe that Hitler's war – the most terrible in history – was merely due to economic causes, and not to something deeper and more sinister in human outlook and beliefs. … It was an ideology and not merely materialism. It was an ideological obsession, a madness, which can operate as disastrously in nations as in individuals. …”

Jan Smuts (1870–1950) military leader, politician and statesman from South Africa

Addressing the Canada Club in Ottawa on 29 June 1945, after the United Nations Charter was finalized, as quoted by Louise W. Holborn (ed., 1948) in War and Peace Aims of the United Nations, p. 719

“So what you are characterizing as conspiracy is merely an unfortunate coincidence.”

Charles E. Gannon (1960) American novelist

Source: Fire with Fire (2013), Chapter 7 (p. 93)

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

Letter to W.T. Barry http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch18s35.html (4 August 1822), in The Writings of James Madison (1910) edited by Gaillard Hunt, Vol. 9, p. 103; these words, using the older spelling "Governours", are inscribed to the left of the main entrance, Library of Congress James Madison Memorial Building.
1820s