“Moral indignation is one of the most harmful forces in the modern world, the more so as it can always be diverted to sinister uses by those who control propaganda.”

— Bertrand Russell

Source: Sceptical Essays

Last update Sept. 29, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Moral indignation is one of the most harmful forces in the modern world, the more so as it can always be diverted to si…" by Bertrand Russell?

Bertrand Russell 562

logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and politi… 1872–1970

Related quotes

“It's always the good men who do the most harm in the world.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

As quoted in American Heritage (December 1955), p. 44
Context: I disagree with my brother Charles and Theodore Roosevelt. I think that Lee should have been hanged. It was all the worse that he was a good man and a fine character and acted conscientiously. These facts have nothing to do with the case and should not have been allowed to interfere with just penalties. It's always the good men who do the most harm in the world.

“The power to do good is also the power to do harm; those who control the power today may not tomorrow; and, more important, what one man regards as good, another may regard as harm.”

Milton Friedman book Capitalism and Freedom

Introduction, p. 3
Capitalism and Freedom (1962)

“During the days of your life, one of the most important resources you must learn to control is patience. Those who can master calmness, live in harmony with entire world.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Durante i giorni della tua vita, una delle risorse più importanti che devi imparare a controllare è la pazienza. Chi riesce a dominare la calma, vive in armonia con il mondo intero.
Source: prevale.net

“It remains, as ever, an axiom of conventional wisdom that the use of propaganda as a means of social and ideological control is distinctive of totalitarian regimes. Yet the most minimal exercise of common sense would suggest a different view: that propaganda is likely to play at least as important a part in democratic societies (where the existing distribution of power and privilege is vulnerable to quite limited changes in popular opinion) as in authoritarian societies (where it is not). It is arguable that the success of business propaganda in persuading us, for so long, that we are free from propaganda is one of the most significant propaganda achievements of the twentieth century.”

Alex Carey (1922–1988) Australian psychologist

Source: Taking the Risk Out of Democracy: Corporate Propaganda versus Freedom and Liberty (1995), p. 21

“To be left alone is the most precious thing one can ask of the modern world.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

"The Ball is Free to Roll"
Non-Fiction, Homage to QWERT YUIOP: Selected Journalism 1978-1985 (1986)
Source: Homage To Qwert Yuiop: Essays

“The beauty of the democratic system of thought control, as contrasted with their clumsy totalitarian counterparts, is that they operate by subtly establishing on a voluntary basis – aided by the forces of nationalism and media control by substantial interests – presuppositions that set the limits of debate, rather than by imposing beliefs with a bludgeon. Then let the debate rage; the more lively and vigorous it is, the better the propaganda system is served, since the presuppositions (U. S. benevolence, lack of rational imperial goals, defensive posture, etc.) are more firmly established. Those who do not accept the fundamental principles of state propaganda are simply excluded from the debate”

Edward S. Herman (1925–2017) American journalist

or if noticed, dismissed as “emotional,” “irresponsible,” etc.
Source: After the Cataclysm: Postwar Indochina and the Reconstruction of Imperial Ideology, with Noam Chomsky, 1979, p. 30.