Quotes about conspiracy
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David Rockefeller photo

“For more than a century, ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents such as my encounter with Castro to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure — one world, if you will. If that is the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.
The anti-Rockefeller focus of these otherwise incompatible political positions owes much to Populism. "Populists" believe in conspiracies and one of the most enduring is that a secret group of international bankers and capitalists, and their minions, control the world's economy. Because of my name and prominence as head of the Chase for many years, I have earned the distinction of "conspirator in chief" from some of these people.
Populists and isolationists ignore the tangible benefits that have resulted in our active international role during the past half-century. Not only was the very real threat posed by Soviet Communism overcome, but there have been fundamental improvements in societies around the world, particularly in the United States, as a result of global trade, improved communications, and the heightened interaction of people from different cultures. Populists rarely mention these positive consequences, nor can they cogently explain how they would have sustained American economic growth and expansion of our political power without them.”

David Rockefeller (1915–2017) American banker and philanthropist

Source: Memoirs (2003), Ch. 27 : Proud Internationalist, p. 406

Sam Harris photo

“Muslim discourse is currently a tissue of myths, conspiracy theories, and exhortations to recapture the glories of the seventh century.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

2000s, The End of Faith (2004)

Richard Pipes photo
Will Eisner photo
Ronald Syme photo

“The best party is but a kind of conspiracy against the Commonwealth.”

Source: The Roman Revolution (1939), Ch. 9.

George W. Bush photo
G. Edward Griffin photo
David Cameron photo

“What we are fighting, in Islamist extremism, is an ideology. It is an extreme doctrine. And like any extreme doctrine, it is subversive. At its furthest end it seeks to destroy nation-states to invent its own barbaric realm. And it often backs violence to achieve this aim – mostly violence against fellow Muslims – who don’t subscribe to its sick worldview. But you don’t have to support violence to subscribe to certain intolerant ideas which create a climate in which extremists can flourish. Ideas which are hostile to basic liberal values such as democracy, freedom and sexual equality. Ideas which actively promote discrimination, sectarianism and segregation. Ideas – like those of the despicable far right – which privilege one identity to the detriment of the rights and freedoms of others. And ideas also based on conspiracy: that Jews exercise malevolent power; or that Western powers, in concert with Israel, are deliberately humiliating Muslims, because they aim to destroy Islam. In this warped worldview, such conclusions are reached – that 9/11 was actually inspired by Mossad to provoke the invasion of Afghanistan; that British security services knew about 7/7, but didn’t do anything about it because they wanted to provoke an anti-Muslim backlash. And like so many ideologies that have existed before – whether fascist or communist – many people, especially young people, are being drawn to it. We need to understand why it is proving so attractive.”

David Cameron (1966) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

2010s, 2015, Speech on (20 July 2015)

Daniel Dennett photo

“If I were designing a phony religion, I'd surely include a version of this little gem — but I'd have a hard time saying it with a straight face:If anybody ever raises questions of objections about our religion that you cannot answer, that person is almost certainly Satan. In fact, the more reasonable the person is, the more eager to engage you in open-minded and congenial discussion, the more sure you can be that you're talking to Satan in disguise! Turn away! Do not listen! It's a trap!What is particularly cute about this trick is that it is a perfect "wild card," so lacking in content that any sect or creed or conspiracy can use it effectively. Communist cells can be warned that any criticism they encounter is almost sure to be the work of FBI infiltrators in disguise, and radical feminist discussion groups can squelch any unanswerable criticism by declaring it to be phallocentric propaganda being unwittingly spread by a brainwashed dupe of the evil patriarchy, and so forth. This all-purpose loyalty-enforcer is paranoia in a pill, sure to keep the critics muted if not silent.Did anyone invent this brilliant adaptation, or is it a wild meme that domesticated itself by attaching itself to whatever memes were competing for hosts in its neighborhood? Nobody knows, but now it is available for anybody to use — although, if this book has any success, its virulence should diminish as people begin to recognize it for what it is.”

Breaking the Spell (2006)

Will Eisner photo

“International Jews.
In violent opposition to all this sphere of Jewish effort rise the schemes of the International Jews. The adherents of this sinister confederacy are mostly men reared up among the unhappy populations of countries where Jews are persecuted on account of their race. Most, if not all, of them have forsaken the faith of their forefathers, and divorced from their minds all spiritual hopes of the next world. This movement among the Jews is not new. From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia) Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxemborg (Germany) and Emma Goldman (United States), this world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing. It played, as a modern writer, Mrs. Webster, has so ably shown, a definitely recognizable part in the tragedy of the French Revolution. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the Nineteenth Century; and now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire.
Graves: This was written by Winston Churchill, a highly regarded M. P. in England…so, I need hardly remind you that it will take strong evidence to prove the “Protocols” ‘’’a fake!’’’
Raslovlev: At an old bookshop I got a copy of “The Dialogue in Hell between Machiavelli and Montesquieu,” by Maurice Joly, 1864.
I examined what I had. It was obvious that the “Protocols of Zion” was copied from it.
Graves: How did you get this?
Raslovlev: I bought this book from a friend, formerly of the Okhrana, our secret agents in France. They ordered the plagiarism!
When the Bolsheviks came in, we left with what we could take out with us.
How much is it worth to you, or your paper, Mr. Graves?
Graves: Hmm…can’t say yet! …Is Geneva really the place of publication??
Raslovlev: I do know that the “Protocols of Zion: was intended to prove to the Tsar that the Revolt in Russia was a Jewish Plot…it was written by an Okhrana agent…a plagiarist, Mathieu Golovinski!
When it was first published in Russia round 1902, its publisher, Dr. Nilus, claimed it to be notes stolen from an 1897 Zionist congress by French agents!
Graves: But that congress was convened by Theodore Herzl to promote a Jewish state. It was not a secret meeting…Dr. Nilus’s claim is a lie!
Raslovlev: Yes, it is indeed! Let me show you…we will compare the “Protocols” with Joly’s Book.
Raslovlev: Set them side by side Graves, and you will see obvious plagiarism of Joly’s “dialogue!”
Graves: I see…be patient while I go through it…yes! Yes! Yes!”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

Source: The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005), pp. 70-73

Ilana Mercer photo

“If the Hindus sang Vande Mãtaram in a public meeting, it was a ‘conspiracy’ to convert Muslims into kãfirs. If the Hindus blew a conch, or broke a coconut, or garlanded the portrait of a revered patriot, it was an attempt to ‘force’ Muslims into ‘idolatry’. If the Hindus spoke in any of their native languages, it was an ‘affront’ to the culture of Islam. If the Hindus took pride in their pre-Islamic heroes, it was a ‘devaluation’ of Islamic history. And so on, there were many more objections, major and minor, to every national self-expression. In short, it was a demand that Hindus should cease to be Hindus and become instead a faceless conglomeration of rootless individuals. On the other hand, the ‘minority community’ was not prepared to make the slightest concession in what they regarded as their religious and cultural rights. If the Hindus requested that cow-killing should stop, it was a demand for renouncing an ‘established Islamic practice’. If the Hindus objected to an open sale of beef in the bazars, it was an ‘encroachment’ on the ‘civil rights’ of the Muslims. If the Hindus demanded that cows meant for ritual slaughter should not be decorated and marched through Hindu localities, it was ‘trampling upon time-honoured Islamic traditions’. If the Hindus appealed that Hindu religious processions passing through a public thoroughfare should not be obstructed, it was an attempt to ‘disturb the peace of Muslim prayers’. If the Hindus wanted their native languages to attain an equal status with Urdu in the courts and the administration, it was an ‘assault on Muslim culture’. If the Hindus taught to their children the true history of Muslim tyrants, it was a ‘hate campaign against Islamic heroes’. And the ‘minority community’ was always ready to ‘defend’ its ‘religion and culture’ by taking recourse to street riots.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Muslim Separatism – Causes and Consequences (1987)

Vladimir Lenin photo
David Brin photo
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Rod Serling photo

“In his grave, we praise him for his decency - but when he walked amongst us, we responded with no decency of our own. When he suggested that all men should have a place in the sun - we put a special sanctity on the right of ownership and the privilege of prejudice by maintaining that to deny homes to Negroes was a democratic right. Now we acknowledge his compassion - but we exercised no compassion of our own. When he asked us to understand that men take to the streets out of anguish and hopelessness and a vision of that dream dying, we bought guns and speculated about roving agitators and subversive conspiracies and demanded law and order. We felt anger at the effects, but did little to acknowledge the causes. We extol all the virtues of the man - but we chose not to call them virtues before his death. And now, belatedly, we talk of this man's worth - but the judgement comes late in the day as part of a eulogy when it should have been made a matter of record while he existed as a living force. If we are to lend credence to our mourning, there are acknowledgements that must be made now, albeit belatedly. We must act on the altogether proper assumption that Martin Luther King asked for nothing but that which was his due… He asked only for equality, and it is that which we denied him.”

Rod Serling (1924–1975) American screenwriter

Letter to The Los Angeles Times in response to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.; April 8, 1968.
Other

Will Eisner photo
H.L. Mencken photo

“All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: its one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

"Le Contrat Social", in: Prejudices: Third Series (1922)
1920s
Context: All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: its one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him. If it be aristocratic in organization, then it seeks to protect the man who is superior only in law against the man who is superior in fact; if it be democratic, then it seeks to protect the man who is inferior in every way against both. One of its primary functions is to regiment men by force, to make them as much alike as possible and as dependent upon one another as possible, to search out and combat originality among them. All it can see in an original idea is potential change, and hence an invasion of its prerogatives. The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are.

Robert H. Jackson photo

“Also worthy of mention is a clique among the suicidal for whom the meaning of their act is a darker thing. Frustrated as perpetrators of an all-inclusive extermination, they would kill themselves only because killing it all is closed off to them. They hate having been delivered into a world only to be told, by and by, “This way to the abattoir, Ladies and Gentlemen.” They despise the conspiracy of Lies for Life almost as much as they despise themselves for being a party to it. If they could unmake the world by pushing a button, they would do so without a second thought. There is no satisfaction in a lonesome suicide.”

Thomas Ligotti (1953) American horror author

The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror
Context: Also worthy of mention is a clique among the suicidal for whom the meaning of their act is a darker thing. Frustrated as perpetrators of an all-inclusive extermination, they would kill themselves only because killing it all is closed off to them. They hate having been delivered into a world only to be told, by and by, “This way to the abattoir, Ladies and Gentlemen.” They despise the conspiracy of Lies for Life almost as much as they despise themselves for being a party to it. If they could unmake the world by pushing a button, they would do so without a second thought. There is no satisfaction in a lonesome suicide. The phenomenon of “suicide euphoria” aside, there is only fear, bitterness, or depression beforehand, then the troublesomeness of the method, and nothingness afterward. But to push that button, to depopulate this earth and arrest its rotation as well—what satisfaction, as of a job prettily done. This would be for the good of all, for even those who know nothing about the conspiracy against the human race are among its injured parties.

Alexander Hamilton photo

“War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement. In war a physical force is to be created, and it is the executive will which is to direct it. In war the public treasures are to be unlocked, and it is the executive hand which is to dispense them. In war the honors and emoluments of office are to be multiplied; and it is the executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed. It is in war, finally, that laurels are to be gathered, and it is the executive brow they are to encircle. The strongest passions, and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast; ambition, avarice, vanity, the honorable or venial love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace.”

Alexander Hamilton (1757–1804) Founding Father of the United States

Chapter: Helvidius Number IV http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=1910&chapter=112553&layout=html&Itemid=27 in: The Pacificus-Helvidius Debates of 1793-1794: Toward the Completion of the American Founding, edited with and Introduction by Morton J. Frisch (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2007)
Context: In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace to the legislature, and not to the executive department. Beside the objection to such a mixture of heterogeneous powers: the trust and the temptation would be too great for any one man: not such as nature may offer as the prodigy of many centuries, but such as may be expected in the ordinary successions of magistracy. War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement. In war a physical force is to be created, and it is the executive will which is to direct it. In war the public treasures are to be unlocked, and it is the executive hand which is to dispense them. In war the honors and emoluments of office are to be multiplied; and it is the executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed. It is in war, finally, that laurels are to be gathered, and it is the executive brow they are to encircle. The strongest passions, and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast; ambition, avarice, vanity, the honorable or venial love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace.

Ivan Illich photo

“Community in our European tradition is not the outcome of an act of authoritative foundation, nor a gift from nature or its gods, nor the result of management, planning and design, but the consequence of a conspiracy, a deliberate, mutual, somatic and gratuitous gift to each other.”

Ivan Illich (1926–2002) austrian philosopher and theologist

The Cultivation of Conspiracy (1998)
Context: Community in our European tradition is not the outcome of an act of authoritative foundation, nor a gift from nature or its gods, nor the result of management, planning and design, but the consequence of a conspiracy, a deliberate, mutual, somatic and gratuitous gift to each other. The prototype of that conspiracy lies in the celebration of the early Christian liturgy in which, no matter their origin, men and women, Greeks and Jews, slaves and citizens, engender a physical reality that transcends them. The shared breath, the con-spiratio are the "peace" understood as the community that arises from it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Self-Reliance
Context: Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.

“Today we hear a great deal about Organizational Men, Mass Culture, Conformity, the Lonely Crowd, the Power Elite and its Conspiracy of Mediocrity. We forget that the very volume of this criticism is an indication that our society is still radically pluralistic.”

Kenneth Rexroth (1905–1982) American poet, writer, anarchist, academic and conscientious objector

"Introduction"
An Autobiographical Novel (1991)
Context: Today we hear a great deal about Organizational Men, Mass Culture, Conformity, the Lonely Crowd, the Power Elite and its Conspiracy of Mediocrity. We forget that the very volume of this criticism is an indication that our society is still radically pluralistic. Not only are there plenty of exceptionalists who take exception to the stereotyping of the mass culture — but that very string of epithets comes from a series of books that have been recent best-sellers, symptoms of a popular, living tradition of dissent from things as they are.

George William Curtis photo

“The country was divided between the Whig and Democratic organizations. The Democratic Party then, as now, was in open alliance with slavery, in a conspiracy against the Constitution and the peace of the country.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1850s, The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question (1859)
Context: The country was divided between the Whig and Democratic organizations. The Democratic Party then, as now, was in open alliance with slavery, in a conspiracy against the Constitution and the peace of the country. Of that there was no hope; and when the Whig party at Baltimore with fabulous fatuity dodged the question, the great Whig party, newly painted and repaired, with all its guns burnished, its drums beating and colors flying, went down in a moment clean out of sight, like the Royal George at Spithead, and of all that stately craft there remain but a few ancient mariners drifting half-drowned in the water, and sputtering with winking eyes that the ship had better try another voyage.

P. J. O'Rourke photo
Bill Bailey photo
Hillary Clinton photo

“The great story here for anybody willing to find it, write about it and explain it is this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Reacting to the truthful reports that her husband, Bill Clinton, had an affair with White House intern, Monica Lewinsky; Interview with Matt Lauer on NBC's Today show (27 January 1998)
White House years (1993–2000)
Context: From my perspective, this is part of the continuing political campaign against my husband… I mean, look at the very people who are involved in this. They have popped up in other settings. The great story here for anybody willing to find it, write about it and explain it is this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president.

Richard Wright photo
Noam Chomsky photo

“The conclusion in the State Department was, "OK, this proves that they're agents of the international communist conspiracy. Ho Chi Minh is such a loyal slave of"—pick it, Mao or Stalin—"that he doesn't even need orders."”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Quotes 1990s, 1995-1999, Sovereignty and World Order, 1999
Context: ... the incompetence of intelligence agencies is legendary.… Just take Vietnam.… In the late 1940s, the United States was kind of unclear about which side to support.… In the case of Indochina, for whatever reason, they decided at one point to support France in its reconquest of Indochina. Well, at that point, essentially orders went to the U. S. intelligence communities, CIA and others, to demonstrate … that Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh were agents of either the Russians or the Chinese.… They couldn't do it. They couldn't find anything.… The conclusion in the State Department was, "OK, this proves that they're agents of the international communist conspiracy. Ho Chi Minh is such a loyal slave of"—pick it, Mao or Stalin—"that he doesn't even need orders.".

Alan Moore photo

“Yes, there is a conspiracy, in fact there are a great number of conspiracies that are all tripping each other up. And all of those conspiracies are run by paranoid fantasists and ham-fisted clowns.”

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

"The Mindscape of Alan Moore" (2003) http://themindscapeofalanmoore.com/index.html
Context: Yes, there is a conspiracy, in fact there are a great number of conspiracies that are all tripping each other up. And all of those conspiracies are run by paranoid fantasists and ham-fisted clowns. If you are on a list targeted by the CIA, you really have nothing to worry about. If however, you have a name similar to somebody on a list targeted by the CIA, then you are dead.

Alan Moore photo

“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.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad photo
Nicolás Maduro photo
J. Howard Moore photo
J. Howard Moore photo
Edmund Burke photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo
Frederick Douglass photo
Adolf Eichmann photo

“The mention made by Maulana Abdul Hai of Hindu temples turned into mosques, is only the tip of an iceberg, The iceberg itself lies submerged in the writings of medieval Muslim historians, accounts of foreign travellers and the reports of the Archaeological Survey of India. A hue and cry has been raised in the name of secularism and national integration whenever the iceberg has chanced to surface, inspite of hectic efforts to keep it suppressed. Marxist politicians masquerading as historians have been the major contributors to this conspiracy of silence.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

.... The vast cradle of Hindu culture is literally littered with ruins of temples and monasteries belonging to all sects of Sanatana Dharma - Buddhist, Jain, Saiva, Shakta, Vaishnava and the rest. ... The story of how Islamic invaders sought to destroy the very foundations of Hindu society and culture is long and extremely painful. It would certainly be better for everybody to forget the past, but for the prescriptions of Islamic theology which remain intact and make it obligatory for believers to destroy idols and idol temples.
Hindu Temples – What Happened to Them, Volume I (1990)

Lloyd Kaufman photo
Russell Brand photo

“When people are content, they are difficult to maneuver. We are perennially discontent and offered placebos as remedies. My intention in writing this book is to make you feel better, to offer you a solution to the way you feel. I am confident that this is necessary. When do you ever meet people that are happy? Genuinely happy? Only children, the mentally ill, and daytime television presenters. My belief is that it is possible to feel happier, because I feel better than I used to. I am beginning to understand where the solution lies, primarily because of an exhausting process of trial and mostly error. My qualification to write a book on how to change yourself and change the world is not that I’m better than you, it’s that I’m worse. Not that I’m smarter, but that I’m dumber: I bought the lie hook, line, and sinker. My only quality has been an unwitting momentum, a willingness to wade through the static dissatisfaction that has been piped into my mind from the moment I learned language. What if that feeling of inadequacy, isolation, and anxiety isn’t just me? What if it isn’t internally engineered but the result of concerted effort, the product of a transmission? An ongoing broadcast from the powerful that has colonized my mind? Who is it in here, inside your mind, reading these words, feeling that fear? Is there an awareness, an exempt presence, gleaming behind the waterfall of words that commentate on every event, label every object, judge everyone you come into contact with? And is there another way to feel? Is it possible to be in this world and feel another way? Can you conceive, even for a moment, of a species similar to us but a little more evolved, that have transcended the idea that solutions to the way we feel can be externally acquired? What would that look like? How would that feel—to be liberated from the bureaucracy of managing your recalcitrant mind. Is it possible that there is a conspiracy to make us feel this way?”

Revolution (2014)

Daniel Abraham photo

“Secrecy is the potting soil in which all this conspiracy shit grows. Trust me. The roaches don’t like it when you start shining a light on them.”

Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States

Source: Nemesis Games (2015), Chapter 13 (p. 140)

Marilyn Ferguson photo

“The worldwide quest for community typified by the networks of the Aquarian Conspiracy is an attempt to boost that attenuated power. To cohere. To kindle wider consciousness.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Twelve, Human Connections: Relationships Changing

Marilyn Ferguson photo

“The business of the Aquarian Conspiracy is calm diagnosis of that illness—to make it clear that synthesis is needed—paradigm change rather than pendulum change.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Nine, Flying and Seeing: New Ways to Learn

Marilyn Ferguson photo
Boris Johnson photo

“The real hero of Jaws is the mayor. A gigantic fish is eating all your constituents and he decides to keep the beaches open. OK, in that instance he was actually wrong. But in principle, we need more politicians like the mayor - we are often the only obstacle against all the nonsense which is really a massive conspiracy against the taxpayer.”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

Speech given by Johnson at Lloyd's of London in 2006, quoted in * 2007-07-18

Boris Johnson inspired by Jaws mayor

Graeme Wilson and George Jones

The Telegraph

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1557765/Boris-Johnson-inspired-by-Jaws-mayor.html
2000s, 2006

Pierre Teilhard De Chardin photo

“This soul can only be a conspiracy of individuals”

Pierre Teilhard De Chardin (1881–1955) French philosopher and Jesuit priest

Quoted by Marilyn Ferguson in The Aquarian Conspiracy, (1980)

Arun Shourie photo
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John Derbyshire photo

“American society is increasingly a conspiracy of the smart against the dumb.”

John Derbyshire (1945) writer

Derb Quotes https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/derb-quotes-john-derbyshire/, National Review, November 20, 2003.

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton photo

“A time came when the Catholics, having long relied on force, were compelled to appeal to opinion. That which had been defiantly acknowledged and defended required to be ingeniously explained away. The same motive which had justified the murder now prompted the lie. Men shrank from the conviction that the rulers and restorers of their Church had been murderers and abetters of murder, and that so much infamy had been coupled with so much zeal. They feared to say that the most monstrous of crimes had been solemnly approved at Rome, lest they should devote the Papacy to the execration of mankind. A swarm of facts were invented to meet the difficulty: The victims were insignificant in number; they were slain for no reason connected with religion; the Pope believed in the existence of the plot; the plot was a reality; the medal is fictitious; the massacre was a feint concerted with the Protestants themselves; the Pope rejoiced only when he heard that it was over. These things were repeated so often that they have been sometimes believed; and men have fallen into this way of speaking whose sincerity was unimpeachable, and who were not shaken in their religion by the errors or the vices of Popes. Möhler was pre-eminently such a man. In his lectures on the history of the Church, which were published only last year, he said that the Catholics, as such, took no part in the massacre; that no cardinal, bishop, or priest shared in the councils that prepared it; that Charles informed the Pope that a conspiracy had been discovered; and that Gregory made his thanksgiving only because the King's life was saved. Such things will cease to be written when men perceive that truth is the only merit that gives dignity and worth to history.”

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) British politician and historian

Source: 1860s, The Massacre Of St. Bartholomew (1869)

“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)

Kim Stanley Robinson photo