
As quoted in Encounter with Martin Buber (1972) by Aubrey Hodes, p. 135
A collection of quotes on the topic of propaganda, people, use, doing.
As quoted in Encounter with Martin Buber (1972) by Aubrey Hodes, p. 135
Source: Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923), p. 212
Source: Taking the Risk Out of Democracy: Corporate Propaganda versus Freedom and Liberty (1995), p. 18
Claudia Koonz, The Nazi Conscience, London and Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University (2004) p. 13. Quote from March, 1933.
1930s
Review of The Men I Killed by Brigadier-General F. P. Crozier, CB, CMG, DSO, in New Statesman and Nation (28 August 1937)
To Leon Goldensohn, April 6, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004
Context: What I would like to emanate from the darkness of this tragedy is one spark of life. I mean, the realization that crime does not begin when you murder people. Crime begins with propaganda, even if such propaganda is for a good cause. The moment propaganda turns against another nation or against any human being, evil starts. Whereas the Germans started propaganda toward the end of this tragedy, you Allies stand at the beginning of the tragedy.
“On the other hand, not all propaganda is art”
"Charles Dickens" (1939)
Context: I have been discussing Dickens simply in terms of his ‘message’, and almost ignoring his literary qualities. But every writer, especially every novelist, has a ‘message’, whether he admits it or not, and the minutest details of his work are influenced by it. All art is propaganda. Neither Dickens himself nor the majority of Victorian novelists would have thought of denying this. On the other hand, not all propaganda is art. As I said earlier, Dickens is one of those writers who are felt to be worth stealing. He has been stolen by Marxists, by Catholics and, above all, by Conservatives. The question is, What is there to steal? Why does anyone care about Dickens? Why do I care about Dickens?
Speech to the Michigan legislature, in Lansing, Michigan (15 May 1952), published in General MacArthur Speeches and Reports 1908-1964 (2000) by Edward T. Imparato, p. 206, much of this was used in speeches of 1951, as quoted in The Twenty-year Revolution from Roosevelt to Eisenhower (1954) by Chesly Manly, p. 3, and Total Insecurity : The Myth Of American Omnipotence (2004) by Carol Brightman, p. 182<!--
Context: It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear. While such an economy may produce a sense of seeming prosperity for the moment, it rests on an illusionary foundation of complete unreliability and renders among our political leaders almost a greater fear of peace than is their fear of war.
Source: On the subject “alternate facts”. Source: The Origins of Totalitarianism, published in 1951. As quoted by Scroll Staff (December 04, 2017): Ideas in literature: Ten things Hannah Arendt said that are eerily relevant in today’s political times https://web.archive.org/web/20191001213756/https://scroll.in/article/856549/ten-things-hannah-arendt-said-that-are-eerily-relevant-in-todays-political-times. In: Scroll.in. Archived from the original https://scroll.in/article/856549/ten-things-hannah-arendt-said-that-are-eerily-relevant-in-todays-political-times on October 1, 2019.
Source: Sceptical Essays
“Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.”
interview on WBAI, January 1992 http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/199201--.htm.
Quotes 1990s, 1990-1994
Variant: Propaganda is to democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.
Source: Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda
Context: Harold Laswell … explained a couple of years after this in the early 1930s that we should not succumb to what he called democratic dogmatisms about men being the best judges of their own interests.… In what's nowadays called a totalitarian state, military state or something, it's easy. You just hold a bludgeon over their heads, but as societies become more free and democratic you lose that capacity and therefore you have to turn to the techniques of propaganda. The logic is clear—propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state….
Context: Walter Lippmann … described what he called “the manufacture of consent” as “a revolution” in “the practice of democracy”... And he said this was useful and necessary because “the common interests” - the general concerns of all people - “elude” the public. The public just isn't up to dealing with them. And they have to be the domain of what he called a "specialized class" … [Reinhold Niebuhr]'s view was that rationality belongs to the cool observer. But because of the stupidity of the average man, he follows not reason, but faith. And this naive faith requires necessary illusion, and emotionally potent oversimplifications, which are provided by the myth-maker to keep the ordinary person on course. It's not the case, as the naive might think, that indoctrination is inconsistent with democracy. Rather, as this whole line of thinkers observes, it is the essence of democracy. The point is that in a military state or a feudal state or what we would now call a totalitarian state, it doesn't much matter because you've got a bludgeon over their heads and you can control what they do. But when the state loses the bludgeon, when you can't control people by force, and when the voice of the people can be heard, you have this problem—it may make people so curious and so arrogant that they don't have the humility to submit to a civil rule [Clement Walker, 1661], and therefore you have to control what people think. And the standard way to do this is to resort to what in more honest days used to be called propaganda, manufacture of consent, creation of necessary illusion. Various ways of either marginalizing the public or reducing them to apathy in some fashion.
Jasper Ridley, Tito: A Biography (Constable and Company Ltd., 1994), p. 142.
Other
1990s, Declaration of War against the Americans (1996)
Alex Jones on Piers Morgan Tonight http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1301/12/pmt.01.html debating gun control, CNN, 7 January 2013 ( video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XZvMwcluEg).
2013
Berndt reicht mir eine Ausarbeitung über die von uns zu betreibende okkultistische Propaganda ein. Hier wird in der Tat Einiges geleistet. Die Amerikaner und Engländer fallen ja vorzüglich auf eine solche Art von Propaganda herein. Wir nehmen alle irgendwie zur Verfügung stehenden Kronzeugen der okkulten Weissagung als Mithelfer in Anspruch. Nostradamus muß wieder einmal daran glauben.
Dated 19 May 1942 concerning the use of Nostradamus's famous "Hister" quatrain
as displayed and translated in Nazis: The Occult Conspiracy, Discovery Channel
Diary excerpts
“No amount of propaganda can make right something that the world knows is wrong.”
2014, Address to European Youth (March 2014)
Part III: Man and Himself, Ch. 17: Fear, p. 175
1950s, New Hopes for a Changing World (1951)
Muqaddimah, Translated by Franz Rosenthal, p. 126, Princeton University Press, 1981.
Muqaddimah (1377)
Source: Propaganda & The Ethics Of Persuasion (2002), Chapter Eight, Propaganda, Democracy, And the Internet, p. 305
“Soviet propaganda is remarkably effective and the Americans are even more remarkably stupid.”
As quoted in Asadollah Alam (1991), The Shah and I: The Confidential Diary of Iran's Royal Court, 1968-77, page 508
Attributed
Source: 1930s, Power: A New Social Analysis (1938), Ch. 9: Power over opinion
The Election of Donald Trump https://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2016/amin301116.html (30 November 2016), Monthly Review Magazine (MRzine)
Ibid.
"The Ends of Zionism: Racism and the Palestinian Struggle"
Room Conversation - August 14, 1971, London. Vanipedia http://vaniquotes.org/wiki/We_say_that_you_follow_any_religious_path._That_doesn%27t_matter._We_want_to_see_whether_you_are_lover_of_God._That_is_our_propaganda._And_if_one_is_serious_about_loving_God,_it_doesn%27t_matter_in_which_way_he%27ll_develop_that_dormant_love
Quotes from other Sources, Quotes from other Sources: Loving God
Comment on Stahl interview in Madam Secretary (2003), pp. 274-275
2000s
2016, State of the Union address (January 2016)
Mit der "Menschheit" meint nämlich der Jude sich selbst, die Gesamtheit der Juden. Steht doch im Talmud geschrieben, dass nur die Juden Menschen seien, die Nichtjuden dagegen Tiere, die dazu erschaffen wurden, damit sie dem auserwählten Volk der Juden besser dienen könnten.
Vergleicht man zurückschauend die darauf bezüglichen Artikel in den "demokratischen" und "neutralen" Ländern, dann staunt man über die Planmäßigkeit jener Propaganda, deren Endziel die Schaffung eines Zustandes war, der zwangsläufig zum Krieg führen musste.
Stürmer, September 5, 1940
Part I, Ch. 3: Lenin, Trotsky and Gorky
1920s, The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism (1920)
“A good American makes propaganda for whatever existence has forced him to become.”
"Cousins," from Him With His Foot in His Mouth and Other Stories (1984), p. 263
General sources
Source: The Voice of Destruction (1940), pp. 131-132
Zhdanov in 1937. Translated from Swedish in the article Om socialismens demokratiska erfarenheter http://www.kommunisterna.org/politik/texter/socialismens-lardomar/om-socialismens-demokratiska-erfarenheter by Anders Carlsson.
2015, Leaders' Summit on Countering ISIL and Violent Extremism speech (September 2015)
2014, Remarks to the People of Estonia (September 2014)
2018, Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture (2018)
Context: A politics of fear and resentment and retrenchment began to appear, and that kind of politics is now on the move. It’s on the move at a pace that would have seemed unimaginable just a few years ago. I am not being alarmist, I am simply stating the facts. Look around. Strongman politics are ascendant suddenly, whereby elections and some pretense of democracy are maintained – the form of it – but those in power seek to undermine every institution or norm that gives democracy meaning. In the West, you’ve got far-right parties that oftentimes are based not just on platforms of protectionism and closed borders, but also on barely hidden racial nationalism. Many developing countries now are looking at China’s model of authoritarian control combined with mercantilist capitalism as preferable to the messiness of democracy. Who needs free speech as long as the economy is going good? The free press is under attack. Censorship and state control of media is on the rise. Social media – once seen as a mechanism to promote knowledge and understanding and solidarity – has proved to be just as effective promoting hatred and paranoia and propaganda and conspiracy theories.
Source: The Warrior Within : The Philosophies of Bruce Lee (1996), p. 133
Context: I have come to discover through earnest personal experience and dedicated learning that ultimately the greatest help is self-help; that there is no other help but self-help— doing one’s best, dedicating one’s self wholeheartedly to a given task, which happens to have no end but is an ongoing process. I have done a lot during these years of my process. A swell in my process, I have changed from self-image actualization to self-actualization, from blindly following propaganda, organized truths, etc. to searching internally for the cause of my ignorance.
Source: Disputed, Hitler Speaks (1940), pp. 131-132.
Quoted in Interview with Abby Martin and Michael Prysner on Venezuelan Opposition & attacks on Journalism, Kevin Gosztola https://shadowproof.com/2017/06/11/interview-martin-prysner-venezuelan-opposition-violence/ (11 June 2017)
Source: The Best That Money Can't Buy: Beyond Politics, Poverty, & War (2002), p. 72
Revolution by Number
As quoted in Hollywood Goes to War: How Politics, Profits and Propaganda Shaped World War II Movies by Clayton R. Koppes and Gregory D. Black (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990) p. 64.
"Propaganda has won – VG" https://norway.postsen.com/world/8013/%E2%80%93-Propaganda-has-won-%E2%80%93-VG.html, Norway Posts English, from VG, 30 mai 2022
“We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth.”
Remarks at Amherst College (26 October 1963)
1963
Source: Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda
“All I'm out for is a good time - all the rest is propaganda.”
Source: Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
May 24, 2005 http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2005/05/20050524-3.html
2000s, 2005
Mammonart - an Essay in Economic Interpretation Ch. 2 Who Owns the Artists? (1925)
Source: Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art
“History is the propaganda of the victors.”
Source: Corelli's Mandolin
"Iraq and Gaza, Ctd" http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/06/iraq_and_gaza_c.html, The Daily Dish (14 June 2007)
"The Characteristics of Propaganda" in Readings in Propaganda and Persuasion : New and Classic Essays (2006) edited by Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O'Donnell, p. 48, note 47
Speech in Chippenham (12 June 1926), quoted in Our Inheritance (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1938), pp. 164-165.
1926
Source: Manufacturing Consent, with Noam Chomsky, 1988, pp. 87-88.
Escudero, F. [Francis]. (2015, December 28). Retrieved from Official Facebook Page of Francis Escudero https://www.facebook.com/senchizescudero/posts/10153773916510610/
2015, Facebook
United Nations General Assembly - Promotion of a democratic and equitable international order http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/IntOrder/A-68-284_en.pdf.
2013
Truthdig, Life Is Sacred, Sep 3, 2012 http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/life_is_sacred_20120903/
Pop Chronicles, Show 33 - Revolt of the Fat Angel: American musicians respond to the British invaders. Part 1 http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc19792/m1/, interview recorded 2.14.1968 http://web.archive.org/web/20110615153027/http://www.library.unt.edu/music/special-collections/john-gilliland/o-s.
Source: Are We Victims of Propaganda, Our Invisible Masters: A Debate with Edward Bernays (1929), p. 145
Quote of Matisse in his notebook, c. April 1945; as cited in 'Matisse & Picasso', Paul Trachtman, Smithsonian Magazine, February 2003, p. 6
1940s
Socialism and the Churches (1905)
Broadcast (30 July 1950), quoted in The Times (31 July 1950), p. 4.
Prime Minister
Interview by Burton Levine in Shmate: A Journal of Progressive Jewish Thought, May 1988 http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/198805--.htm.
Quotes 1960s-1980s, 1980s
Source: The Social History of Art', Volume II. Renaissance, Mannerism, Baroque, 1999, Chapter 1. The Concept of the Renaissance
“Propaganda does not aim to elevate man, but to make him serve.”
Vintage, p. 38
Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (1965)
Source: Mussolini, 1983, p. 23
Source: Propaganda & The Ethics Of Persuasion (2002), Chapter One, Why Study Propaganda?, p. 13
Speaking to a Massachusetts tea party group http://www.mediaite.com/online/andrew-breitbart-to-tea-partiers-we-outnumber-liberals-and-we-have-the-guns/ (September 16, 2011)
Только полный идиот может думать, что крупный канал готов работать ради информирования зрителя. Канал продает продукт, его надо паковать. CNN, к примеру, является на Западе колоссальным идеологическим инструментом. Яркий пример тому - ситуация вокруг Югославии. Как эффектно промыли мозги очень цивилизованной части человечества! Вопрос в методах. Если потребитель "хавает" черствый хлеб, никто не будет давать ему булочки с маком. Я человек ангажированный абсолютно. Самим собой. У меня есть конкретные политические взгляды. Я не журналист. Я занимаюсь политической пропагандой. Я комментатор, и если человек комментирует события, не имея своей позиции, то это явление болезненное.
Михаил Леонтьев: 'Придется стать придурком', Chelpress.ru (Mass Media of Chelyabinsk), 2000-06-29, 2007-03-25 http://www.chelpress.ru/newspapers/vecherka/archive/29-06-2000/9/2.DOC.shtml,
2011-05-02
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2011/05/death_of_a_madman.html
Death of a Madman
Slate
1091-2339
2010s, 2011
David Frost (January 1980), The Shah Speaks http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKUQUDf5IBo&feature=related (video)
Interviews
"The State of Dalit Mobilization : An Interview with Kancha Ilaiah" in Ghadar Vol. 1, No. 3 (26 November 1997).
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.
Massad, in "Palestinians and Jewish History: Recognition or Submission?", Journal of Palestine Studies, 2000
On the Mufti of Jerusalem
Source: The Ordeal of Change (1963), Ch. 5: "The Readiness to Work"
Source: A History of the Jews in England (3rd ed. 1964), p. 1
Ben Shapiro, a Provocative ‘Gladiator,’ Battles to Win Young Conservatives https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/23/us/ben-shapiro-conservative.html (November 23, 2017), '.
Oscar Iden Lecture Series, Lecture 3: "The State of Individuals" (1976)
2010s, Interview with Joshua Stanton (August 2017)