Quotes About Propaganda

Unlike the masses, intellectuals have a taste for rationality and interest in facts. Their critical habit of mind makes them resistant to the kind of propaganda that works so well on the majority. Among the masses "instinct is supreme, and from instinct comes faith...

I know quite well that one needs ridiculous, mad situations like that; one can't write really well about anything else. Why was that old fellow such a marvelous propaganda technician? Because he had so many insane, excruciating things to get excited about. You've got to be hurt and upset; otherwise you can't think of the really good, penetrating, X-rayish phrases.

Mass communication, in a word, is neither good nor bad; it is simply a force and, like any other force, it can be used either well or ill. Used in one way, the press, the radio and the cinema are indispensable to the survival of democracy. Used in another way, they are among the most powerful weapons in the dictator's armory.

La filosofía nos enseña a sentir incertidumbre ante las cosas que nos parecen evidentes. La propaganda, en cambio, nos enseña a aceptar como evidentes cosas sobre las que sería razonable suspender nuestro juicio o sentir dudas.

Those who defend war have invented a pleasant sounding vocabulary of abstractions in which to describe the process of mass murder.

Un estado totalitario realmente eficaz sería aquel en el cual los jefes políticos todopoderosos y su ejército de colaboradores pudieran gobernar una población de esclavos sobre los cuales no fuese necesario ejercer coerción alguna por cuanto amarían su servidumbre. Inducirles a amarla es la tarea asignada en los actuales estados totalitarios a los ministerios de propaganda, los directores de los periódicos y los maestros de escuela.

It is by manipulating "hidden forces" that the advertising experts induce us to buy their wares—a toothpaste, a brand of cigarettes, a political candidate. And it is by appealing to the same hidden forces—and to others too dangerous for Madison Avenue to meddle with—that Hitler induced the German masses to buy themselves a Fuehrer, an insane philosophy and the Second World War.

Podría haber y, a mi juicio, debería haber leyes que impidieran a los candidatos, no solamente gastar más que determinada cantidad en sus campañas electorales, sino también recurrir a esa especie de propaganda antirracional que convierte en disparate todo el procedimiento democrático.

In Hitler's words, the propagandist should adopt 'a systematically one-sided attitude towards every problem that has to be dealt with'. He must never admit that he might be wrong or that people with a different point of view might be even partially right. Opponents should not be argued with; they should be attacked, shouted down, or, if they become too much of a nuisance, liquidated.

The Machiavelli of the 20th century will be an advertising man, his Prince , a textbook of the art and science of fooling all the people all the time.

In their propaganda today's dictators rely for the most part on repetition, suppression and rationalization—the repetition of catchwords which they wish to be accepted as true, the suppression of facts which they wish to be ignored, the arousal and rationalization of passions which may be used in ther interests of the Party or the State.

Philosophy teaches us to feel uncertain about the things that seems to us self-evident. Propaganda, on the other hand, teaches us to accept as self-evident matters about which it would be reasonable to suspend our judgement or to feel doubt.

Philosophy teaches us to feel uncertain about the things that seem to us self-evident. Propaganda, on the other hand, teaches us to accept as self-evident matters about which it would be reasonable to suspend our judgment or to feel doubt.

Propaganda may be defined as opposed to rational argument; argument based upon facts. Argument based on facts aims at producing an intellectual conviction; propaganda aims, above all, at producing reflex action. It is aimed at bypassing the rational choice based upon knowledge of facts and getting directly at the solar plexus, so to speak, and affecting the subconscious.

The negative propaganda of silence is probably more effective as an instrument of persuasion and mental regimentation than speech. Silence creates the condition in which such words as are spoken or written take most effect.

The bias of the headlines, the systematic one-sidedness of the reporting and the commentaries, the catchwords and slogans instead of argument. No serious appeal to reason. Instead, a systematic effort to install conditioned reflexes int eh minds of the voters -- and, for the rest, crime, divorce, anecdotes, twaddle, anything to keep them distracted, anything to prevent them from thinking.

In the latter half of the twentieth century, two visionary books cast their shadows over our futures. One was George Orwell's 1949 novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, with its horrific vision of a brutal, mind-controlling totalitarian

Children, as might be expected, are highly susceptible to propaganda. They are ignorant of the world and its ways, and therefore completely unsuspecting. Their critical faculties are undeveloped. The youngest of them have not yet reached the age of reason and the older ones lack the experience on which their new-found rationality can effectively work.

if you want to preserve your power indefinitely you have to get the consent of the ruled, and this they will do partly by drugs ... partly by these new techniques of propaganda, they will do it by ... bypassing the rational side of man and appealing to his subconscious and his deeper emotions ... and so making him actually love his slavery.

The sound-track roll was unwinding itself in Synthetic Anti-Riot Speech Number Two

Los mayores triunfos de la propaganda se han logrado, no haciendo algo, sino impidiendo que ese algo se haga

I know quite well that one needs ridiculous, mad situations like that; one can't write really well about anything else. Why was that old fellow such a marvellous propaganda technician? Because he had so many insane, excruciating things to get excited about. You've got to be hurt and upset; otherwise you can't think of the really good, penetrating, X-rayish phrases.

Um Estado totalitário verdadeiramente eficiente seria aquele em que os chefes políticos de um Poder Executivo todo-poderoso e seu exército de administradores controlassem uma população de escravos que não tivessem de ser coagidos porque amariam sua servidão. Fazer com que eles a amem é a tarefa confiada, nos Estados totalitários de hoje, aos ministérios de propaganda, diretores de jornais e professores.

In all dictatorial propaganda, silence is at least as important as speech.