Wolfgang Reinhard | But it is the central ritual of the democratic theater state
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"Politicians who want to stay in power have to keep the voters happy, even though the election itself is only symbolic. But it is the central ritual of the democratic theater state. After all, it is no longer about substantive decisions, but only about the confirmation or replacement of political figureheads, who are legitimized by the fact that citizens are allowed to perform this ritual. This symbolically reinforces the fiction of popular sovereignty on which modern constitutional states are founded. In this way, and not through substantive decisions, elections contribute to its stabilization."
Wolfgang Reinhard
Professor Ley | What the FDA is doing, and what the public thinks
"The FDA protects the big drug companies, and is subsequently rewarded, and using the government’s police powers, they attack those who threaten the big drug companies. The thing that bugs me is that people think that the FDA is protecting them, it isn’t. What the FDA is doing, and what the public thinks it is doing are as different as night and day."
Professor Herbert Leonard Ley Jr.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | It may be boldly asked
"It may be boldly asked where can the man be found, possessing the extraordinary gifts of Newton, who could suffer himself to be deluded by such a hocus-pocus, if he had not in the first instance willfully deceived himself? Only those who know the strength of self-deception, and the extent to which it sometimes trenches on dishonesty, are in a condition to explain the conduct of Newton and of Newton’s school. To support his unnatural theory Newton heaps fiction upon fiction, seeking to dazzle where he cannot convince. In whatever way or manner may have occurred this business, I must still say that I curse this modern theory of Cosmogony, and hope that perchance there may appear, in due time, some young scientist of genius, who will pick up courage enough to upset this universally disseminated delirium of lunatics."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Fred Hoyle | Science today is locked into paradigms
"Science today is locked into paradigms. Every avenue is blocked by beliefs that are wrong, and if you try to get anything published by a journal today, you will run against a paradigm and the editors will turn it down."
Fred Hoyle
Fred Hoyle | Today we cannot say that the Copernican theory is ‘right’
"Today we cannot say that the Copernican theory is ‘right’ and the Ptolemaic theory ‘wrong’ in any meaningful physical sense."
Fred Hoyle
Aldous Huxley | … the greater part of the population is not very intelligent
"... the greater part of the population is not very intelligent, dreads responsibility, and desires nothing better than to be told what to do. Provided the rulers do not interfere with its material comforts and its cherished beliefs, it is perfectly happy to let itself be ruled."
Aldous Huxley
Emma Goldman | do you not realize that the State is the worst enemy you have?
"Men and women ... do you not realize that the State is the worst enemy you have? It is a machine that crushes you in order to sustain the ruling class, your masters. Like naïve children you put your trust in your political leaders. You make it possible for them to creep into your confidence, only to have them betray you to the first bidder. But even where there is no direct betrayal, the labour politicians make common cause with your enemies to keep you in leash, to prevent your direct action. The State is the pillar of capitalism, and it is ridiculous to expect any redress from it."
Emma Goldman
Gilbert Keith Chesterton | When people stop believing in God
"When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing — they believe in anything."
Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Cardinal John Murphy Farley Archbishop of New York, calls horse and rider
"The war that is being prepared will be a battle between international capital and the ruling dynasties. Capital wishes to have no one over it, knows no God or Lord, and wishes to have all states ruled as a great banking business. Their profit shall become the sole guide of the rulers ... Business ... one and only."
Cardinal John Murphy Farley Archbishop of New York
Margaret Mead | Children must learn how to think, not what to think.
"Children must learn how to think, not what to think."
Margaret Mead
Michael Rivero | Hence, most propaganda is not designed to fool the critical thinker
"Most people prefer to believe their leaders are just and fair even in the face of evidence to the contrary, because once a citizen acknowledges that the government under which they live is lying and corrupt, the citizen has to choose what he or she will do about it. To take action in the face of a corrupt government entails risks of harm to life and loved ones. To choose to do nothing is to surrender one's self-image of standing for principles. Most people do not have the courage to face that choice. Hence, most propaganda is not designed to fool the critical thinker but only to give moral cowards an excuse not to think at all."
Michael Rivero
Lenin | The highest art of war
"The highest art of war is to avoid military engagements altogether and defeat the enemy by destroying his moral principles, his religion, his culture and his traditions. When a country has been demoralized in that way it can be taken over without a single shot being fired."
Vladimir Iljitsch Lenin
Alexis de Tocqueville | democracy | Tyranny | despotism
"Tyranny in democratic republics does not proceed in the same way, however. It ignores the body and goes straight for the soul. The master no longer says: You will think as I do or die. He says: You are free not to think as I do. You may keep your life, your property, and everything else. But from this day forth you shall be as a stranger among us. You will retain your civic privileges, but they will be of no use to you. For if you seek the votes of your fellow citizens, they will withhold them, and if you seek only their esteem, they will feign to refuse even that. You will remain among men, but you will forfeit your rights to humanity. When you approach your fellow creatures, they will shun you as one who is impure. And even those who believe in your innocence will abandon you, lest they, too, be shunned in turn. Go in peace, I will not take your life, but the life I leave you with is worse than death."
Alexis de Tocqueville
Plato | Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture
"Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses."
Plato
Voltaire | throw stones at those who are showing a new road
"Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road."
Voltaire
Thomas Paine | A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong
"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason."
Thomas Paine
Fred Hoyle | we can take either the Earth or the Sun
"we can take either the Earth or the Sun, or any other point for that matter, as the center of the solar system."
Fred Hoyle
Albert Einstein | The struggle, so violent in the early days of science
"The struggle, so violent in the early days of science, between the views of Ptolemy and Copernicus would then be quite meaningless. Either CS [coordinate system] could be used with equal justification. The two sentences, “the Sun is at rest and the Earth moves,” or “the Sun moves and the Earth is at rest,” would simply mean two different conventions concerning two different CS."
Albert Einstein
Dave Chappelle | Being “awake” isn’t cool
"Being "awake" isn't cool. It means having to dumb down 98% of your conversations every day so you don't sound like a lunatic."
Dave Chappelle
Peter Hübner | It’s an industrial arrangement based on the idea of mass filling
"I am always irritated by the fact that they are not really schools at all. We don't see places for living and learning, but barracks. Along long corridors, one room stands at attention next to the other. All the classrooms have the same shape. The children are crammed in, all facing the blackboard. The teacher writes, the children copy. It's an industrial arrangement based on the idea of mass filling."
Peter Hübner
Frank Ocean | When you’re happy you enjoy the music
"When you're happy you enjoy the music, but when you're sad you understand the lyrics."
Frank Ocean
Anita Hofmann | by practicing a state on a small scale, namely at school
"This is about: What is actually best for children and young people? And how do they get their education and how do they become citizens? Because that is also the goal of our schooling, that I am an educated person who can also fulfill my civic duties and for that I need appropriate behavior and I learn that not only explicitly through knowledge, but also implicitly by practicing a state on a small scale, namely at school."
Anita Hofmann
Yuval Noah Harari | it would be very tempting, and easy, to toss you overboard
"Your future depends on the goodwill of a small elite. Maybe there is goodwill for a few decades. But in a time of crisis – like climate catastrophe – it would be very tempting, and easy, to toss you overboard."
Yuval Noah Harari
John F. Kennedy | the great enemy of truth is very often not the lie
"For the great enemy of truth is very often not the lie--deliberate, contrived and dishonest--but the myth--persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought."
John F. Kennedy
Friedrich Nietzsche | Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth
"Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed."
Friedrich Nietzsche
Albert Einstein | I feel uncertain whether I am in general on the right track
"You imagine that I look back on my life’s work with calm satisfaction. But from nearby it looks quite different. There is not a single concept of which I am convinced that it will stand firm, and I feel uncertain whether I am in general on the right track."
Albert Einstein
Lincoln Barnett | No physical experiment
"No physical experiment ever proved that the earth actually is in motion."
Lincoln Barnett
Avro Manhattan | No political event or circumstance can be evaluated
"No political event or circumstance can be evaluated without the knowledge of The Vatican's part in it. And no significant world situation exists in which The Vatican does not play an important explicit or implicit role."
Avro Manhattan
Henry Louis Mencken | And what is a good citizen?
"And what is a good citizen? Simply one who never says, does or thinks anything that is unusual. Schools are maintained in order to bring this uniformity up to the highest possible point. A school is a hopper into which children are heaved while they are still young and tender; therein they are pressed into certain standard shapes and covered from head to heels with official rubber-stamps."
Henry Louis Mencken
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky | It is curious to note too
"It is curious to note too, that most of the bodies (Secret societies) which work these (sacred rites), such as the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, the Rite of Avignon, the Order of the Temple, Fesslors Rite, the Grand Council of the Emperors of the East and West, Sovereign Princes (of) Masons, etc, etc, are nearly all the 'offspring' of the Son's (Jesuits) of Ignatius Loyola. The Baron Hundt, Chevalier Ramsey, Tschoudy, Zinnendorf, and numerous others, who founded the 'grades' in these rites, worked under instructions from the General of the Jesuits."
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
Franz von Holtzendorff | The worst and most dangerous slavery
"The worst and most dangerous slavery is that which people no longer feel because they have become accustomed to it."
Franz von Holtzendorff
Franz von Holtzendorff | The highest conceivable degree of lying is reached
"The highest conceivable degree of lying is reached when judgment between truth and falsehood ceases and the liar believes his own lie and is indignant that others place doubt in his words."
Franz von Holtzendorff
Elon Musk | Some of the smartest people
"Some of the smartest people I know actively believe the press … amazing"
Elon Musk