Alexis de Tocqueville | democracy | Tyranny | despotism
/
0 Comments
"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
Joseph Goebbels | If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."
Joseph Goebbels
René Guénon | the apostles of tolerance, like all propagandists
We cannot help noticing that, like all propagandists, the apostles of tolerance, truth to tell, are very often the most intolerant of men. This is what has in fact happened, and it is strangely ironical : those who wished to overthrow all dogma have created for their own use, we will not say a new dogma, but a caricature of dogma, which they have succeeded in imposing on the western world in general; in this way there have been established, under the pretext of "freedom of thought," the most chimerical beliefs that have ever been seen at any time, under the form of these different idols, of which we have just singled out some of the more important."
René Guénon
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
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
Bjørn Ekeberg | cosmological physics that is not often remarked
"It's perhaps worth stopping to ask why astrophysicists hypothesize dark matter to be everywhere in the universe. The answer lies in a peculiar feature of cosmological physics that is not often remarked. A crucial function of theories such as dark matter, dark energy and inflation—each in its own way tied to the big bang paradigm—is not to describe known empirical phenomena but rather to maintain the mathematical coherence of the framework itself while accounting for discrepant observations. Fundamentally, they are names for something that must exist insofar as the framework is assumed to be universally valid."
Bjørn Ekeberg
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
Neil deGrasse Tyson | no longer invoke your senses to judge what makes sense
"So, what you learn when you study science in general, but astrophysics especially, is that you no longer invoke your senses to judge what makes sense, or you no longer invoke your personal philosophies to judge what should be true. The universe is what it is, and it really doesn't care about your senses."
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Frantz Fanon | Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong
"Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief."
Frantz Fanon
Michael Kroker | If a product or service costs you nothing, you are the product
"If a product or service costs you nothing, you are the product - because you pay with your personal data"
Michael Kroker
Ray Comfort | Atheists don’t hate fairies, leprechauns, or unicorns because they don’t exist
"Atheists don’t hate fairies, leprechauns, or unicorns because they don’t exist. It is impossible to hate something that doesn't exist. Atheists — like the painting experts hated the painter — hate God because He does exist."
Ray Comfort
Charles H. Spurgeon | Es wird eine Zeit kommen
"A time will come when instead of shepherds feeding the sheep, the church will have clowns entertaining the goats."
Charles H. Spurgeon
Baron Arthur Ponsonby | 10 principles of war propaganda
Wir wollen den Krieg nicht
Das gegnerische Lager trägt die Verantwortung
Der Führer des Gegners ist ein Teufel
Wir kämpfen für eine gute Sache
Der Gegner kämpft mit unerlaubten Waffen
Der Gegner begeht mit Absicht Grausamkeiten, wir nur versehentlich
Unsere Verluste sind gering, die des Gegners enorm
Künstler und Intellektuellen unterstützen unsere Sache
Unsere Mission ist heilig
Wer unsere Berichterstattung in Zweifel zieht, ist ein Verräter.
Friedrich Nietzsche | Insanity is a rare thing in individuals
"Insanity is a rare thing in individuals, but the rule in groups, parties, peoples and times."
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Neil Armstrong | We leave you much that is undone
"We leave you much that is undone. There are great ideas undiscovered, breakthroughs available to those who can remove one of truth's protective layers. There are places to go beyond belief. Those challenges are yours -- in many fields, not the least of which is space, because there lies human destiny"
Neil Alden Armstrong
Philip Plait | Geocentrism is a valid frame, but not the only one
"Geocentrism is a valid frame, but not the only one. I have two things to say that might surprise you: first, geocentrism is a valid frame of reference, and second, heliocentrism is not any more or less correct."
Philip Plait
Rainer Mausfeld | More than 50 years of elite democracy have shown us
"More than 50 years of elite democracy have shown us where this road leads. It is the path of destruction. The destruction of community, the destruction of the idea of community, the destruction of life by the millions, the destruction of cultural and civilizational substance - especially in the Third World - and the destruction of our ecological foundations. The beneficiaries of this destruction have no reason to change this path of destruction. The necessary energy for change can only come from below - from us. That is our task and that is our responsibility."
Professor Dr. Rainer Mausfeld,
Terrence McKenna | which disguises itself as an extra-terrestrial invasion
"We are part of a symbiotic relationship with something which disguises itself as an extra-terrestrial invasion so as not to alarm us."
Terence McKenna