Gustave de Molinari | Anarchy is no guarantee
"Anarchy is no guarantee that some people won't kill, injure, kidnap, defraud, or steal from others. Government is a guarantee that some will."
Gustave de Molinari
Zitate
Nassim Nicholas Taleb | gap between journalists and the public
"The fact that there is a gap between journalists and the public is shown above all by the fact that the former are much more interested in the opinion of their colleagues than in the judgment of their readers. Compare this with a healthy system, for example that of restaurants. As we [...] have seen, restaurant owners care about the opinions of their diners, not those of other restaurant owners, which keeps restaurant owners doing what their job is; it prevents the industry as a whole from moving away from diners' interests. In addition, skin in the game creates diversity, and monoculture is prevented. Economic uncertainty exacerbates the situation. Journalists currently work in the most insecure profession imaginable: the majority live hand-to-mouth, and ostracism by colleagues would be fatal. This makes them easy victims for manipulative lobbyists, as has been seen in connection with genetically modified organisms (GMOs), the wars in Syria, and more. In this profession, if you say something unpopular about Brexit, GMOs, or Putin, you're toast. It's the exact opposite of professions where being a follower is punished."
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Ernst Jünger | The most horrifying prospect is that of technocracy
"The most horrifying prospect is that of technocracy, controlled rule exercised by maimed and mutilating minds."
Ernst Jünger
Hans Hermann Hoppe | Democracy is a soft variant of communism
"Democracy has nothing to do with freedom. Democracy is a soft variant of communism, and rarely in the history of ideas has it been taken for anything else."
Prof. Hans Hermann Hoppe
Kwai Chang Caine | the prison is within you
"If you trust me completely…I can help you. If I tell you you are not within a prison the prison is within you can you believe that?"
Kwai Chang Caine
Roland Baader | The only true human right
"The only true human right is the right to be left alone - by anyone you didn't invite or welcome"
Roland Baader
The Libertarian Pilot | rules of state power
"We were raised by people who dutifully follow the rules of state power. We were brought up to follow the rules & not question the state. But now malicious people make the rules. It's time to teach our children something different."
The Libertarian Pilot
Joost A.M. Meerloo | democratic or totalitarian
"In my own experience, I have been amazed to see how unrealistic are the bases for political opinion in general. Only rarely have I found a person who has chosen any particular political party - democratic or totalitarian - through study and comparison of principles."
Joost A.M. Meerloo
Carl Gustav Jung | confrontation with the world of darkness
"Filling the conscious mind with ideal conceptions is a characteristic of Western theosophy, but not the confrontation with the shadow and the world of darkness. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The later procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular."
Carl Gustav Jung
John Adams | Fear is the foundation of most governments
"Fear is the foundation of most governments; but it is so sordid and brutal a passion, and renders men in whose breasts it predominates so stupid and miserable, that Americans will not be likely to approve of any political institution which is founded on it."
John Adams
George Orwell | The further a society moves away from the truth
"The further a society moves away from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it."
George Orwell
Hannah Arendt | The real goal of totalitarian ideology
“The real goal of totalitarian ideology is not the transformation of the external conditions of human existence and not the revolutionary reorganization of the social order, but the transformation of human nature itself, which, as it is, constantly opposes the totalitarian process. … What is at stake in total domination is really the essence of man.”
Hannah Arendt
Ralph Waldo Trine | The doctor of the future
"The time will come when the work of the physician will not be to treat and attempt to heal the body, but to heal the mind, which in turn will heal the body. The true physician will be a teacher; his or her work will be to keep people well, instead of trying to heal them after sickness."
Ralph Waldo Trine
Gore Vidal | chaos of superstition, misinformation and prejudice
"At any given moment, public opinion is a chaos of superstition, misinformation and prejudice."
Gore Vidal
Carl Gustav Jung | The world will ask you who you are
"The world will ask you who you are, and if you don't know, the world will tell you."
Carl Gustav Jung
Ignazio Silone | If at a future moment fascism will return
"If at a future moment fascism will return, it will not be so stupid as to say: 'I am fascism.' It will say: 'I am antifascism.'"
Ignazio Silone
Noam Chomsky | course of intellectual self defense
"Citizens of the democratic societies should undertake a course of intellectual self defense to protect themselves from manipulation and control, and to lay the basis for meaningful democracy."
Noam Chomsky
Murray Rothbard | The function of the statist ideologists
"The function of the statist ideologists is to weave the false set of Emperor's clothes, to convince the public of a massive double standard: that when the State commits the gravest of high crimes it is really not doing so, but doing something else that is necessary, proper, vital, and even – in former ages – by divine command. The age-old success of the ideologists of the State is perhaps the most gigantic hoax in the history of mankind"
Murray Rothbard
Gustav Kuschinsky | If it is claimed
"If it is claimed that a substance has no side effects, then there is a strong suspicion that it does not have any principal effect."
Gustav Kuschinsky
Maximilien de Robespierre | The secret of liberty
"The secret of liberty is to enlighten men, as that of tyranny is to keep them in ignorance."
Maximilien de Robespierre
St. Antony the Great | You are mad; you are not like us
"A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, 'You are mad; you are not like us.'"
St. Antony the Great
Joost A.M. Meerloo | Numbing the senses by monotonously repeating
"Numbing the senses by monotonously repeating an assertion is a key element in utilizing mind control techniques."
Joost A.M. Meerloo
Joost A.M. Meerloo | Ready made opinions
"Ready made opinions can be distributed day by day through the press, radio, and so on, again and again, till they reach the nerve cell and implant a fixed pattern in the brain. Consequently, guided public opinion is the result, according to Pavlovian theoreticians, of good propaganda technique, and the polls [are] a verification of the temporary successful action of the Pavlovian machinations on the mind."
Joost A.M. Meerloo
Joost A.M. Meerloo | hammering noises of arguments and propaganda
"The continual intrusion into our minds of the hammering noises of arguments and propaganda can lead to two kinds of reactions. It may lead to apathy and indifference, the I-don't-care reaction, or to a more intensified desire to study and to understand. Unfortunately, the first reaction is the more popular one."
Joost A.M. Meerloo
Arthur Versluis | The New Inquisitions
"Totalitarianism is the modern phenomenon of total centralized state power coupled with the obliteration of individual human rights: in the totalized state, there are those in power, and there are the objectified masses, the victims."
Arthur Versluis