Zitate

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

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

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

Voltaire | I disapprove of what you say

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"

Voltaire

Charles Bukowski | How in the hell could a man enjoy

"How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?"

Charles Bukowski

Gabriel Laub | Die hartnäckigsten Anhänger der Sklaverei

"The most stubborn supporters of slavery were not the slave owners, but the privileged slaves."

Gabriel Laub

Adam Weishaupt | The hankering of the mind is irresistible

"Oh mortal man, is there anything you cannot be made to believe?. Of all the means I know to lead men, the most effectual is a concealed mystery.The hankering of the mind is irresistible."

Adam Weishaupt

Vladimir Lenin | Why should freedom of speech and freedom of press be allowed?

"Why should freedom of speech and freedom of press be allowed? Why should a government which is doing what it believes to be right allow itself to be criticized? It would not allow opposition by lethal weapons. Ideas are much more fatal things than guns. Why should any man be allowed to buy a printing press and disseminate pernicious opinions calculated to embarrass the government?"

Vladimir Lenin

Max Weber | All political entities are violent entities

"All political entities are violent entities. But the type and degree of the use or threat of external violence against other similar entities plays a specific role in the structure and fate of political communities. Not every political entity is equally "expansive" in the sense that it seeks power externally, i.e., making force available for the purpose of acquiring political power over other territories and communities, whether in the form of incorporation or [of] dependency. The political entities are thus, to varying degrees, outwardly turned entities of violence."

Max Weber

Vladimir Lenin | We can and must write in a language

"We can and must write in a language which sows among the masses hate, revulsion, and scorn toward those who disagree with us."

Vladimir Lenin

Bill Maher | If kids knew what they wanted to be at age eight

"If kids knew what they wanted to be at age eight, the world would be filled with cowboys and princesses. I wanted to be a pirate. Thank God nobody took me seriously and scheduled me for eye removal and peg leg surgery."

Bill Maher

Theodore Dalrymple | Political correctness is communist propaganda

"Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to."

Theodore Dalrymple

Mark Passio | The more moral a population is, the freer it becomes

"The more moral a population is, the freer it becomes. The more immoral a population is, the deeper into bondage and slavery it goes. Another way of saying this is to say that the presence of truth and morality in the lives of the people of any given society is always inversely proportional to the presence of tyranny and slavery in that society. The more truth and morality there is, the less tyranny and slavery there is. The less truth and morality there is, the more tyranny and slavery there is. That's the Law of Freedom. And many people don't want to understand that; that these two things are inextricably interwoven and connected and can never be separated from each other: the presence of truth and morality in a society and the presence of freedom or its lack in a society."

Mark Passio

Robbie Williams | We’re in a post-truth world

"We're in a post-truth world where you can't believe the media, you can't believe Big Pharma, you can't believe politicians, you can't believe what you're eating, you can't believe yourself. Since we've existed, (if) there is a time where this whole empire could fall, it's now. Of course these things are going to arise because we can't trust anybody or anything. And I personally just believe and invest in my wife and my kids and my family. And yeah, I believe in them,"

Robbie Williams

Prof. Stephen Schneider | to capture the public’s imagination…

"We need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination… So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts… Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest"

Prof. Stephen Schneider

Edmund Burke | But what is liberty without wisdom and without virtue?

"But what is liberty without wisdom and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint. Those who know what virtuous liberty is, cannot bear to see it disgraced by incapable heads, on account of their having high-sounding words in their mouths."

Edmund Burke

Dr. Markus Krall | Every generation has been exposed to socialist seduction

"Every generation has been exposed to socialist seduction in ever new disguises. And always a part falls for the totalitarian ideologists. And again and again there is a confrontation between humanity and totalitarianism. Also today. #EcoSocialism"

Dr. Markus Krall

Smedley Darlington Butler | Beautiful ideals were painted for our boys

"Beautiful ideals were painted for our boys who were sent out to die. The was the "war to end wars." This was the "war to make the world safe for democracy." No one told them that dollars and cents were the real reason. No one mentioned to them, as they marched away, that their going and their dying would mean huge war profits. No one told these American soldiers that they might be shot down by bullets made by their own brothers here. No one told them that the ships on which they were going to cross might be torpedoed by submarines built with United State patents. They were just told it was to be a "glorious adventure". Thus, having stuffed patriotism down their throats, it was decided to make them help pay for the war, too. So, we gave them the large salary of $30 a month! All that they had to do for this munificent sum was to leave their dear ones behind, give up their jobs, lie in swampy trenches, eat canned willy (when they could get it) and kill and kill and kill...and be killed"

Smedley Darlington Butler

Lysander Spooner | agents of the people

"If a man is my servant, agent, or attorney, I necessarily make myself responsible for all his acts done within the limits of the power I have intrusted to him. If I have intrusted him, as my agent, with either absolute power, or any power at all, over the persons or properties of other men than myself, I thereby necessarily make myself responsible to those other persons for any injuries he may do them, so long as he acts within the limits of the power I have granted him. But no individual who may be injured in his person or property, by acts of Congress, can come to the individual electors, and hold them responsible for these acts of their so-called agents or representatives. This fact proves that these pretended agents of the people, of everybody, are really the agents of nobody."

Lysander Spooner

Lysander Spooner | Majorities, as such, afford no guarantees for justice

"Majorities, as such, afford no guarantees for justice. They are men of the same nature as minorities. They have the same passions for fame, power, and money, as minorities; and are liable and likely to be equally - perhaps more than equally, because more boldly - rapacious, tyrannical and unprincipled, if intrusted with power."

Lysander Spooner

C.S. Lewis | Of all tyrannies

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals."

C.S. Lewis

Jacques Élisée Reclus | the policy of hatred always breeds hatred

"History permits the well-founded observation that the policy of hatred always breeds hatred and fatally complicates the general situation, if not leads to final ruin. How many nations perished in this way. Oppressors as well as oppressed! Should we also be doomed? I hope not! And I owe this hope also to the anarchist thinking, which penetrates day by day more and more into the light and renews the human initiative."

Jacques Élisée Reclus

Howard Zinn | Our problem is civil obedience

"As soon as you say the topic is civil disobedience, you are saying our problem is civil disobedience. That is not our problem.... Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is the numbers of people all over the world who have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience. And our problem is that scene in All Quiet on the Western Front where the schoolboys march off dutifully in a line to war. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world, in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem."

Howard Zinn

The Analyst | Die Schäfchen gehen nirgendwo hin. Sie mögen meine Welt

"Die Schäfchen gehen nirgendwo hin. Sie mögen meine Welt. Sie wollen diese Sentimentalität nicht. Sie wollen weder Freiheit noch Selbstbestimmung. Sie wollen kontrolliert werden. Sie sehnen sich nach dem Komfort der Gewissheit. Und das bedeutet, ihr zwei, zurück in euren Kapseln, bewusstlos und allein, genau wie sie."

The Analyst (Matrix Resurrections (2021))

Jason Evert | they overlook their power to turn our hearts

"When a woman dresses modestly, I can take her seriously as a woman because she doesn’t look like she’s begging for attention. She knows that she’s worth discovering. Such humility is radiant. Unfortunately, many women are so preoccupied with turning men’s heads that they overlook their power to turn our hearts."

Jason Evert

Charlie Chaplin | As for politics, I’m an anarchist

"As for politics, I’m an anarchist. I hate governments and rules and fetters. Can’t stand caged animals. People must be free."

Charlie Chaplin

Julian Assange | Every time we witness an injustice

"Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence and thereby eventually lose all ability to defend ourselves and those we love. In a modern economy it is impossible to seal oneself off from injustice."

Julian Assange