Psychology Quotes – Insights and Reflections

"The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist."

Hannah Arendt

"The threat to freedom in Germany does not come with violence and noise, but rather quietly. It comes with all sorts of justifications, often well-intentioned ones. For example, when it comes to civil rights. In times when we are all concerned about the threat of terrorism, when we all naturally have to do everything we can for our citizens so that they can live happy lives unharmed. In times like these, parties and politicians come along and say, 'Now is the time to once again gradually reduce civil rights, which always bother us a little anyway. Freedom always dies inch by inch, as Karl Herrman Flach once put it. And freedom does not die because of politicians, it does not die because politicians want to restrict civil rights and liberties, but rather it becomes dangerous for freedom when citizens forget their own immune system, which must arm them against any threat to freedom. And for me, that is the decisive self-image of our party. That we say: For us, the citizen comes first and then the state. Other parties trust the state first and only then trust the citizens. Under the pretext of creating security, every civil right can be called into question. Under the pretext that security requires it, every tightening of the law can be decided. We fight this wherever we can, in the federal government, in parliament, but ladies and gentlemen, we also need the citizens. We also need self-confident citizens who do not accept the statement: “If you have nothing to hide, you should not complain.” No, we want a nation of self-confident citizens, not subjects of the state."

Guido Westerwelle

"Where thinking is isolated without free exchange with other minds and can no longer expand, delusion may follow. Whenever ideas are compartmentalized, behind and between curtains, the process of continual alert confrontation of facts and reality is hampered. The system freezes, becomes rigid, and dies of delusion."

Joost A.M. Meerloo

"If something is wrong for you or me, it is also wrong for the cop, the soldier, the mayor, the governor, the general, the Fed chairman, the president. Theft does not become acceptable when they call it taxation, counterfeiting when they call it monetary policy, kidnapping when they call it the draft, mass murder when they call it foreign policy. We understand that it is never acceptable to wield violence nor the threat of violence against the innocent, whether by the mugger or the politician."

Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr.

"Fortunately, some are born with a spiritual immune system that sooner or later rejects the illusory worldview that has been grafted onto them from birth through social conditioning. They begin to sense that something is wrong, and the search for answers begins. Inner knowledge and abnormal external experiences show them a side of reality that others ignore, and so their journey to awakening begins. Each step of the journey is taken by following the heart rather than following the crowd, and by choosing knowledge rather than the veils of ignorance."

Henri-Louis Bergson

"Our society is run by mad men, for crazy targets. I think we are driven by mad men, to a mad end, And I think I am imprisoned as a madman because I say that. That is what's insane about it."

John Lennon

"When it gets down to having to use violence, then you are playing the system’s game. The establishment will irritate you – pull your beard, flick your face – to make you fight. Because once they’ve got you violent, then they know how to handle you. The only thing they don’t know how to handle is non-violence and humor."

John Lennon

"Peace is only got by peaceful methods. To fight the establishment with their own weapons is no good because they always win and they’ve been winning for thousands of years. They know how to play the game 'violence'. What they don’t know how to handle is peaceful humour"

John Lennon

"Being honest may not get you a lot of friends but it’ll always get you the right ones."

John Lennon

"Peace is only possible through freedom, freedom only through truth. Therefore, untruth is the real evil that destroys all peace: untruth ranging from concealment to blind indifference, from lies to inner dishonesty, from thoughtlessness to doctrinaire fanaticism, from the untruthfulness of the individual to the untruthfulness of the public sphere."

Karl Jaspers

"No one you teach to think can ever obey as before. Not out of a rebellious spirit, but because of the habit of examining all things when in doubt."

Hannah Arendt

"....there are wolves hiding in the gray herd, that is, individuals who still know what freedom is. (...) That is the nightmare of those in power."

Ernst Jünger

"The well-known school critic and teacher John Taylor Gatto identifies seven lessons as the real teachings of school:

Confusing the student
Awakening class consciousness
Teaching indifference
Creating intellectual and emotional dependence
Weakening self-confidence
and Accustoming students to constant supervision.

"School condemns most people to being lowly building blocks in a pyramidal social model. In collaboration with television, schooling robs children of the time they need to develop a unique personality, thereby preventing them from growing up. School has replaced the ‘family curriculum’ with the components of privacy, independence, and social life. In its place has come the factory school, a prison for children's souls that fragments social relationships into networks and cannot be survived without damage."

"It replaces the intellectual growth of children with the violent creation of subjects.
It kills the curiosity of its subjects, places them in a dense fog of confusion from which many will never be able to free themselves in their entire lives, it blocks their path to individual freedom and denies them the fulfillment that comes with a free spirit.""

John Taylor Gatto

"The state of emergency will tend to be extended more and more. Dangerous situations will be artificially prolonged. States and governments will begin to get used to this power. They will start to like it. The surveillance states that are currently being established will outlast the coronavirus!"

Edward Snowden

"The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves."

Vladimir Lenin

"Vaccines, for Bill Gates, are a strategic philanthropy that feed his many vaccine-related businesses (including Microsoft’s ambition to control a global vac ID enterprise) and give him dictatorial control over global health policy—the spear tip of corporate neo-imperialism. Gates’ obsession with vaccines seems fueled by a messianic conviction that he is ordained to save the world with technology and a god-like willingness to experiment with the lives of lesser humans."

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

"Freedom can never be completely safeguarded by rules and laws. It is as much dependent on the courage, integrity, and responsibility of each of us as it is on these qualities in those who govern. Every trait in us and our leaders which points to passive submission to mere power betrays democratic freedom. In our American system of democratic government, three different powerful branches serve to check each other, the executive, the legislative, and the judiciary. Yet when there is no will to prevent encroachment of the power of one by any of the others, this system of checks, too, can degenerate."

Joost A.M. Meerloo

"he who dictates and formulates the words and phrases we use, he who is master of the press and radio, is master of the mind."

Joost A.M. Meerloo