Psychology Quotes – Insights and Reflections

"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

"When exposing a crime is treated as committing a crime, you are being ruled by criminals"

Edward Snowden

"When people choose to believe a lie, their thinking becomes distorted and twisted because they have to distort the facts to fit their beliefs. Their thinking is blocked. And part of them knows that they have chosen a lie, creating deep tension within them as they try to hide from themselves that they have chosen the lie. The truth then becomes a terrible threat to the false personality built on the lie, and the anger and force with which they attack is proportional to their fear of self-exposure."

Henry See

"Let yourself be infected by humanity and then thoroughly infect your surroundings, so that the virus of charity conquers the world before another virus does."

Christa Schyboll

"This is the psychology of people who, when a country has become a dictatorship, cry out, ‘I'm not to blame! I only wanted the government to control prices, wages, profits, industry, science, health care, the arts, education, television, and the press! I was never in favor of a dictatorship!’"

Ayn Rand

"When we give government the power to make medical decisions for us, we in essence accept that the state owns our bodies."

Ron Paul

"I did my best to promote the oldest goal of our psychological warfare in this way: to incite Germans against Germans."

Sefton Delmer

"Anything goes. The nastier, the better. Lies, deceit—everything."

Sefton Delmer

"All dictatorships feed on the fear of their subjects."

Richard von Weizsäcker

"We’ve been conditioned to think that only politicians can solve our problems. But at some point, maybe we will wake-up and recognize that it was the politicians who created our problems"

Ben Carson

"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."

Arthur Schopenhauer

"There can be no liberty for a community which lacks the means by which to detect lies"

Walter Lippmann

"Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of goodness than malice. Evil can be protested against, exposed, and, if necessary, prevented by force; evil always carries within it the seeds of its own destruction, leaving at least a feeling of unease in people. We are defenseless against stupidity. Neither protests nor force can achieve anything here; reasons do not catch on; facts that contradict one's own prejudices simply do not need to be believedin such cases, the stupid person even becomes critical, and if they are unavoidable, they can simply be dismissed as meaningless isolated cases. Unlike evil people, stupid people are completely satisfied with themselves; indeed, they even become dangerous because they are easily provoked into attacking others. Therefore, we must be more cautious with stupid people than with evil people. ... On closer inspection, it becomes apparent that any strong external display of power, whether political or religious, strikes a large part of humanity with stupidity. ... The Bible verse that says the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 1:7) tells us that the only real way to overcome stupidity is through the inner liberation of human beings to live responsibly before God."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"The great cease to rule when the small cease to crawl"

Friedrich Schiller

"Let us not forget that the beginning of Nazi rule was not marked by Auschwitz, but by the exclusion of people who were considered disruptive or harmful."

André Heller

"Although people initially submit under coercion and force, those who come after them obey without regret and willingly do what their predecessors did because they had to. That is why men who are born under the yoke and then raised and brought up in slavery are content to live in their original circumstances without further effort, unaware of any other state or right, and considering the state into which they were born to be entirely natural. ... the powerful influence of custom is in no way more compelling than in this, namely, the habituation to submission."

Étienne de La Boétie

"The moment of choice and decision comes for everyone: whether to live their own life, a deeply personal life in its fullest measure, or to settle for that false, shallow, degrading existence that the hypocrisy of the world demands of them."

Oscar Wilde