A mixture of gullibility and cynicism had been an outstanding characteristic of mob mentality before it became an everyday phenomenon of masses.
Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it.
If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer.
Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow.
Political questions are far too serious to be left to the politicians.
Real power begins where secrecy begins.
The greatest evil perpetrated is the evil committed by nobodies, that is, by human beings who refuse to be persons.
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 and the distinction between true and false no longer exist.
The moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen. What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed…
The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.
The sad truth of the matter is that most evil is done by people who never made up their minds to be or do either evil or good.
The totalitarian attempt at global conquest and total domination has been the destructive way out of all impasses. Its victory may coincide with the destruction of humanity; wherever it has ruled, it has begun to destroy the essence of man.
This is the precept by which I have lived: Prepare for the worst; expect the best; and take what comes.