Quotes

"In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happened, you can bet it was planned that way."

-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

"If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."
-- James Madison

"Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth."
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

"I'll probably say it three more times. See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."
-- George W. Bush

"It looks like the Sand People did this, all right. Look, there's gaffi sticks, bantha tracks. It's just...I never heard of them hitting anything this big before."
"They didn't, but we are meant to think they did. And these blast points, too accurate for Sand People. Only Imperial storm troopers are so precise."
-- Star Wars

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."
-- Joseph Goebbels, German Minister of Propaganda

"Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all."
-- Unknown

"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials

"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

"Once upon a time Conspiracy Theorists insisted the world was round."

-- tweakenbush, internet message board

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower, farewell address

"Each measure is passed without great trouble or violent public opposition because the average man does not see at the time, how it can possibly affect his own existence - the only thing he is really interested in. Then, one day, he awakens suddenly to realize all his rights and liberties are gone."
-- Ayn Rand

"People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster."
-- James Baldwin

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin

"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time."
-- Abraham Lincoln

"The truth shall set you free."