Ideas to Ponder

"The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it."
-Joseph Mengele

"I know that today denouncers are appearing, almost a pile of them, complaining about someone or another, mostly from envy, since they perhaps want to have someone’s job, or because they do not like someone. People are ostracized, gossiped about, or denounced. People’s comrades, he who denounces someone else reveals his true character. He who openly says: “I accuse” will be listened to, but he must be willing to stand by his accusation. Denouncers are those who carry on their filthy business at night, with anonymous letters with the worst sort of accusations. Mostly, this consists of lies. We must keep our state and our people pure. Anyone has the right to make an accusation, but if his charges are false, if they are lies, the laws of libel apply. If we follow this guideline, I am sure that this law will be a blessing four our people despite all the difficulties."
-Hermann Göring, "Nationalismus und Sozialismus: Rede auf der NSBO. im Berliner Sportpalast am 9. April 1933," Hermann Göring: Reden und Aufsätze (Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP, 1941), pp. 36-49.

"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?"
-Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi

"People are tired of liberty. They have had a surfeit of it. Liberty is no longer a chaste and austere virgin…. Today’s youth are moved by other slogans…Order, Hierarchy, Discipline."
-Benito Mussolini

“Would you rather have butter or guns? Preparedness makes us powerful. Butter merely makes us fat.”
--Hermann Göring

"War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
-John Stuart Mill

“Shoot first and ask questions later, and don't worry, no matter what happens, I will protect you.”
-Hermann Goering (1893-1946)

"“The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over”"
-Joseph Goebbels

"The only freedom deserving the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental and spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest."
-John Stuart Mill

"Truth resides in every human heart, and one has to search for it there, and to be guided by truth as one sees it. But no one has a right to coerce others to act according to his own view of truth."

"Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs protection against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them."
-John Stuart Mill

“Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.”
Joseph Goebbels

""During a war, news should be given out for instruction rather than information."
-Joseph Goebbels

"It is the absolute right of the state to supervise the formation of public opinion."
-Joseph Goebbels

"The size of the lie is a definite factor in causing it to be believed, for the vast masses of a nation are in the depths of their hearts more easily deceived than they are consciously and intentionally bad. The primitive simplicity of their minds renders them a more easy prey to a big lie than a small one, for they themselves often tell little lies, but would be ashamed to tell big lies."
(1889-1945)

"This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilised nation has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future!"

"In relation to the political decontamination of our public life, the government will embark upon a systematic campaign to restore the nation’s moral and material health. The whole educational system, theater, film, literature, the press and broadcasting – all these will be used as a means to this end."

"All propaganda must be so popular and on such an intellectual level, that even the most stupid of those toward whom it is directed will understand it... Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way around, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise."

"The efficiency of the truly national leader consists primarily in preventing the division of the attention of a people, and always in concentrating it on a single enemy."