"The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force."
"The great masses of the people ... will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one."
"The great strength of the totalitarian state is that it forces those who fear it to imitate it."
"The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belonged to one category."
"Who says I am not under the special protection of God?"
"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."
"The function of propaganda does not lie in the scientific training of the individual, but in calling the masses' attention to certain facts,
processes, and necessities, whose significance is thus for the first time placed within their field of vision. The whole art consists in doing this so
skillfully that everyone will be convinced that the fact is real, the process necessary, the necessity correct."
"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is
to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany.
That is understood.
But it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along to fight a war, ... 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 peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It
works the same in any country."
The last one was Goering, but what the hey.
[Edited on 24-2-2004 by kegs]