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41 " The spectacle presents itself as a vast inaccessible reality that can never be questioned. Its sole message is: “What appears is good; what is good appears.” The passive acceptance it demands is already effectively imposed by its monopoly of appearances, its manner of appearing without allowing any reply. "
― Guy Debord , The Society of the Spectacle
42 " Tourism is the chance to go and see what has been made trite… the same modernization that has deprived travel of its temporal aspect has likewise deprived it of the reality of space. "
43 " The dominion of the concentrated spectacle is a police state. "
44 " The spectacle cannot be understood as an abuse of the world of vision, as a product of the techniques of mass dissemination of images. It is, rather, a Weltanschauung which has become actual, materially translated. It is a world vision which has become objectified. 6. The spectacle grasped in its totality is both the result and the project of the existing mode of production. It is not a supplement to the real world, an additional decoration. It is the heart of the unrealism of the real society. "
45 " So far from realizing philosophy, the spectacle philosophizes reality, and turns the material life of everyone into a universe of speculation. "
46 " But real adults — people who are masters of their own lives — are in fact nowhere to be found. And a youthful transformation of what exists is in no way characteristic of those who are now young; it is present solely in the economic system, in the dynamism of capitalism. It is things that rule and that are young, vying with each other and constantly replacing each other. "
47 " The spectacle is a permanent opium war designed to force people to equate goods with commodities and to equate satisfaction with a survival that expands according to its own laws. "
48 " Whoever becomes the ruler of a city that is accustomed to freedom and does not destroy it can expect to be destroyed by it, for it can always find a pretext for rebellion in the name of its former freedom and age-old customs, which are never forgotten despite the passage of time or any benefits it has received. No matter what the ruler does or what precautions he takes, the inhabitants will never forget that freedom or those customs — unless they are separated or dispersed . . .” —Machiavelli, The Prince "
49 " The false choices offered by spectacular abundance — choices based on the juxtaposition of competing yet mutually reinforcing spectacles and of distinct yet interconnected roles (signified and embodied primarily by objects) — develop into struggles between illusory qualities designed to generate fervent allegiance to quantitative trivialities. "
50 " The present phase of total occupation of social life by the accumulated results of the economy leads to a generalized sliding of having into appearing, from which all actual “having” must draw its immediate prestige and its ultimate function. "
51 " The spectacle in general, as the concrete inversion of life, is the autonomous movement of the non-living. "
52 " We have nothing of our own except time, which even the homeless can experience.” —Baltasar Gracián, The Art of Worldly Wisdom "
53 " system, as the advanced economic sector which directly shapes a growing multitude of image-objects, the spectacle is the main production of present-day society. "
54 " When ideology has become total through its possession of total power, and has changed from partial truth to totalitarian falsehood, historical thought has been so totally annihilated that history itself, even at the level of the most empirical knowledge, can no longer exist. Totalitarian bureaucratic society lives in a perpetual present in which whatever has previously happened is determined solely by its police. "
55 " The spectacle is the epic poem of this struggle, a struggle that no fall of Troy can bring to an end. The spectacle does not sing of men and their arms, but of commodities and their passions. "
56 " The things the spectacle presents as eternal are based on change, and must change as their foundations change. The spectacle is totally dogmatic, yet it is incapable of arriving at any really solid dogma. Nothing stands still for it. This instability is the spectacle’s natural condition, but it is completely contrary to its natural inclination. "
57 " Here, in order to remain human, men must remain the same. "
58 " El espectáculo en general, como inversión concreta de la vida, es el movimiento autónomo de lo no viviente "
59 " In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. "
60 " We must destroy the Spectacle itself, the whole apparatus of the commodity society... We must abolish the pseudo-needs and false desires which the system manufactures daily in order to preserve its power. "