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1 " Such was the new technique for the conquest of power. Fool those who were foolable, buy those who were buyable, and kill the rest. "
― Upton Sinclair , Wide is the Gate
2 " So it is that political parties degenerate; so the common people give their devotion to a cause, and discover too late how they have been betrayed. "
3 " Adolf Hitler facts had no meaning except as they served his purpose. "
4 " political opinions were an arsenal of weapons from which he picked up those which served his need at a certain moment of conflict. When conscientious, "
5 " the dark shadow of conflict was looming over the world again; but no use to say it, for people didn’t want to believe it and they knew how to believe what they chose. "
6 " For when you let down the bars and admitted the right to lie and to cheat, you were undermining the very bases upon which human societies are built. Particularly when you admitted the right of political parties to lie and cheat, for how, then, could anybody have faith in them? How could their own followers know what they were or what they would become? "
7 " proposal was "
8 " forty thousand of them. It was a "
9 " What we have to do is to judge which side stands for freedom and enlightenment and which for medievalism and superstition. "
10 " Blum was at the climax of a grueling campaign and showed its effects; always thin and rather frail, he was now close to exhaustion. This is one of the tragic consequences of the democratic system, that in order to get a chance to do anything a man has to go through an ordeal which all but deprives him of the power to do it. The reactionary leaders, having the backing of great wealth and ninety per cent of the press, can take things easily, while the people’s champion has to drag himself from one meeting to the next, shout himself hoarse, and sit up most of the night attending committee meetings. "
11 " couldn’t say anything comforting, for he knew that civil wars are not polite; he knew, what these privileged people had never troubled to learn, the age-old wrongs which had set the fires of hatred to blazing in the hearts of wage-slaves. "
12 " Hitler has written in his book that you can get any lie believed if you repeat it often enough; and especially if it’s a big lie—because people will say that nobody would dare to tell one as big as that. It is no exaggeration to say that he has made Germany into a headquarters of the Lie; he has told so many and so often that nobody in his country has any means of distinguishing truth from falsehood. "
13 " The excessively rich were as shy as wild birds; everybody was hunting them and they took wing at the least hint of danger. They were abnormally sensitive and had to be handled as if they were made of wet tissue paper. They would absorb flattery like sponges—but only that subtle kind which assured them that they were above flattery. "
14 " she was the kindest of souls; if she had ever done harm to any human being it was because the social system was too complicated for her to understand the consequences of her actions. "
15 " no use to say it, for people didn’t want to believe it and they knew how to believe what they chose. "
16 " All news was propaganda now; you had to learn the special slant of each station and discount its brand of falsification or suppression. "