Neil Postman Quotes

To live sanely in Los Angeles ... you have to cultivate the art of staying awake. You must learn to resist (firmly but not tensely) the unceasing hypnotic suggestions of the radio, the billboards, the movies and the newspapers; those demon voices which are forever whispering in your ear what you should desire, what you should fear, what you should wear and eat and drink and enjoy, what you should think and do and be.

They say you better listen to the voice of reason But they don't give you any choice 'cause they think that it's treason. So you had better do as you are told. You better listen to the radio.

That just the way it is. Some things will never change. That's just the way it is. But don't you believe them.

Under conditions of terror, most people will comply but some people will not.

If we start creating our own maps, our own world, our own vision, then there's no way for the cultural tyrants to program us. And, that's why they're pushing so hard to get more outrageous.

Don't buy into the corporate mythology that's been rammed down our throats for all these years.

You will not be able to stay home, brother./You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out./You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip,/Skip out for beer during commercials,/Because the revolution will not be televised.

I am now going to make you a gift that will stay with you the rest of your life. For the rest of your life, every time you say, "We've always done it that way," my ghost will appear and haunt you for twenty-four hours.

A lot of people just capitulate and say, "Well, that's just the way things are." I think that can be deadly for creative people.

Obey, obey, obey, then do what you want.

It may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep your head down, plod along, and appease those who demand: 'Sit down and shut up,' but that's the worthless, easy path; that's a quitter's way out.

We have conferred a mystic popularity upon officials whose only virtue is their timidity; while our scorn of rebels and reformers is so great that we have ceased to persecute them. The capitals and governments of the world are in the hands of caution; and change comes over them only in the night, unseen.

Sometimes I wish they'd ask for my wisdom more often - there are so many things I could tell them; things I wish they would change. But they don't want change. Life here is so orderly, so predictable - so painless. It's what they've chosen.

The greatest enemy of authority, therefore, is contempt, and the surest way to undermine it is laughter.

Each one of us, in his timidity, has a limit beyond which he is outraged. It is inevitable that he who by concentrated application has extended this limit for himself, should arouse the resentment of those who have accepted conventions which, since accepted by all, require no initiative of application. And this resentment generally takes the form of meaningless laughter or of criticism, if not persecution.

The enemy of the black is not the white. The enemy of capitalist is not communist, the enemy of homosexual is not heterosexual, the enemy of Jew is not Arab, the enemy of youth is not the old, the enemy of hip is not redneck, the enemy of Chicano is not gringo and the enemy of women is not men. We all have the same enemy. The enemy is the tyranny of the dull mind. The enemy is every expert who practices technocratic manipulation, the enemy is every proponent of standardization and the enemy is every victim who is so dull and lazy and weak as to allow himself to be manipulated and standardized.

Tradition is laziness.

I fight authority and authority always wins.

A high standard of living is usually accompanied by a low standard of thinking.

The voices of conformity speak so loudly. Don't listen to them. No one does the right thing out of fear. If you ever utter the words, 'We've always done it that way,' I urge you to wash out your mouth with soap.

I'm gonna be a new kind of clown. I'm gonna stand in the middle of the ring and laugh at the folks.

The problem in this world is not civil disobedience...th e problem in this world is civil obedience.

I don't like to channel surf. You guys like it, don't you. You guys like to change the channel. We like to change you.

It requires a certain kind of bravery, I suppose, to choose the status quo. There's a certain boldness to inaction.

standing in line is a form of oppression