Abby Johnson Quotes

Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves.

People are dumb, People are dumb, Promise ‘em peace and kingdom come. / People are dopes, People are dopes, Play on their peeves, play on their hopes. / Make ‘em feel mad, Make ‘em feel mad, Everything’s lousy, everything’s bad. / Make ‘em afraid, Make ‘em afraid, Show ‘em they’re dupes, tricked and betrayed. / Then if they bite, Then if they bite, You will have fools to fight your fight.

If people tell an untruth long enough and loud enough, they begin to believe it themselves.

We're awash in toxic memes right now. One of the most toxic, I think because it enables so many others, is the idea that truth doesn't matter, that truth is just relative, that there's no such thing as establishing the truth of anything. Your truth, my truth, we're all entitled to our own truths. That's pernicious, it's attractive to many people, and it is used to exploit people in all sorts of nefarious ways. The truth really does matter.

By oft repeating an untruth, men come to believe it themselves.

I have taken advantage of other people's weaknesses in order to cover my own.

One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern, or attracted much sustained inquiry. In consequence, we have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves.

That's the crazy thing about lies. You start to fall for them, yourself.

Especially difficult when the first and best unconscious move of a dedicated liar is to persuade himself he's sincere. And once he's sincere, all deception vanishes.

The greater your powers of self-delusion, the greater will be the apparent efficacy of this untruth.

Belief in the lie is the life of the lie.

It is in the ability to deceive oneself that the greatest talent is shown.

Come work for me, and I’ll tell you.” My eyes went to his. “You are a thief, a cheat, a murderer, and a not-nice man,” I said calmly. “I don’t like you.” He shrugged, the motion making him look utterly harmless. “I’m not a thief,” he said. “And I don’t mind manipulating you into working for me when I need it.” He smiled, showing me perfect teeth. “I enjoy it, actually.

The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him.

When we successfully deceive others, they are not aware of it; the same is true with self-deception.

What I say and what I'm really experiencing - those universes are very different.

For when I fool the people I fear, I fool myself as well.

Heroes have gone out; quacks have come in; the reign of quacks has not ended with the nineteenth century. The sceptre is held with a firmer grasp; the empire has a wider boundary. We are all the slaves of quackery in one shape or another. Indeed, one portion of our being is always playing the successful quack to the other.

I have met thousands and thousands of pro-choice men and women. I have never met anyone who is pro-abortion.

When you give false information you tend to restrict the freedom of choice to others.

Dishonesty is the raw material not of quacks only, but also in great part dupes.

The bird thinks it a favor to give the fish a lift in the air

Trying to get today's Republicans to accept basic facts is like trying to get your dog to take a pill. You have to feed them the truth wrapped in a piece of baloney, hold their snouts shut and stroke their throats. and even then, just when you think they've swallowed it, they spit it out on the linoleum.

The thing is too that when you sell people a false reality and they take that to be the norm, when that false reality is light-years from what’s really happening, that in itself is a tremendous defense mechanism because when you start talking about what is actually happening, it is so different from what people perceive to be happening. They just can’t make that jump; it’s too insane for them.

Though the Americans can be fooled, as they have been, and they can be propagandized, as they have been... But, as Lincoln said, "You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time. But you can't fool all of the people all of the time." And so hope lies in the fact that little by little, even if the American people can be fooled, even if they continue to be fooled in the 2004 presidential election, they will gradually learn, as they have learned - for instance, in the Vietnam War and turned against the Vietnam War.