Terence McKenna Quotes

Our blight is ide­olo­gies — they are the long-expected Antichrist!

Ideology knows no boundaries.

If you want a war, nourish a doctrine. Doctrines are the most frightful tyrants to which men are ever subject, because doctrines get inside a man's reason and betray him against himself. Civilized men have done their fiercest fighting for doctrines.

The fact that political ideologies are tangible realities is not a proof of their vitally necessary character. The bubonic plague was an extraordinarily powerful social reality, but no one would have regarded it as vitally necessary.

The menace is ideology, the dogma of politics. It is a prison that makes the American experiment impossible.

The more ideological, the politician, the greater his need for illusion

Ideology - that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the neccessary steadfastness and determination... Thanks to ideology, the twentieth century was fated to experience evildoing on a scale calculated in the millions.

We must stop the Tea Party before the United States Senate falls into the hands of extremists and ideologues who leave no room for reason or compromise, who don't recognize common ground even when they're standing on it.

We did not seek ideological confrontation.

The Right-wingers everywhere take themselves too seriously, whether in the U.S. or the U.K. And, by the way, so does the Left. The Left can take itself a little too seriously as well.

One of the things that really drove me crazy was the way in which college kids, in particular, are educated to think that ideology is dangerous and bad.

You know, this is a war of ideology, a war of thoughts and of faith. And we need people to really stand for faith and trust, not hope and change.

The War on Terrorism does not distinguish between ordinary terrorists and those espousing a political ideology.

… the intersection of ideology and incompetence.

You must fight not only against open fascism but also against concealed fascism which parades under the mask of “socialism.”

Leftist things have done terrible harm to our party in the past … Socialism may be ruined by rightism and may also be ruined by leftism. China must guard against rightism but should mainly guard against leftism.

... a secret weapon of a foreign ideology.

You cannot fight a people who are fighting for an ideology with no ideas of your own.

The neocons are not only denying reality but are attacking it.

A radical is a man with both feet firmly planted — in the air. A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward. A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards. A liberal is a man who uses his legs and his hands at the behest — at the command — of his head.

Politics or ideology must not get in the way of sound planning..

Military force can't defeat ideology.

I don't think that the Left has a monopoly on bad ideas. I don't think the Right has a monopoly on good ideas.

If you attach your mind to any ideology, you're going to be on a road, and that road may or may not lead you in a good direction. But you're gonna stay on that road because you are attached to an ideology. It could be a terrible road, but you stick with it regardless of rational thinking.

Ideology is a partial truth masquerading as the whole truth.