Tony Benn Quotes

It's easier to control people when they're afraid.

If you're injecting fear into other people, then you're trying to kill their minds. You're trying to get them to stop thinking.

Honestly, it’s so easy to get what you want from people if they think you’re a psycho.

They try to make you think they care about what you do but they don't. They don't want you to act a certain way. So you're easy to understand. So you won't pose a threat to them.

The idea that fear can manipulate people and you can use fear in the media to get what you want is happening right now. I think it has a lot of relevance between 2017 and 70's.

I think people, unfortunately, do live in constant fear. I think the government - and people in general - create scenarios people fear, because ultimately through fear you can control people. I wish we could live in a world where there would be no fear, but it's a driving force in many decisions people make these days, whether it's personal, economic, or even job-related. A lot of people stay out of fear in a job they hate.

People who want to manipulate you will fear your joy, because it's not easily controlled.

Propaganda must not concern itself with what is best in man - the highest goals humanity sets for itself, its noblest and most precious feelings. Propaganda does not aim to elevate man, but to make him serve. It must therefore utilize the most common feelings, the most widespread ideas, the crudest patterns, and in so doing place itself on a very low level with regard to what it wants man to do and to what end. Hate, hunger, and pride make better levers of propaganda than do love or impartiality.

This is how you control your domestic population - by making people afraid and by identifying an enemy.

People only respond to fear.

I think a lot of people vote in fear. People like Donald Trump are good at casting this shadow of fear over people, making them believe if they don't vote for him then the terrorists are going to get them or whatever. All his ways are to scare people to vote for him. It's so sad.

It's easier to scare someone than to persuade him.

When you're appealing to people's fears and anxieties, you can make some gains.

The technique of a mass movement aims to infect people with a malady and then offer the movement as a cure.

And the things that we fear are a weapon to be held against us.

You can compel fear. You can even make someone feel they're in love if they're isolated and dependent for long enough. But laughter is free.

Hearts and Minds

Cults make people sing so hard for so long - because it over-oxygenates the blood and sets them up to faint.

When your opponent fears you, then's the moment when you give the fear its own rein, give it the time to work on him. Let it become terror. The terrified man fights himself. Eventually, he attacks in desperation. That is the most dangerous moment, but the terrified man can be trusted usually to make a fatal mistake. You are being trained here to detect these mistakes and use them.

Pleasure can be used to enslave a people just as effectively as pain.

Decent people are so easy to manipulate, Potter.

By manipulating queuing, by manipulating expectation, you can lead people to a fundamental confrontation, not only with themselves, but with the Other.

Conservatives understand Halloween, liberals only understand Christmas. If you want to control a population, don't give it social services, give it a scary adversary.

We are manipulated by fear and the fear of others, and how we're often manipulated into doing things and voting in ways that are against our own best interest. Look at healthcare. People will tell you that healthcare is socialism and communism, and they're doing this while their wife needs an operation and their kid needs braces.

As long as we respond predictably to what feels good and what feels bad, it is easy for others to exploit our preferences for their own ends.