David J. C. MacKay Quotes

In politics there is a lot of spin—a lot of BS. My job is to cut through the BS.

Truth is a very powerful political weapon against those who are trying to conceal it.

Hitler and Joseph Goebbels understood that if you say something loud and long enough many people will believe it. A good journalist's first priority should be to separate propaganda from fact - but sometimes its very hard to do that.

This commitment to truth is something one senses more and more Americans yearning for, just as they are becoming more and more sophisticated at knowing when the truth is being obscured - an irony that seems to elude most of today's elected officials.

Any politician or campaigner trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the public won't get very far.

There's good and bad everywhere in any aspect in life. The only people who we can't really trust are politicians. Because those guys lie to everybody and constantly.

You may be able to fool the voters, but not the atmosphere.

Lincoln was right about not fooling all the people all of the time. But the Republicans haven't given up trying.

Self government cannot work if the people do not know what their rulers are doing and why.

Americans are good people, and at times we can be wise. But we're often under-informed by media, misinformed by our government and ill-served by both.

The media helps keep government honest.

The British public cannot be treated like fools.

The public are not fools.

When there are falsehoods and ludicrous statements made at briefings, we've got to call that out.

This is politics. In politics, you only show the cake but not the ingredients. The time will come when I show you the cake and the ingredients.

The public can't be fooled all the time.

Those who were behind conspiracies against me and my government will be exposed.

In my experience in Washington, when people refuse to come clean, it is usually because they are hiding dirty laundry.

For too long, too many people dependent on Social Security have been cruelly frightened by individuals seeking political gain through demagoguery and outright falsehood, and this must stop.

Not enough of our society is trained how to understand and interpret quantitative information. This activity is a centerpiece of science literacy to which we should all strive-the future health, wealth, and security of our democracy depend on it. Until that is achieved, we are at risk of making under-informed decisions that affect ourselves, our communities, our country, and even the world.

The only real diplomacy ever performed by a diplomat is in deceiving their own people after their dumbness has got them into a war.

We have Internet now and people are not stupid. But it seems that some people are trying to push the same agenda of the Cold War of conspiracy theories and amazing achievements that are very easily traced and validated.

We'll see if [Donald Trump] really means it though; he will get a chance to deliver on that promise. And if he doesn't, we'll make sure the people know about it.

All the wrong people have the power of suggestion and the freedom of the press is meaningless if nobody asks a question.

It is a tribute to the American people that our leaders perceived that they had to lie to us, it is not a tribute to us that we were so easily misled.