Daniel Ellsberg Quotes

Almost all the opinions we have are taken on authority and on credit.

A substantial proportion of people do what they are told to do, irrespective of the content of the act, and without pangs of conscience, so long as they perceive that the command comes from a legitimate authority.

most Americans are in deep awe of things-as-they-are. Even with everything this obviously out of control, they still tell themselves that those in authority must know what they are doing, and must be describing our condition to us as it really is; they still take it for granted that somehow what is, what is done, must make sense, can't really be insane. These assumptions exercise a tyranny over their minds.

If people aren't educated, they can't question. If they can't question, they can't change anything, which is great for the status quo and all the people who can question them at their own level.

The man who accepts opinions because they have been entertained by distinguished people, is a mental snob.

Just because you’re taught that something’s right and everyone believes it’s right, it don’t make it right.

Never assume that people in positions of responsibility are behaving responsibly.

In the humanities and social sciences, and in fields like journalism and economics and so on, people have to be trained to be managers, and controllers, and to accept things, and not to question too much.

An expert is someone who articulates the needs of those in power.

They must find it hard to take Truth for authority who have so long mistaken Authority for Truth.

Intellectual respectability required mental health, and it was becoming evident to me by then that "mental health" consisted of trusting everyone about everything as much as possible - and, for good measure, poking fun at anyone who didn't. Especially to be trusted were the mass media, whose owners and personnel were not to be regarded as minions of the Establishment because, as they themselves used to attest with confidence, there was no Establishment in the United States of America. Only foreigners and paranoids believed (otherwise).

In real life, what scares me is politicians, corporations and people that think they know what the world should be.

Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth.

There are good reasons for being obedient, but being unable to be disobedient is not one of the best reasons.

People are so brainwashed by the rules that they don't know what really matters.

There is no reason to accept the doctrines crafted to sustain power and privilege, or to believe that we are constrained by mysterious and unknown social laws.

I tell you, lad, that men will believe is one says, "The Gods say..." They will believe if one says, "I had a Vision..." They will believe if one says, "It was told me on a tablet of hidden gold..." But, if one says, "History teaches," then they will not believe.

The People adore authority.

Once you have people around you who don't question you, you're in a dangerous place.

We make a great bad guy, and they all say they hate us. But at the end of every day, people want to trust us. Because we're their government. And people trust their government.

Don't tell us what to believe, what to fear. Show us belief's wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear's caul.

Man's principle trait is a readiness to believe anything. Otherwise, how could the Church have survived for almost two thousand years in the absense of universal gullibility?

If a man, holding a belief which he was taught in childhood or persuaded of afterwards, keeps down and pushes away any doubts which arise about it in his mind, purposely avoids the reading of books and the company of men that call in question or discuss it, and regards as impious those questions which cannot easily be asked without disturbing it - the life of that man is one long sin against mankind.

Every fool believes what his teachers tell him, and calls his credulity science or morality as confidently as his father called it divine revelation.

This is the power of the powerful to define, to structure, to say, 'This is the way the world works.' It's enormous power. Among the powers of the weak, I think the first one is the power not to believe the powerful.