Malcolm Muggeridge Quotes

Even intelligent people succumb to their own propaganda.

A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true.

Gradually I came to realize that people will more readily swallow lies than truth, as if the taste of lies was homey, appetizing: a habit.

I found that if I stack the moments correctly, people will believe in the most outrageous things.

The people wish to be deceived; let them be deceived.

The line between science and magic becomes blurred so that public judgments on technical issues can be erratic or badly flawed. It frequently appears that some people will believe almost anything. Thus judgments can be manipulated or warped by unscrupulous groups. Distortions or outright falsehoods can come to be accepted as fact.

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

People are more likely to believe a big lie than a small one.

People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true. People’s heads are full of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool.

Belief in the lie is the life of the lie.

The oblique paradox of propaganda is that the lie in the throat becomes, by repetition, the truth in the heart.

There is no lie that a man will not believe; and there is no man who does not believe many lies; and there is no man who believes only lies.

Man's mind is so formed that it is far more susceptible to falsehood than to truth.

We now have a whole culture based on the assumption that people know nothing and so anything can be said to them.

A lie told often enough becomes the truth.

It's not mere extremism that makes folks at the fringes so troubling; it's extremism wedded to false beliefs. Humans have long been dupes, easily gulled by rumors and flat-out lies.

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

Men willingly believe what they wish.

Perception is created and twisted so quickly.

We are all very ready to believe what we like.

All lies and jests, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.

Men in general are quick to believe that which they wish to be true.

Nothing is easier than self-deceit, since what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true.

The primitive simplicity of their [the masses'] minds renders them a more easy prey to a big lie than a small one, for they themselves often tell little lies but would be ashamed to tell big ones.

How you can win the population for war: At first, the statesman will invent cheap lying, that impute the guilt of the attacked nation, and each person will be happy over this deceit, that calm the conscience. It will study it detailed and refuse to test arguments of the other opinion. So he will convince step for step even therefrom that the war is just and thank God, that he, after this process of grotesque even deceit, can sleep better