Hans Morgenthau Quotes

Morality is the best of all devices for leading mankind by the nose.

Propaganda does not aim to elevate man, but to make him serve.

When it comes to controlling human beings, there is no better instrument than lies. Because you see, humans live by beliefs. And beliefs can be manipulated. The power to manipulate beliefs is the only thing that counts.

Propaganda invariably serves the long-term interests of some elite.

Propaganda is a soft weapon; hold it in your hands too long, and it will move about like a snake, and strike the other way.

I'm a bit of a propagandist.

Because I live and work in Washington, D.C., I have a ringside seat at the world capital of The Persuasive Arts, or, as I like to call it, The Opinions Racket.

Those who tell us to be in touch with our own desires are often merely trying to make us believe that what we want is the thing that they are selling. […] We're used to that kind of persuasion, for political candidates as well as commercial products.

I know propaganda when I see it, and I can speak with authority on it.

Power can shape 'truth,' but not forever.

Spielberg, like many others, wants to convince before he discusses. In that, there is something very totalitarian.

The point of Left-wing propaganda is to make us feel powerless.

In the absence of truth, power is the only game in town.

Politics moves upward into ethics, and ethics ascends to theology.

Uninformed people can be easily manipulated.

That we occasionally violate our own stated moral code does not imply that we are insincere in espousing that code.

At the core of every moral code there is a picture of human nature, a map of the universe, and a version of history. To human nature (of the sort conceived), in a universe (of the kind imagined), after a history (so understood), the rules of the code apply.

I have yet to meet a man as fond of high moral conduct as he is of outward appearances.

A just cause needs no interpreting. It carries its own case. But the unjust argument since it is sick, needs clever medicine.

Screw the truth into men's minds.

When it comes to controlling human beings there is no better instrument than lies. Because, you see, humans live by beliefs. And beliefs can be manipulated. The power to manipulate beliefs is the only thing that counts ... Who knows what use they’ll make of you? Maybe you’ll help them to persuade people to buy things they don’t need, or hate things they know nothing about, or hold beliefs that make them easy to handle, or doubt the truths that might save them.

Doubt is our product, since it is the best means of competing with the body of fact that exists on the mind of the general public.

The most effective way to gather intelligence and thwart terrorism can also be a direct route into morally repugnant terrain. A survey of the landscape of persuasion.

Propaganda is the art of persuading others of what one does not believe oneself.

Manipulation is persuading people to make up their minds while withholding some of the facts from them.