Sydney Smith Quotes

I will not vote against the truths of the multiplication table.

We have made the Reich by propaganda

Easy money, sudden fortunes, increasingly powerful political machines and blatant corruption transformed much of the nation; and the Senate, as befits a democratic legislative body, accurately represented the nation.

President Eisenhower saw it coming, and it is here. Patriotism no longer exists among many of these corporations. Some companies have more economic clout than entire countries. They can make or break a politician.

I would like to make a confession which may seem immoral: I do not believe absolutely in Hilbert space any more.

An information operations team was sent to Afghanistan to conduct various psychological operations on the Afghans and Taliban. The team was then asked not to focus on the Taliban but on manipulating senators into giving more funds and troops [to the war].

Bill Clinton persuaded some people that he was really a civilized character and his Administration had the best interests of humanity at heart. These days we don't have to put up with that nonsense. It's very clear that the George W. Bush Administration is out of control. It contains some truly dangerous people.

Every New York Times story [about Donald Trump] is the result of the organizational efforts of Barack Obama.

The left have taken a really beautiful thing, male-female relationships, and turned them into a battle, a political battle, an ideological war. And if you doubt me, what is the War on Women? What the hell is it? How crazy is that entire concept, that there is a political party conducting a War on Women because they hate them. And the fact that they can sell that to their voters and make political gain on that basis is damn amazing to me. And yet how many people do you know who really believe that there's a War on Women, that Republicans/conservatives don't like women?

Richard Nixon said it best. It makes no difference whether they hold your nose or whether they go would through a wall to vote for you. It counts the same with the X.

It is a mistake to believe that science consists in nothing but conclusively proved propositions, and it is unjust to demand that it should. It is a demand made by those who feel a craving for authority in some form to replace the religious catechism by something else, even a scientific one.

You have to love that government, but hate the government that might work in your interest and that you could control. That's an interesting propaganda task, but it's been carried out very well.

Proximity to power has an unsurprising ability to mutate a politician's spinal cord into bright yellow jelly.

Ben Carson's not really a factor anymore. I hate to say that of anybody, but he isn't a factor anymore.

Politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't.

When I came to Washington, I was troubled to observe so many similarities between the behaviors of drug-addicted patients and my political colleagues. In Washington power is like morphine.

Now all politicians assume a necessity of control, the more efficient the control the better.

I can very well say without hesitation that all those who have political power, even if they use it well have acquired it by demonic mediation and even if they are not conscious of it, they are worshippers of diabolos.

We can be seduced...by powerful political groups that promise more wealth and lower taxes. Those with power can use clever, psychological tricks and play upon our weaknesses and brokenness in order to attract us to their way of thinking. We can be manipulated into illusion.

I really do believe that much of what coming out of Donald Trump's mouth was a play from Vladimir Putin's playbook.

It is in the social sphere, in the realm of politics and economics, that the Will to Order becomes really dangerous.

There was great anxiety about Russian intervention in the recent German elections, perhaps contributing to the frightening surge of support for the right-wing nationalist, if not neo-fascist, "Alternative for Germany".

What in fact takes place in an election is that two hand picked candidates are propped up before the citizenry, each candidate having been selected by a very small group of politically active people. A minority of the people... then elects one of these hand picked people to rule itself and the majority.

Power-worship blurs political judgment because it leads, almost unavoidably, to the belief that present trends will continue. Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible.

Economics dominates politics - and with that domination comes different forms of ruthlessness.