Primo Levi Quotes

The more pain you inflict on someone, the more they will tell you what they think you want to hear.

Those who fear men like laws.

If you want me again look for me under your boot soles.

Beware the People weeping When they bare the iron hand.

So, what do you think they'll do to him?" I ask. Prim sounds about a thousand years old when she speaks. "Whatever it takes to break you.

All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what they do not want to do.

Part of the reason that the government's fear mongering is succeeding is because so many people are so ignorant, that it is easier for government to frighten people in submission.

Horror and panic themselves are forms of violence, and diminishing them, restricting their dimensions, is itself a civilizing act.

Fear is the passion of slaves.

Power acquired by violence is only a usurpation, and lasts only as long as the force of him who commands prevails over that of those who obey.

Cruelty is a tyrant that's always attended with fear.

Sometimes fear is used as a way to control.

For those who stubbornly seek freedom, there can be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms and practices of indoctrination. These are easy to perceive in the totalitarian societies, much less so in the system of brainwashing under freedom to which we are subjected and which all too often we are as willing or unwitting instruments

Fear works. It is more effective than any drug, tactic, or torture device.

For your own good" is a persuasive argument that will eventually make man agree to his own destruction.

That which is given in submission becomes a medium of defiance.

Treat them so that they think that they are like dogs. And if they ever believe that they are not like dogs, then you have lost control over them

The power of the master must be absolute to render the submission of the slave perfect.

If you've got 'em by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.

War and unrest appeal to me more than good bourgeois order. Brutality is respected, the people need wholesome fear. They want to fear someone. They want someone to frighten them and make them shudderingly submissive.

The tyranny of some is possible only through the cowardice of others.

Power manipulates the innocent and terror is born.

Killing you is not the worst thing they can do to you," I say. "Controlling you is.

To repress rebellion is to maintain the status quo, a condition which binds the mortal creature in a state of intellectual or physical slavery. But it is impossible to chain man merely by slaving his body; the mind also must be held, and to accomplish this, fear is the accepted weapon. The common man must fear life, fear death, fear God, fear the Devil, and fear most the overlords, the keepers of his destiny.

The completest submissiveness is your lot, and that is all.