Notable Quotable 168

Dec 20, 2023

They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word, they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness.

- Alderous Huxley

Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides.

- André Malraux

When one with honeyed words but evil mind persuades the mob, great woes befall the state.

- Euripides, Orestes

I have never voted in my life… I have always known and understood that the idiots are in a majority so it’s certain they will win.

- Louis-Ferdinand Céline

Free election of masters does not abolish the masters or the slaves.

- Herbert Marcuse

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Most civilisation is based on cowardice. It’s so easy to civilize by teaching cowardice. You water down the standards which would lead to bravery. You restrain the will. You regulate the appetites. You fence in the horizons. You make a law for every movement. You deny the existence of chaos. You teach even the children to breathe slowly. You tame.

- Frank Herbert, God Emperor of Dune

But often life asks much of you, and you either honor life by answering with all your heart, or you cower your way into your grave.

- James Clemens, Hinterland

You can sway a thousand men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic.

- Robert A. Heinlein, Revolt in 2100/Methuselah’s Children

Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of men who can fabricate it.

- Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

Nationalism of one kind or another was the cause of most of the genocide of the twentieth century. Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people’s minds and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead.

- Arundhati Roy