Truth

"…life in the system is so thoroughly permeated with hypocrisy and lies…Because the regime is captive to its own lies it must falsify everything. It falsifies the past. It falsifies the present, and it falsifies the future. It falsifies statistics." Vaclav Havel

"If you have to be persuaded, reminded, pressured, lied to, incentivized, coerced, bullied, socially shamed, guilt-tripped, threatened, punished and criminalized… If all of this is considered necessary to gain your compliance – you can be absolutely certain that what is being promoted is not in your best interest." Ian Watson

"With numbing regularity good people were seen to knuckle under the demands of authority and perform actions that were callous and severe. Men who are in everyday life responsible and decent were seduced by the trappings of authority, by the control of their perceptions, and by the uncritical acceptance of the experimenter’s definition of the situation, into performing harsh acts. A substantial proportion of people do what they are told to do, irrespective of the content of the act and without limitations of conscience, so long as they perceive that the command comes from a legitimate authority." Stanley Milgram

"Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking…" Leo Tolstoi

"In der Tat wird es immer offensichtlicher, dass nicht Hungersnöte, nicht Erdbeben, nicht Mikroben, nicht Krebs, sondern der Mensch selbst die größte Gefahr für den Menschen darstellt, und zwar aus dem einfachen Grund, dass es keinen angemessenen Schutz gegen psychische Epidemien gibt, die unendlich viel verheerender sind als die schlimmsten Naturkatastrophen" Carl Gustav Jung

"The truths that seem most truthful, if you look at them from all sides, if you look at them close up, turn out to be either half truths or lies." Mario Vargas Llosa

"This is going to be an unpopular truth, especially in the extremely delusional and deceived world we now live in. But the reality is this: none of what is going on outside is getting better. Nothing improves. Everything in our world feels fake. Our food is fake. Our news is fake. Our politicians are fake. Our history is fake. Even our financial system feels fake. And the people on our TV screens, on our phone screens — they’re lying to us, because everything is like a scripted movie. If you want to believe the absolute garbage that is being spoon-fed to us, then that is your prerogative. But I would hope that by now — five years into this very odd new world, this strange reality we’re living in — most of us have started to recognize that something deeper is going on. Something more sinister. Something more… spiritual, even, behind the scenes. I’ve reached a point where I literally don’t believe anything I see anymore. Nothing. Because after the last five years — maybe a bit more — it’s become clear to me that narratives are being pushed. Distractions are being manufactured. And in the end… we are watching a movie." ashleyhays2.0

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." George Orwell

"A truth can only take effect when the recipient is ready for it. Therefore, it is not the fault of the truth that people are still so full of folly." Christian Morgenstern

"In the ethical sense, propaganda bears the same relation to education as to business or politics. It may be abused. It may be used to over-advertise an institution and to create in the public mind artificial values. There can be no absolute guarantee against its misuse." Edward Bernays

"The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth." Henry Louis Mencken

"The bullshitter is neither on the side of the true or the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all. He does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are." Harry Gordon Frankfurt

"The fact about himself that the liar hides is that he is attempting to lead us away from a correct apprehension of reality; we are not to know that he wants us to believe something he supposes to be false. The fact about himself that the bullshitter hides, on the other hand, is that the truth-values of his statements are of no central interest to him . . . He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose." Harry Gordon Frankfurt

"The public will believe anything, so long as it is not founded on truth." Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell