Indoctrination Quotes
Quotes tagged as "indoctrination"
Showing 1-30 of 237
![George Carlin](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1664917557i/22782._UY200_CR0,0,200,200_.jpg)
“Tell people there's an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority will believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure.”
―
―
![Richard Dawkins](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1377030297i/1194._UX200_CR0,49,200,200_.jpg)
“Do not indoctrinate your children. Teach them how to think for themselves, how to evaluate evidence, and how to disagree with you.”
― The God Delusion
― The God Delusion
![Richard Dawkins](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1377030297i/1194._UX200_CR0,49,200,200_.jpg)
“A child is not a Christian child, not a Muslim child, but a child of Christian parents or a child of Muslim parents. This latter nomenclature, by the way, would be an excellent piece of consciousness-raising for the children themselves. A child who is told she is a 'child of Muslim parents' will immediately realize that religion is something for her to choose -or reject- when she becomes old enough to do so.”
― The God Delusion
― The God Delusion
![John F. Kennedy](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1498639086i/3047._UX200_CR0,21,200,200_.jpg)
“There is nothing in the record of the past two years when both Houses of Congress have been controlled by the Republican Party which can lead any person to believe that those promises will be fulfilled in the future. They follow the Hitler line - no matter how big the lie; repeat it often enough and the masses will regard it as truth.”
―
―
![H.P. Lovecraft](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1299165714i/9494._UX200_CR0,32,200,200_.jpg)
“We all know that any emotional bias -- irrespective of truth or falsity -- can be implanted by suggestion in the emotions of the young, hence the inherited traditions of an orthodox community are absolutely without evidential value.... If religion were true, its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity; but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences. With such an honest and inflexible openness to evidence, they could not fail to receive any real truth which might be manifesting itself around them. The fact that religionists do not follow this honourable course, but cheat at their game by invoking juvenile quasi-hypnosis, is enough to destroy their pretensions in my eyes even if their absurdity were not manifest in every other direction.”
― Against Religion: The Atheist Writings of H.P. Lovecraft
― Against Religion: The Atheist Writings of H.P. Lovecraft
![Neal Shusterman](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1713293244i/19564._UX200_CR0,33,200,200_.jpg)
“The sad truth about humanity...is that people believe what they're told. Maybe not the first time, but by the hundredth time, the craziest of ideas just becomes a given.”
― UnWholly
― UnWholly
![Gillian Flynn](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1232123231i/2383._UX200_CR0,50,200,200_.jpg)
“My dad had limitations. That's what my good-hearted mom always told us. He had limitations, but he meant no harm. It was kind of her to say, but he did do harm.”
― Gone Girl
― Gone Girl
![Noam Chomsky](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1651867540i/2476._UX200_CR0,48,200,200_.jpg)
“Modern industrial civilization has developed within a certain system of convenient myths. The driving force of modern industrial civilization has been individual material gain, which is accepted as legitimate, even praiseworthy, on the grounds that private vices yield public benefits in the classic formulation.
Now, it's long been understood very well that a society that is based on this principle will destroy itself in time. It can only persist with whatever suffering and injustice it entails as long as it's possible to pretend that the destructive forces that humans create are limited: that the world is an infinite resource, and that the world is an infinite garbage-can. At this stage of history, either one of two things is possible: either the general population will take control of its own destiny and will concern itself with community-interests, guided by values of solidarity and sympathy and concern for others; or, alternatively, there will be no destiny for anyone to control.
As long as some specialized class is in a position of authority, it is going to set policy in the special interests that it serves. But the conditions of survival, let alone justice, require rational social planning in the interests of the community as a whole and, by now, that means the global community. The question is whether privileged elites should dominate mass-communication, and should use this power as they tell us they must, namely, to impose necessary illusions, manipulate and deceive the stupid majority, and remove them from the public arena. The question, in brief, is whether democracy and freedom are values to be preserved or threats to be avoided. In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than values to be treasured, they may well be essential to survival.”
―
Now, it's long been understood very well that a society that is based on this principle will destroy itself in time. It can only persist with whatever suffering and injustice it entails as long as it's possible to pretend that the destructive forces that humans create are limited: that the world is an infinite resource, and that the world is an infinite garbage-can. At this stage of history, either one of two things is possible: either the general population will take control of its own destiny and will concern itself with community-interests, guided by values of solidarity and sympathy and concern for others; or, alternatively, there will be no destiny for anyone to control.
As long as some specialized class is in a position of authority, it is going to set policy in the special interests that it serves. But the conditions of survival, let alone justice, require rational social planning in the interests of the community as a whole and, by now, that means the global community. The question is whether privileged elites should dominate mass-communication, and should use this power as they tell us they must, namely, to impose necessary illusions, manipulate and deceive the stupid majority, and remove them from the public arena. The question, in brief, is whether democracy and freedom are values to be preserved or threats to be avoided. In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than values to be treasured, they may well be essential to survival.”
―
![Peter Hitchens](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1535025970i/39704._UY200_CR6,0,200,200_.jpg)
“Is there any point in public debate in a society where hardly anyone has been taught how to think, while millions have been taught what to think?”
―
―
![Jon Stewart](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1206560357i/466._UX200_CR0,53,200,200_.jpg)
“Thomas Jefferson once said: 'Of course the people don't want war. But the people can be brought to the bidding of their leader. All you have to do is tell them they're being attacked and denounce the pacifists for somehow a lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.' I think that was Jefferson. Oh wait. That was Hermann Goering. Shoot."
[Hosting the Peabody Awards for broadcasting excellence at the New York Waldorf-Astoria, June 6, 2006]”
―
[Hosting the Peabody Awards for broadcasting excellence at the New York Waldorf-Astoria, June 6, 2006]”
―
![Mokokoma Mokhonoana](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1674037554i/7152008._UX200_CR0,0,200,200_.jpg)
“Most people do not have a problem with you thinking for yourself, as long as your conclusions are the same as or at least compatible with their beliefs.”
―
―
“It is always a much easier task to educate uneducated people than to re-educate the mis-educated.”
― Getting Well
― Getting Well
![Hypatia](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1358178061i/5771553._UX200_CR0,46,200,200_.jpg)
“Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and miracles as poetic fancies. To teach superstitions as truths is a most terrible thing. The child mind accepts and believes them, and only through great pain and perhaps tragedy can he be in after years relieved of them. In fact, men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly as for a living truth — often more so, since a superstition is so intangible you cannot get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable.”
―
―
![Mokokoma Mokhonoana](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1674037554i/7152008._UX200_CR0,0,200,200_.jpg)
“A ‘normal person’ is what is left after society has squeezed out all unconventional opinions and aspirations out of a human being.”
―
―
![Aldous Huxley](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1547138835i/3487._UY200_CR11,0,200,200_.jpg)
“This concern with the basic condition of freedom — the absence of physical constraint — is unquestionably necessary, but is not all that is necessary. It is perfectly possible for a man to be out of prison and yet not free — to be under no physical constraint and yet to be a psychological captive, compelled to think, feel and act as the representatives of the national State, or of some private interest within the nation, want him to think, feel and act.”
― Brave New World
― Brave New World
![Aldous Huxley](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1547138835i/3487._UY200_CR11,0,200,200_.jpg)
“The nature of psychological compulsion is such that those who act under constraint remain under the impression that they are acting on their own initiative. The victim of mind-manipulation does not know that he is a victim. To him the walls of his prison are invisible, and he believes himself to be free. That he is not free is apparent only to other people. His servitude is strictly objective.”
― Brave New World / Brave New World Revisited
― Brave New World / Brave New World Revisited
![Arthur Schopenhauer](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1651440776i/11682._UX200_CR0,24,200,200_.jpg)
“There is no absurdity so palpable but that it may be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to inculcate it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity.”
―
―
![Stefan Molyneux](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1388630101i/882627._UX200_CR0,38,200,200_.jpg)
“When people have invested their identities into clichés, the only counter argument they have is 'being offended'.”
―
―
![Stefan Molyneux](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1388630101i/882627._UX200_CR0,38,200,200_.jpg)
“If you can convince people that freedom is injustice, they will then believe that slavery is freedom.”
―
―
![Mark Twain](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1322103868i/1244._UX200_CR0,40,200,200_.jpg)
“When even the brightest mind in our world has been trained up from childhood in a superstition of any kind, it will never be possible for that mind, in its maturity, to examine sincerely, dispassionately, and conscientiously any evidence or any circumstance which shall seem to cast a doubt upon the validity of that superstition. I doubt if I could do it myself.”
― The Autobiography of Mark Twain
― The Autobiography of Mark Twain
![John B. Watson](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1396966523i/7815142._UX200_CR0,46,200,200_.jpg)
“Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select—doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors. (1930)”
― Behaviorism
― Behaviorism
![Stanley Milgram](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1238736533i/134222._UX200_CR0,16,200,200_.jpg)
“Each individual possesses a conscience which to a greater or lesser degree serves to restrain the unimpeded flow of impulses destructive to others. But when he merges his person into an organizational structure, a new creature replaces autonomous man, unhindered by the limitations of individual morality, freed of humane inhibition, mindful only of the sanctions of authority.”
―
―
![Noam Chomsky](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1651867540i/2476._UX200_CR0,48,200,200_.jpg)
“The trick is not to be isolated―if you're isolated, like Winston Smith in 1984, then sooner or later you're going to break, as he finally broke. That was the point of Orwell's story. In fact, the whole tradition of popular control has been exactly that: to keep people isolated, because if you can keep them isolated enough, you can get them to believe anything. But when people get together, all sorts of things are possible.”
― Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky
― Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky
![Mokokoma Mokhonoana](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1674037554i/7152008._UX200_CR0,0,200,200_.jpg)
“If human beings weren’t ‘dumbable’ enough to be made soldiers, war would be nothing but an exchange of swear words between a handful of individuals.”
―
―
![Christopher Hitchens](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1434046956i/3956._UY200_CR23,0,200,200_.jpg)
“Sooner or later, all talk among foreigners in Pyongyang turns to one imponderable subject. Do the locals really believe what they are told, and do they truly revere Fat Man and Little Boy? I have been a visiting writer in several authoritarian and totalitarian states, and usually the question answers itself. Someone in a café makes an offhand remark. A piece of ironic graffiti is scrawled in the men's room. Some group at the university issues some improvised leaflet. The glacier begins to melt; a joke makes the rounds and the apparently immovable regime suddenly looks vulnerable and absurd. But it's almost impossible to convey the extent to which North Korea just isn't like that. South Koreans who met with long-lost family members after the June rapprochement were thunderstruck at the way their shabby and thin northern relatives extolled Fat Man and Little Boy. Of course, they had been handpicked, but they stuck to their line.
There's a possible reason for the existence of this level of denial, which is backed up by an indescribable degree of surveillance and indoctrination. A North Korean citizen who decided that it was all a lie and a waste would have to face the fact that his life had been a lie and a waste also. The scenes of hysterical grief when Fat Man died were not all feigned; there might be a collective nervous breakdown if it was suddenly announced that the Great Leader had been a verbose and arrogant fraud. Picture, if you will, the abrupt deprogramming of more than 20 million Moonies or Jonestowners, who are suddenly informed that it was all a cruel joke and there's no longer anybody to tell them what to do. There wouldn't be enough Kool-Aid to go round. I often wondered how my guides kept straight faces. The streetlights are turned out all over Pyongyang—which is the most favored city in the country—every night. And the most prominent building on the skyline, in a town committed to hysterical architectural excess, is the Ryugyong Hotel. It's 105 floors high, and from a distance looks like a grotesquely enlarged version of the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco (or like a vast and cumbersome missile on a launchpad). The crane at its summit hasn't moved in years; it's a grandiose and incomplete ruin in the making. 'Under construction,' say the guides without a trace of irony. I suppose they just keep two sets of mental books and live with the contradiction for now.”
― Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays
There's a possible reason for the existence of this level of denial, which is backed up by an indescribable degree of surveillance and indoctrination. A North Korean citizen who decided that it was all a lie and a waste would have to face the fact that his life had been a lie and a waste also. The scenes of hysterical grief when Fat Man died were not all feigned; there might be a collective nervous breakdown if it was suddenly announced that the Great Leader had been a verbose and arrogant fraud. Picture, if you will, the abrupt deprogramming of more than 20 million Moonies or Jonestowners, who are suddenly informed that it was all a cruel joke and there's no longer anybody to tell them what to do. There wouldn't be enough Kool-Aid to go round. I often wondered how my guides kept straight faces. The streetlights are turned out all over Pyongyang—which is the most favored city in the country—every night. And the most prominent building on the skyline, in a town committed to hysterical architectural excess, is the Ryugyong Hotel. It's 105 floors high, and from a distance looks like a grotesquely enlarged version of the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco (or like a vast and cumbersome missile on a launchpad). The crane at its summit hasn't moved in years; it's a grandiose and incomplete ruin in the making. 'Under construction,' say the guides without a trace of irony. I suppose they just keep two sets of mental books and live with the contradiction for now.”
― Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays
All Quotes
|
My Quotes
|
Add A Quote
Browse By Tag
- Love Quotes 97k
- Life Quotes 75.5k
- Inspirational Quotes 72.5k
- Humor Quotes 43.5k
- Philosophy Quotes 29.5k
- Inspirational Quotes Quotes 27k
- God Quotes 26k
- Truth Quotes 23.5k
- Wisdom Quotes 23.5k
- Romance Quotes 23k
- Poetry Quotes 22k
- Death Quotes 20k
- Happiness Quotes 18.5k
- Life Lessons Quotes 18.5k
- Hope Quotes 18k
- Faith Quotes 18k
- Quotes Quotes 16.5k
- Inspiration Quotes 16.5k
- Spirituality Quotes 15k
- Religion Quotes 15k
- Motivational Quotes 15k
- Writing Quotes 14.5k
- Relationships Quotes 14.5k
- Life Quotes Quotes 14k
- Love Quotes Quotes 13.5k
- Success Quotes 13.5k
- Time Quotes 12.5k
- Motivation Quotes 12k
- Science Quotes 11.5k
- Knowledge Quotes 11k