Hiram Johnson Quotes

It's often been observed that the first casualty of war is the truth. But that's a lie, too, in its way. The reality is that, for most wars to begin, the truth has to have been sacrificed a long time in advance.

If truth is the first victim of war, then read on - I've got some great lies for you this month.

People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election.

It is well known that in war, the first casualty is truth - that during any war truth is forsaken for propaganda.

How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print.

Everyone, when there's war in the air, learns to live in a new element: falsehood.

Propaganda must not serve the truth, especially insofar as it might bring out something favorable to the opponent.... The victor will never be asked if he told the truth.

We are struggling with the global war on the truth. And if what we used to think of as the domain of the Soviets, the kind of celebration of lies and press as propaganda, that now we realize is not something that is unique to the Soviet state. It's within ourselves as well here in the West.

How do wars start? Diplomats tell lies to journalists, then believe what they read.

In war, truth is often the first casualty.

A huge amount of what goes on in the Middle East has to do with people being fed really bad information.

There are people who are very highly paid to cover the truth and who will protect their clients.

No section of the American populace has been more completely deceived by the forces interested in keeping the truth from the people than America's youth.

It is very dangerous to write the truth in war, and the truth is very dangerous to come by.

What's public is propaganda, what's secret is serious.

In wartime, truth is so precious that she should be attended by a bodyguard of lies.

Of all newspaper presses, I never heard anyone deny that the American is the worst.... [N]othing is easier than to make the people know only one side of a question; few things are easier than to keep them altogether from the knowledge of any particular affair; and, worse than all, on them [the American people] may easily be practiced the discovery that lies may work their intended effect, before the truth can overtake them. It is hard to tell which is worse; the wide diffusion of things that are not true or the suppression of things that are.

The listeners can see through our manipulation of the news too clearly. It is all laid on too thickly.

Media manipulation in the U.S. today is more efficient than it was in Nazi Germany, because here we have the pretense that we are getting all the information we want. That misconception prevents people from even looking for the truth.

Your case for war was a pack of lies.

You should always try to deceive your enemy.

Truth is not the first casualty of war alone: it is the first casualty of populism.

No sir, anybody who went out and got into the front line trenches to fight for liberty was a goddamn fool and the guy who got him there was a liar.

Facts are a thing of the past. Americans may find it impossible to debate politics clearly because of a lack of agreement on basic matters of fact: that was certainly the case in this yea'rs Presidential election [2016]. And no one has taken more advantage of this than Donal;d Trump ... Trump and his talking heads didn't create this world. It is the result of decadews-long stategy devised devised by a numbe of public affairs practitioners who recognized that lies were the most potent weapoin in the fight against progress,

If you can make people believe lies are the facts, then you can control them.