Carroll Quigley Quotes

Obama has already rejected the bright sunlight of public knowledge, which is democracy's great disinfectant and cure.

There is a power in public opinion in this country - and I thank God for it: for it is the most honest and best of all powers - which will not tolerate an incompetent or unworthy man to hold in his weak or wicked hands the lives and fortunes of his fellow-citizens.

Misrepresentation of public Measures is easily overthrown, by representing public Measures truly; when they are honest, they ought to be publicly known, that they may be publicly commended, but if they are knavish or pernicious, they ought to be publicly exposed, in order to be publicly detested.

Never let no one know how much dough you hold.

Incorruptibility by money is the old story... Now it's incorruptibility by media.

The career of politics grants a feeling of power. The knowledge of influencing men, of participating in power over them, and above all, the feeling of holding in one's hands a nerve fiber of historically important events can elevate the professional politician above everyday routine even when he is placed in formally modest positions.

Rule of Dark Matter: SuperPAC dollars cannot be seen by most voters but account for most of the money in this universe.

When the Vice President of the United States shoots somebody, the public has the right to know.

The people have the right to know what their Agents are doing or have done, and it should not be in the option of the Legislature to conceal their proceedings.

For the first thirty years it [the House of Representatives] was the controlling branch of the government, and the one of whose action the public eye was fixed.

In all of history the only balance to private power has been public power.

The possession of knowledge has always been dangerous.

A popular government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy; or perhaps both ... And a people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the power that knowledge gives.

Democracy requires that those who bear the consequences of decisions have enough knowledge to hold the decision-makers accountable.

Can the public business be thus transacted and in secret?

A mistake that is kept secret only harms the person who has committed it, but if it becomes public and is not denounced, it harms the community

The veto power is only meaningful if one uses it from time to time

By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.

Government will have to learn what private businesses are beginning to realize that in this increasingly transparent world, the successful organizations will be those that are able to operate with very few secrets…. The cost of maintaining secrecy is getting higher and higher even when it can be done at all.

I do not wish to see men of culture asking to be entrusted with power

We have … a clear mandate from the people, that Americans must forswear that conception of the acquisition of wealth which, through excessive profits, creates undue private power over private affairs and, to our misfortune, over public affairs as well.

You would think that people who are so powerful would not be so upset by little knocks in the press.

But that's the whole point of corporatism: to try and remove the public from making decisions over their own fate, to limit the public arena, to control opinion, to make sure that the fundamental decisions that determine how the world is going to be run —which include production, commerce, distribution, thought, social policy, foreign policy, everything—are not in the hands of the public, but rather in the hands of highly concentrated private power. In effect, tyranny unaccountable to the public.

America’s super-elite has been particularly effective at using the tools of a political democracy to protect its minority privilege.

The best return on our investment in military aid probably comes from the training of selected army officers …. They are the leaders of the future … I don’t need to dwell on the value of having people in positions of power who have a first hand knowledge of how we think and act here in the United States.