Jacques Ellul Quotes

It is precisely the purpose of the public opinion generated by the press to make the public incapable of judging, to insinuate into it the attitude of someone irresponsible, uninformed.

Propaganda requires a permanent network of communication so that it can systematically stifle reflection with emotive or utopian slogans. Its pace is usually fast.

We live in a world where we don't really hear ideas. We just hear propaganda. That's not just boring. It's also very dangerous.

I am particularly horrified by the use of propaganda and the manipulation of the truth and the revision of history.

The current flows fast and furious. It issues in a spate of words from the loudspeakers and the politicians. Every day they tell us that we are a free people fighting to defend freedom. That is the current that has whirled the young airman up into the sky and keeps him circulating there among the clouds. Down here, with a roof to cover us and a gasmask handy, it is our business to puncture gasbags and discover the seeds of truth.

When the truth does not get printed, damage is done.

Censorship is advertising paid by the government.

And in the Second World War, you didn't just read about it in the newspapers because you weren't allowed to read it in the newspapers. It was all censored, you know? So nobody knew what we were doing.

In any war, the first casualty is common sense, and the second is free and open discussion.

The papers are only going to show what they want the readers to see. It's all propaganda, to be honest.

Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind.

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

The presentation of an issue can no longer be controlled.

A labouring man ... read and study halfe his time, and then be at a loss to know what is true and what not. Thus the few have almost ruined the Libberty of the press.

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.

...the liberty of the Press is called the Palladium of Freedom, which means, in these days, the liberty of being deceived, swindled, and humbugged by the Press and paying hugely for the deception.

Today the greatest evil—and therefore the most immediate—is the press.

Censorship is being abused as a cloak to cover all political, naval and military mistakes..

Propaganda is bad when it comes from the enemy. It is good when it comes from us.

I think censorship in the name of fighting fake news is a dangerous thing for Pakistan.

If you want to rip the heart out of a democracy, you go after the facts. That's what modern authoritarians do. You lie. All the time. Then, you say it's your opponents and the journalists who lie.

The government doesn't go about refuting everything that floats around.

I think there is a danger when it comes to fake news because there is some fake news out there, but there's also a danger when you only hear back to you the beliefs you already have.

As Pa said, censorship encouraged people to believe nonsense.

There is no need for propaganda to be rich in intellectual content.