Big Lie Quotes

“The receptivity of the masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan.”
― Adolf Hitler

“And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

“It would not be impossible to prove with sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the people concerned that a square is in fact a circle. They are mere words, and words can be molded until they clothe ideas and disguise.”
― Joseph Goebbels

“But the most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Here, as so often in this world, persistence is the first and most important requirement for success.”
― Adolf Hitler

“Hitler lied shamelessly about himself and about his enemies. He convinced millions of men and women that he cared for them deeply when, in fact, he would have willingly sacrificed them all. His murderous ambition, avowed racism, and utter immorality were given the thinnest mask, and yet millions of Germans were drawn toHitlerprecisely because he seemed authentic. They screamed, “Sieg Heil” with happiness in their hearts, because they thought they were creating a better world.”
― Madeleine K. Albright, Fascism: A Warning

“The mob believes everything it is told, provided only that it be repeated over and over. Provided too that its passions, hatreds, fears are catered to. Nor need one try to stay within the limits of plausibility: on the contrary, the grosser, the bigger, the cruder the lie, the more readily is it believed and followed. Nor is there any need to avoid contradictions: the mob never notices; needless to pretend to correlate what is said to some with what is said to others: each person or group believes only what he is told, not what anyone else is told; needless to strive for coherence: the mob has no memory; needless to pretend to any truth: the mob is radically incapable of perceiving it: the mob can never comprehend that its own interests are what is at stake.”
― Alexandre Koyré, Réflexions sur le mensonge

“The official philosophies of the totalitarian regimes unanimously brand as nonsensical the idea that there exists a single objective truth valid for everybody. The criterion of" truth, "they say, is not agreement with reality, but agreement with the spirit of a race or nation or class—that is, racial, national or utilitarian. Pushing to their limits the biological, pragmatist, activist theories of truth, the official philosophies of the totalitarian regimes deny the inherent value of thought. For them thought is not a light but a weapon: its function, they say, is not to discover reality as it is, but to change and transform it with the purpose of leading us towards what is not. Such being the case, myth is better than science and rhetoric that works on the passions preferable to proof that appeals to the intellect.”
― Alexandre Koyré, Réflexions sur le mensonge

“Pannenberg's conception of retroactive continuity ultimately means that history flows fundamentally from the future into the past, that the future is not basically a product of the past.”
― E Frank Tupper

“Success doesn’t come with ease. As a matter of fact, the darkest lie you may have been told is that you will reap in abundance when you have sowed nothing. It is a big lie!”
― Israelmore Ayivor, Become a Better You

“The biggest lie we fall for is that it doesn’t matter. Your opinion doesn’t matter. Your choices don’t matter. Your influence doesn’t matter. Your existence doesn’t matter. You don’t matter. It is the worst, most destructive lie we ever believe, and in consequence it wreaks extensive damage to more lives than your own. Don’t fall for that evil lie. Don’t forget that everything about you absolutely does matter.”
― Richelle E. Goodrich, Being Bold: Quotes, Poetry, & Motivations for Every Day of the Year

“{Stalin} took care always to say the opposite of what he did, and do the opposite of what he said.”
― Boris Souvarine, Stalin: A Critical Survey of Bolshevism

“By using propaganda skillfully any delusion can become fact.”
― Michael Corthell

“There are thousands of Himmlers living among us.”
― Erich Fromm, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness

“[Many ordinary people] would admit, as a matter of course, that man can lie and does lie. But they would add that lies are short-lived and cannot stand the test of repetition—let alone of constant repetition—and that therefore a statement which is constantly repeated and never contradicted must be true. Another line of argument maintains that a statement made by an ordinary fellow may be a lie, but the truth of a statement made by a responsible and respected man, and therefore particularly by a man in a highly responsible or exalted position, is morally certain. These two enthymemes lead to the conclusion that the truth of a statement which is constantly repeated by the head of government and never contradicted is absolutely certain.”
― Leo Strauss, Persecution and the Art of Writing

“In our country,
the lie has become not just a moral category,
but a pillar of the state.”
― Alexander Solschenizyn