When governments rely increasingly on sophisticated public relations agencies, public debate disappears and is replaced by competing propaganda campaigns, with all the accompanying deceits. Advertising isn’t about truth or fairness or rationality, but about mobilising deeper and more primitive layers of the human mind.

Taxation is just a sophisticated way of demanding money with menaces.

Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what’s going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate?

It’s actually very easy for democracy to disappear.

Netscape was able to get the government working on its behalf.

Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.

The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.

A lot of advertising has gotten worse. I think it’s kind of lost its nerve, to be honest with you. I feel like the advertising of the ’60s, they were nervier. You know why? Because there was less at stake.

The example that America knows how to govern itself is one of the compelling aspects of our national security.

The governments of the present day have to deal not merely with other governments, with emperors, kings and ministers, but also with the secret societies which have everywhere their unscrupulous agents, and can at the last moment upset all the governments‘ plans.

For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.

One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship.

If we go on your iPhone and go to the dictionary and look up ‚humble,‘ 80 per cent of the definition is negative. It’s a controlling word. It’s a way to control the masses and to control the sheep.

There are websites that any government wants to block. The truth about the Internet is that it’s extremely hard to block anything – extremely hard. You’ll never get perfect blocking.

Since I’m the president and Democrats have controlled the House and the Senate, it’s understandable that people are saying, you know, ‚What have you done?‘

Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint.

Some people will have to be afraid. Those who plunder the nation, deliver injustice, will have to feel scared of me. And I am not afraid of admitting this. Government cannot be so lenient that it forgives them.

The inquiry constantly is what will please, not what will benefit the people. In such a government there can be nothing but temporary expedient, fickleness, and folly.

Don’t interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.

Philanthropy should be taking much bigger risks that business. If these are easy problems, business and government can come in and solve them.

When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home.

All religions and all communities have the same rights, and it is my responsibility to ensure their complete and total protection. My government will not tolerate or accept any discrimination based on caste, creed and religion.

When we launched a new company, I reviewed the ads and marketing materials and asked those presenting the campaign to read everything aloud to test the phrasing and concept. If I could grasp it quickly, then it passed with muster. We would get our message across only if it was understandable at first glance.

The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out… without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.

I could hardly sit through ‚Frozen.‘ There was an attempt to craft a moral message and to build the story around that, instead of building the story and letting the moral message emerge. It was the subjugation of art to propaganda, in my estimation.

Things in our country run in spite of government, not by aid of it.

Where there is a free government, and the people make their own laws by their representatives, I see no injustice in their obliging one another to take their own paper money.

The Nihilistic Troll might pretend to be acting in the service of some cause or leader, but don’t be fooled. The cause and their supposedly strong convictions are simply a way to justify and provide cover for their abusive behavior.

For the bureaucrat, the world is a mere object to be manipulated by him.

It is the duty of the President to propose and it is the privilege of the Congress to dispose.

Governments regard their own citizens as their main enemy, and they have to be – protect themselves. That’s why you have state secret laws. Citizens are not supposed to know what their government is doing to them.

About all I can say for the United States Senate is that it opens with a prayer and closes with an investigation.

Government does not create wealth. The major role for the government is to create an environment where people take risks to expand the job rate in the United States.

To restore the trust of the people, we must reform the way the government operates.

It takes more than capital to swing business. You’ve got to have the A. I. D. degree to get by – Advertising, Initiative, and Dynamics.

There is an optical illusion about every person we meet.

Democracy is a daring concept – a hope that we’ll be best governed if all of us participate in the act of government. It is meant to be a conversation, a place where the intelligence and local knowledge of the electorate sums together to arrive at actions that reflect the participation of the largest possible number of people.

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.

The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.

Now that the House of Commons is trying to become useful, it does a great deal of harm.

A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there’s no question about it.

Democracy is worth dying for, because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.

You have to have a certain realism that government is a pretty blunt instrument, and without the constant attention of highly qualified people with the right metrics, it will fall into not doing things very well.

The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would steal them away.

I think the notion that we have all the democracy that money can buy strays so far from what our democracy is supposed to be.

In the early 1940s, as a young teenager, I was utterly appalled by the racist and jingoist hysteria of the anti-Japanese propaganda. The Germans were evil, but treated with some respect: They were, after all, blond Aryan types, just like our imaginary self-image. Japanese were mere vermin, to be crushed like ants.

Government can provide opportunity. But opportunity means nothing unless people are prepared to seize it.

You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution.

For success of any mission, it is necessary to have creative leadership. Creative leadership is vital for government, non-governmental organisations as well as for industries.

The deceit and distortion surrounding the American invasion of Vietnam is by now so familiar that it has lost its power to shock.

If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.

If people in the media cannot decide whether they are in the business of reporting news or manufacturing propaganda, it is all the more important that the public understand that difference, and choose their news sources accordingly.

Men are so simple and yield so readily to the desires of the moment that he who will trick will always find another who will suffer to be tricked.

As I see it, fast food outfits have targeted small children with their advertising in a very effective way. You know, it’s clowns and kid’s toys and bright colors and things like that.

Democracy is the road to socialism.

When I was president, I announced and I still maintain that I can live with Roe v. Wade. I did everything I possibly could as president under that ruling, which I don’t think ought to be changed, to minimize the need for abortions. I think every abortion is a result of a horrible series of errors on the part of people involved.

Democracy is the process by which people choose the man who’ll get the blame.

I believe that a government has only one religion – India first. A government has only one holy book – our Constitution. A government has only one kind of devotion – towards nation.

It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer it.

Power is the measure of the degree of control you have over circumstances in your life and the actions of the people around you. It is a skill that is developed by a deep understanding of human nature, of what truly motivates people, and of the manipulations necessary for advancement and protection.