Bertrand Russell Quotes About Propaganda

• Why is propaganda so much more successful when it stirs up hatred than when it tries to stir up friendly feeling?

  Bertrand Russell

  Hate, Successful, Hatred

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.53, Lulu Press, Inc

• I think the subject which will be of most importance politically is Mass Psychology... Its importance has been enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda. Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions are generated.

  Bertrand Russell

  Thinking, World Government, Class

• I think the subject which will be of most importance politically is mass psychology.... Its importance has been enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda. Of these the most influential is what is called 'education.' Religion plays a part, though a diminishing one; the press, the cinema, and the radio play an increasing part.... It may be hoped that in time anybody will be able to persuade anybody of anything if he can catch the patient young and is provided by the State with money and equipment.

  Bertrand Russell

  Thinking, Play, Psychology

  Bertrand Russell (2016). “The Impact of Science on Society”, p.27, Routledge

• Moral indignation is one of the most harmful forces in the modern world, the more so as it can always be diverted to sinister uses by those who control propaganda.

  Bertrand Russell

  Use, World, Moral

  Bertrand Russell (1960). “Sceptical Essays”

• The criminal law has, from the point of view of thwarted virtue, the merit of allowing an outlet for those impulses of aggression which cowardice, disguised as morality, restrains in their more spontaneous forms. War has the same merit. You must not kill you neighbor, whom perhaps you genuinely hate, but by a little propaganda this hate can be transferred to some foreign nation, against whom all your murderous impulses become patriotic heroism.

  Bertrand Russell

  Hate, War, Patriotic

• There is as much difference between a collection of mentally free citizens and a community molded by modern methods of propaganda as there is between a heap of raw materials and a battleship.

  Bertrand Russell

  Science, Differences, Community

  Bertrand Russell (1986). “Bertrand Russell on God and Religion”

• As a lover of truth, the national propaganda of all the belligerent nations sickened me. As a lover of civilization, the return to barbarism appalled me.

  Bertrand Russell

  Civilization, Return, Lovers

  Bertrand Russell, Ray Perkins (Jr.) (2002). “Yours Faithfully, Bertrand Russell: A Lifelong Fight for Peace, Justice, and Truth in Letters to the Editor”, p.33, Open Court Publishing

• In spreading his ideas, Plato was willing to employ emotional appeals, state propaganda, and the use of force.

  Bertrand Russell

  Plato, Emotional, Ideas

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