Did you see that quote?

For my last blog post of 2010 I thought I would examine different quotes I found on social networking. I have a blog, a couple of twitter accounts, a facebook page, and follow a few blogs and facebook groups. Additionally, I have a linkedin account and between them all I am in contact with a large number of people (500). As I have been viewing and reading the various pages and blogs I see a number of different quotes popping up. Sometimes they are on a facebook status or in a comment area. Other times the quote is in a blog or in the online writings of others. There are two things that I have noticed about these quotations. First, some of the quotes are at times from people who would, at the very least be seen as counter-cultural or even possibly anti-social. Second, in a strange way the quotes are applicable to the times we are living in today. So here are some quotes I have found in the last year on the net. I am not going to disclose the people posting the quote, just the quote itself.

Here are the quotes in no particular order:

Without law and order our nation cannot survive. ~ Adolf Hitler

“No one is more hopelessly enslaved than the person who falsely believes he is free.” ~ Johann Goethe

"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~ Thomas Jefferson

The great foe of democracy now and in the near future is plutocracy. Every year that passes brings out this antagonism more distinctly. It is to be the social war of the twentieth century. In that war militarism, expansion and imperialism will all favor plutocracy. In the first place, war and expansion will favor jobbery, both in the dependencies and at home. In the second place, they will take away the attention of the people from what the plutocrats are doing. In the third place, they will cause large expenditures of the people’s money, the return for which will not go into the treasury, but into the hands of a few schemers. In the fourth place, they will call for a large public debt and taxes, and these things especially tend to make men unequal, because any social burdens bear more heavily on the weak than on the strong, and so make the weak weaker and the strong stronger. Therefore expansion and imperialism are a grand onslaught on democracy. ~William Graham Summer

Terrorism is the best political weapon for nothing drives people harder than a fear of sudden death. ~Adolf Hitler

We're not a democracy. It's a terrible misunderstanding and a slander to the idea of democracy to call us that. In reality, we're a plutocracy: a government by the wealthy." ~ Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General

‎"Of all forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of plutocracy" ~ John Pierpont Morgan

It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything. ~ Joseph Stalin

"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~ Thomas Jefferson

“. . .it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” ~ Herman Goering

Anyone who'd sell out a whole town wouldn't hesitate to double-cross one man ~ Arnold Rothstein

"If you pray for rain long enough, it eventually does fall. If you pray for floodwaters to abate, they eventually do. However, the same happens in the absence of prayers." ~ Steve Allen

All great movements are popular movements. They are the volcanic eruptions of human passions and emotions, stirred into activity by the ruthless Goddess of Distress or by the torch of the spoken word cast into the midst of the people.

~ Adolf Hitler

"Blind faith is an ironic gift to return to the Creator of human intelligence." ~Anonymous

Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way round, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise. ~ Adolf Hitler

‎"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." ~ Susan B. Anthony

What good fortune for governments that the people do not think. ~ Adolf Hitler

"Man is a marvelous curiosity ... he thinks he is the Creator's pet ... he even believes the Creator loves him; has a passion for him; sits up nights to admire him; yes, and watch over him and keep him out of trouble. He prays to him and thinks He listens. Isn't that a quaint idea?" ~ Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)

"But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State." ~ Thomas Jefferson

The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one. ~ Adolf Hitler

"Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined, and imprisoned, yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half of the world fools, and the other half hypocrites." ~ Thomas Jefferson

"Please do not whitewash your inherent faults with your acquired virtues. I would have the faults; they are like mine own." ~ Kahlil Gibran

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things, but, for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. ~ Steven Weinberg

"The foolish reject what they see and not what they think; the wise reject what they think and not what they see."

~ Huang Po

What God lacks, is convictions and stability of character. He ought to make a decision and either be a Presbyterian or a Catholic or something...and not try to be everything. ~ Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)

If God is willing to prevent evil, but unable, then he is not omnipotent. If God is able, but not willing, then he is malevolent. If God is both able and willing, then whence cometh evil? If God is neither able nor willing...then why call him God? ~ Epicurus

"If I really believed that the Jews killed God . . . I’d worship the Jews." ~ Bill Hicks

The great foe of democracy now and in the near future is plutocracy. Every year that passes brings out this antagonism more distinctly. It is to be the social war of the twentieth century. In that war militarism, expansion and imperialism w...ill all favor plutocracy. In the first place, war and expansion will favor jobbery, both in the dependencies and at home. In the second place, they will take away the attention of the people from what the plutocrats are doing. In the third place, they will cause large expenditures of the people’s money, the return for which will not go into the treasury, but into the hands of a few schemers. In the fourth place, they will call for a large public debt and taxes, and these things especially tend to make men unequal, because any social burdens bear more heavily on the weak than on the strong, and so make the weak weaker and the strong stronger. Therefore expansion and imperialism are a grand onslaught on democracy. ~William Graham Summer

"There’s a phrase we live by in America: “In God We Trust”. And it’s right there where Jesus would want it...on our money." ~ Bill Maher

The time to buy is when the blood is running in the streets. ~ Nathan Rothschild

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. ~ George Bernard Shaw

It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept, which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death. ~ Albert Einstein

"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." ~ John Adams

"O Lord our God, help us tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble ...homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it..." ~ Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)

If a man is dumb, someone is going to get the best of him, so why not you? If you don't, you're as dumb as he is. ~ Arnold Rothstein

He who controls the money supply of a nation controls the nation. ~ James A. Garfield

Give me control of a nation's money, and I care not who makes the laws." ~ Mayer Amschel Rothschild

A brave man is a man who dares to look the Devil in the face and tell him he is a Devil. ~ James A. Garfield

We moralize among ruins. ~ Benjamin Disrael

We live in an age when to be young and to be indifferent can be no longer synonymous. We must prepare for the coming hour. The claims of the future are represented by suffering millions; and the youth of a nation are the trustees of Posterity. ~ Benjamin Disraeli

It makes no difference if I burn my bridges behind me - I never retreat.

~ Fiorello LaGuardia

Leadership is particularly necessary to ensure ready acceptance of the unfamiliar and that, which is contrary to tradition. ~ Cyril Falls

Because my love for you is beyond words, I decided to shut up. ~ Nizar Qabbani

The policeman isn't there to create disorder; the policeman is there to preserve disorder. ~ Mayor Richard J. Daley (Chicago)

Me, I'm dishonest, and you can always trust a dishonest man to be dishonest. Honestly, it's the honest ones you have to watch out for. ~Johnny Depp

Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness. ~ George Washington

Kings may be judges of the earth, but wise men are the judges of kings. ~Solomon Ibn Gabirol

I've had a few arguments with people, but I never carry a grudge. You know why? While you're carrying a grudge, they're out dancing ~Buddy Hackett

You can't tell a millionaire's son from a billionaire's. ~ Vance Packard

The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success.~ Bruce Feirstein

When all you own is a hammer, every problem starts looking like a nail. ~Abraham Maslow

Everything depends on circumstances. ~ Leon Trotsky

Success is the sole earthly judge of right and wrong. ~Adolf Hitler

“The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over” ~ Joseph Goebbels

Every collectivist revolution rides in on a Trojan horse of 'emergency'. It was the tactic of Lenin, Hitler, and Mussolini. In the collectivist sweep over a dozen minor countries of Europe, it was the cry of men striving to get on horseback. And 'emergency' became the justification of the subsequent steps. This technique of creating emergency is the greatest achievement that demagoguery attains. ~ Herbert Hoover

All great movements are popular movements. They are the volcanic eruptions of human passions and emotions, stirred into activity by the ruthless Goddess of Distress or by the torch of the spoken word cast into the midst of the people.

~ Adolf Hitler

Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way round, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise. ~ Adolf Hitler

What good fortune for governments that the people do not think. ~ Adolf Hitler

As I read them through these quotes I found that most of them, even though the quotes in some cases are 40 or 50 years old, dealt with some aspect of how people feel about society, culture, or the government or some aspect of each today. There is definitely a dark side proffered here, a side of distrust and maybe a little fear. I’ll be interested in the type of quotes I’ll read in the coming year. Be back in 2011. . . .