"The masses have never thirsted after truth. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim." 

Gustave Le Bon

 

“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.”
- Charles MacKay

"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office"
- Aesop

"We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield."
- George Orwell (1946)

"The twentieth century has been characterised by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy."
- Alex Carey

“Questioning the ostensibly unquestionable premises of our way of life is arguably the most urgent of services we owe our fellow humans and ourselves. ”
- Zygmunt Bauman, Globalization: The Human Consequences

“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
- Voltaire

"Il serait inique que des barbouilleurs animés par un esprit civique de dépollution des images soient poursuivis et condamnés, alors que tant d'ignominies dues à la recherche du profit maximum sont tolérées."
- Edgar Morin.

"Os povos serão cultos na medida em que entre eles crescer o número dos que se negam a aceitar qualquer benefício dos que podem; dos que se mantêm sempre vigilantes em defesa dos oprimidos não porque tenham este ou aquele credo político, mas por isso mesmo, porque são oprimidos e neles se quebram as leis da Humanidade e da razão; dos que se levantam, sinceros e corajosos, ante as ordens injustas, não também porque saem de um dos campos em luta, mas por serem injustas; dos que acima de tudo defendem o direito de pensar e de ser digno"
- Agostinho da Silva, “O Terceiro Caminho”, Diário de Alcestes [1945], in Textos e Ensaios Filosóficos I, p. 217. 

Fonte : http://arevistaentre.blogspot.pt/2010/12/os-povos-serao-cultos-na-medida-em-que.html

“It is one of the serious evils of our present system of banking that it enables one class of society, and that by no means a numerous one, by its control over the currency to act injuriously upon the interests of all the others and to exercise more than its just proportion of influence in political affairs.”
- Andrew Jackson, Farewell Address - March 4, 1837

"Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The Bankers own the Earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of a pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the fortunes like mine will disappear, and they ought to disappear, for this world would be a happier and better world to live in. But if you wish to remain slaves of the Bankers and pay for the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits."
- Sir Josiah Stamp, President of the Bank of England in the 1920s, the second richest man in Britain.
Source : http://www.moneyreformparty.org.uk/money/about_money/quotes.php

"Em tempo de guerra, a primeira vítima é a verdade." 

"In time of war the first casualty is truth"

- Boake Carter conforme citado em "Over 1200 World's Military Maxims & Proverbs: Including Ancient Indian Military Maxims on War and Peace"‎ - Página 16, de Gurdip Singh Bhatia - Publicado por Deep & Deep, 1968 - 115 páginas

"Money is a new form of slavery, and distinguishable from the old simply by the fact that it is impersonal - that there is no human relation between master and slave."
- Leo Tolstoy (1828 - 1910)

"I do not want the peace which passeth understanding, I want the understanding which bringeth peace."
- Helen Keller

"Ninguém é tão ignorante que não tenha algo a ensinar. Ninguém é tão sábio
que não tenha algo a aprender."
- Blaise Pascal
Fonte: http://repositorio.ul.pt/bitstream/10451/3892/17/ulfl068174_tm_citacoes.pdf

"We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy - from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses - that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high."
- Frances Moore Lappé, Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Source: http://p2pfoundation.net/Citations_on_Social_Change

"Com o tempo, uma imprensa cínica, mercenária, demagógica e corrupta formará um público tão vil como ela mesma."
- Joseph Pulitzer - 1847/1911

"It's no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. "

"When one loses the deep intimate relationship with nature, then temples, mosques and churches become important."

"Do not think about yourself, but be aware of the thought, emotion, or action that makes you think of yourself."

"Tradition becomes our security, and when the mind is secure it is in decay."

"To me, then, true criticism consists in trying to find out the intrinsic worth of the thing itself, and not in attributing a quality to that thing. You attribute a quality to an environment, to an experience, only when you want to derive something from it, when you want to gain or to have power or happiness. Now this destroys true criticism. Your desire is perverted through attributing values, and therefore you cannot see clearly. Instead of trying to see the flower in its original and entire beauty, you look at it through coloured glasses, and therefore you can never see it as it is." 

- Jiddu Krishnamurti

"Propaganda has become the primary means by which the wealthy communicate with the rest of society. Whether selling a product, a political candidate, a law, or a war, seldom do the powerful delivery messages to the public before consulting their colleagues in the public relations industry."

"Psywar" Film by Scott Noble

...at this point it is impossible to bridge the divide between “a literate, marginalized minority and those who have been consumed by an illiterate mass culture.” 
- Chris Hedges "Empire of Illusion"