Edward Bernays Quotes

If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without them knowing it.

We are dominated by the relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.

The only difference between 'propaganda' and 'education,' really, is in the point of view. The advocacy of what we believe in is education. The advocacy of what we don't believe in is propaganda.

We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.

The engineering of consent is the very essence of the democratic process, the freedom to persuade and suggest.

People want to go where they wanted to be led.

Men (people) are rarely aware of the real reasons which motivate their actions.

Look for a situation in which your work will give you as much happiness as your spare time.

Any person or organization depends ultimately on public approval, and is therefore faced with the problem of engineering the public's consent to a program or goal.

The great enemy of any attempt to change men's habits is inertia. Civilization is limited by intertia.

The best defense against propaganda: more propaganda.

The normal school should provide for the training of the educator to make him realize that his is a twofold job: education as a teacher and education as a propagandist.

Propaganda will never die out. Intelligent men must realize that propaganda is the modern instrument by which they can fight for productive ends and help to bring order out of chaos.

The systematic study of mass psychology revealed to students the potentialities of invisible government of society by manipulation of the motives which actuate man in the group.

If you can influence the leaders, either with or without their conscious cooperation, you automatically influence the group which they sway.

It is sometimes possible to change the attitudes of millions but impossible to change the attitude of one man.

We govern what the public think about.

In some departments of our daily life, in which we imagine ourselves free agents, we are ruled by dictators exercising great power.

Modern business must have its finger continuously on the public pulse. It must understand the changes in the public mind and be prepared to interpret itself fairly and eloquently to changing opinion.

The public is not cognizant of the real value of education, and does not realize that education as a social force is not receiving the kind of attention it has the right to expect in a democracy.

Our invisible governors are, in many cases, unaware of the identity of their fellow members in the inner cabinet.

For the same reason I read the National Geographic, I like to see places I will never visit.

The best place to find things: the public library.

Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.