21 quotes
The engineering of consent is the very essence of the democratic process, the freedom to persuade and suggest.
The public relations counsel must always subdivide the appeal of his subject and present it through the widest possible variety of avenues to the public.
Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923)
Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government.
Propaganda (1928)
If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing it?
Propaganda (1928)
It is sometimes possible to change the attitudes of millions but impossible to change the attitude of one man.
L. Tye The Father of Spin (1998)
Propaganda is of no use to the politician unless he has something to say which the public, consciously or unconsciously, wants to hear.
Propaganda (1928)
The best defense against propaganda: more propaganda.
L. Tye The Father of Spin (1998)
The best place to find things: the public library.
L. Tye The Father of Spin (1998)
For the same reason I read the National Geographic, I like to see places I will never visit.
L. Tye The Father of Spin (1998)
When Napoleon said, "Circumstance? I make circumstance‚" he expressed very nearly the spirit of the public relations counsel's work.
Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923)
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.
Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923)
The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.
Propaganda (1928)
This is an age of mass production. In the mass production of materials a broad technique has been developed and applied to their distribution. In this age, too, there must be a technique for the mass distribution of ideas.
People accept the facts which come to them through existing channels. They like to hear new things in accustomed ways. They have neither the time nor the inclination to search for facts that are not readily available to them.
Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923)
The three main elements of public relations are practically as old as society: informing people, persuading people, or integrating people with people. Of course, the means and methods of accomplishing these ends have changed as society has changed.
Public Relations (1952)
Domination to-day is not a product of armies or navies or wealth or policies. It is a domination based on the one hand upon accomplished unity, and on the other hand upon the fact that opposition is generally characterized by a high degree of disunity.
Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923)
Goebbels [...] was using my book Crystallizing Public Opinion as a basis for his destructive campaign against the Jews of Germany. This shocked me.
Biography of an Idea: Memoirs of Public Relations Counsel (1965)
In theory, everybody buys the best and cheapest commodities offered to him on the market. In practice, if every one went around pricing, and chemically testing before purchasing, the dozens of soaps or fabrics or brands of bread which are for sale, economic life would become hopelessly jammed.
Propaganda (1928)
When an appeal to the instincts can be made so powerful as to secure acceptance in the medium of dissemination in spite of competitive interests, it can be aptly termed news. The public relations counsel, therefore, is a creator of news for whatever medium he chooses to transmit ideas. It is his duty to create news no matter what the medium which broadcasts this news.
Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923)
No serious sociologist any longer believes that the voice of the people expresses any divine or specially wise and lofty idea. The voice of the people expresses the mind of the people, and that mind is made up for it by the group leaders in whom it believes and by those persons who understand the manipulation of public opinion. It is composed of inherited prejudices and symbols and clichés and verbal formulas supplied to them by the leaders.
Propaganda (1928)