To avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, an alert citizenry today should take the trouble to learn how easy it can be for a powerful minority to manipulate information to win the support-or the indifference-of the majority towards an action.

Aristotle writes that persuasion is based on three things: the ethos, or personal character of the speaker the pathos, or getting the audience into the right kind of emotional receptivity and the logos, or the argument itself, carried out by abbreviated syllogisms, or something like deductive syllogisms, and by the use of example.

When you give false information you tend to restrict the freedom of choice to others.

Any restrictions to freedom of expression will always open the door to possible others, because analogical reasoning can mount arguments showing why this or that class of objects is closely similar to those for which exceptions have been made.

The best goal for propaganda analysis is to develop such an understanding of the phenomenon that it will no longer be profitable for people to engage in it.

Small town people assume you are a friend if you simply remember their names.

The liar wants to be believed, but lying undermines the foundation for credibility.

The specific media may change, but the principles of human nature have remained fairly constant over the millenia.

Exposure as a propagandist is fatal to the would-be persuader.

When we look for propaganda, we have the obvious job of asking what messages are being propagated.

There are many special interests skilful at manipulating circumstances and communications in such a way as to benefit their own ends and not necessarily the public good.

There is arguably something wrong with a method of persuasion that cannot pass the test of publicity.

Down to the present day the luminous image of democracy has often served as a pretext for the most undemocratic actions.

In modern times sound policy-making must often come to grips with numbers.

If war is glorified, it tends to eclipse the policies it is meant to serve.

Propaganda analysis can contribute to world peace by exposing those techniques that lead to armed conflict by creating misapprehension of reality.

In a general way, a major goal of the propagandist is to seek some kind of authoritative backing for the belief he or she is propagating.