MASS MOVEMENTS




Liberal friendly quotes:

"The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready is he to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause."
-- Eric Hoffer, The True Believer, p. 14

"Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all unifying agents… Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without a belief in a devil."
-- Eric Hoffer, The True Believer, p. 95

"The religious character of the Bolshevik and Nazi revolutions is generally recognized. The hammer and sickle and the swastika are in a class with the cross. The ceremonial of their parades is as the ceremonial of a religious procession. The have articles of faith, saints, martyrs and holy sepulchers."
-- Eric Hoffer, The True Believer, p. 19

"It is obvious that a proselytizing mass movement must break down all existing group ties if it is to win a considerable following. The ideal potential convert is the individual who stands alone, who has no collective body he can blend with and lose himself in and so mask the pettiness, meaninglessness and shabbiness of his individual existence. Where a mass movement finds the corporate pattern of family, tribe, country, et cetera, in a state of disruption and decay, it moves in and gathers the harvest. Where it finds the corporate pattern in good repair, it must attack and disrupt."
-- Eric Hoffer, The True Believer, p. 36

And from the other side...

"When my heart is cold and I cannot pray as I should I scourge myself with the thought of the impiety and ingratitude of my enemies, the Pope and his accomplices and vermin, and Zwingli, so that my heart swells with righteous indignation and vehemence: 'Holy be Thy Name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done!' And the hotter I grow the more ardent do my prayers become."
-- Martin Luther, "Table Talk," Number 2387 a-b

"[Vehemence, passion and fanaticism are] the great magnetic forces which alone attract the great masses; for these masses always respond to the compelling force which emanates from absolute faith in the ideas put forward, combined with an indomitable zest to fight for and defend them... The doom of the nation can be averted only by a storm of glowing passion; but only those who are passionate themselves can arouse passion in others."
-- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

"When from his little workshop or big factory, in which [a person] feels very small, he steps for the first time into a mass meeting and has thousands and thousands of people of the same opinion around him... he is swept away by three or four thousand others into the mighty effect of suggestive intoxication and enthusiasm, when the visible success and agreement of thousands confirm to him the rightness of the new doctrine…"
-- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp. 478-9

"The best means of defense is attack… the reputation of our hall-guards stamped us as a political fighting force and not as a debating society."
-- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

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