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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