Joseph Goebbels Quotes

A lie told once remains a lie but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth

There was no point in seeking to convert the intellectuals. For intellectuals would never be converted and would anyway always yield to the stronger, and this will always be "the man in the street." Arguments must therefore be crude, clear and forcible, and appeal to emotions and instincts, not the intellect. Truth was unimportant and entirely subordinate to tactics and psychology.

Propaganda works best when those who are being manipulated are confident they are acting on their own free will.

If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself.

Propaganda must facilitate the displacement of aggression by specifying the targets for hatred.

This is the secret of propaganda: Those who are to be persuaded by it should be completely immersed in the ideas of the propaganda, without ever noticing that they are being immersed in it.

...the rank and file are usually much more primitive than we imagine. Propaganda must therefore always be essentially simple and repetitious.

Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.

There will come a day, when all the lies will collapse under their own weight, and truth will again triumph.

The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.

It is the absolute right of the State to supervise the formation of public opinion.

Not every item of news should be published. Rather must those who control news policies endeavor to make every item of news serve a certain purpose.

It would not be impossible to prove with sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the people concerned that a square is in fact a circle. They are mere words, and words can be molded until they clothe ideas and disguise.

We enter parliament in order to supply ourselves, in the arsenal of democracy, with its own weapons. If democracy is so stupid as to give us free tickets and salaries for this bear's work, that is its affair. We do not come as friends, nor even as neutrals. We come as enemies. As the wolf bursts into the flock, so we come.

The essence of propaganda consists in winning people over to an idea so sincerely, so vitally, that in the end they succumb to it utterly and can never escape from it.

If you tell a lie long enough, it becomes the truth.

Whoever can conquer the street will one day conquer the state, for every form of power politics and any dictatorship-run state has its roots in the street.

A Jew is for me an object of disgust. I feel like vomiting when I see one. Christ could not possibly have been a Jew. It is not necessary to prove that scientifically - it is a fact. I do not need to prove this with science or scholarship. It is so!

We shall reach our goal, when we have the power to laugh as we destroy, as we smash, whatever was sacred to us as tradition, as education, and as human affection.

Every age that has historical status is governed by aristocracies.Aristocracy with the meaning - the best are ruling.Peoples do never govern themselves. That lunacy was concocted by liberalism. Behind its people's sovereignty the slyest cheaters are hiding, who don't want to be recognized.

There is no need for propaganda to be rich in intellectual content.

The English follow the principle that when one lies, it should be a big lie, and one should stick to it.

In the newspapers there is insulting and stirring up hatred. Those irresponsible daubers!

The masses need something that will give them a thrill of horror.

You have nothing to fear, if you have nothing to hide

The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous.

If you repeat a lie often enough it becomes accepted as truth.

A media system wants ostensible diversity that conceals an actual uniformity

Good propaganda does not need to lie, indeed it may not lie. It has no reason to fear the truth. It is a mistake to believe that people cannot take the truth. They can. It is only a matter of presenting the truth to people in a way that they will be able to understand. A propaganda that lies proves that it has a bad cause. It cannot be successful in the long run.

What does Christianity mean today? National Socialism is a religion. All we lack is a religious genius capable of uprooting outmoded religious practices and putting new ones in their place. We lack traditions and ritual. One day soon National Socialism will be the religion of all Germans. My Party is my church, and I believe I serve the Lord best if I do his will, and liberate my oppressed people from the fetters of slavery. That is my gospel.

As socialists, we are opponents of the Jews, because we see in the Hebrews the incarnation of capitalism, of the misuse of the nation's goods.

We shall go down in history as the greatest statesmen of all time,or as the greatest criminals

The money pigs of capitalist democracy: Money has made slaves of us. Money is the curse of mankind. It smothers the seed of everything great and good. Every penny is sticky with sweat and blood.

I'm so despondent about everything. Everything I try goes totally wrong. There's no escape from this hole here. I feel drained. So far, I still haven't found a real purpose in life. Sometimes, I'm afraid to get out of bed in the morning. There's nothing to get up for.

To be a socialist is to submit the I to the thou; socialism is sacrificing the individual to the whole.

Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place.

Do not seek Adolf Hitler with your mind. You will find him through the strength of your hearts.

During a war, news should be given out for instruction rather than information.

Propaganda is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. If the means achieves the end then the means is good... the new Ministry has no other aim than to unite the nation behind the ideal of the national revolution.

The people's community must not be a mere phrase, but a revolutionary achievement following from the radical carrying out of the basic life needs of the working class. A ruthless battle against corruption! A war against exploitation, freedom for the workers! The elimination of all economic-capitalist influences on national policy...Maintaining a rotten economic system has nothing to do with nationalism, which is an affirmation of the Fatherland. I can love Germany and hate capitalism. Not only can I, I must.

It is not propaganda’s task to be intelligent, its task is to lead to success.

Our starting point is not the individual: We do not subscribe to the view that one should feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, or clothe the naked … Our objectives are different: We must have a healthy people in order to prevail in the world.

If the day should ever come when we must go, if some day we are compelled to leave the scene of history, we will slam the door so hard that the universe will shake and mankind will stand back in stupefaction.

The war we are fighting until victory or the bitter end is in its deepest sense a war between Christ and Marx. Christ: the principle of love. Marx: the principle of hate.

That propaganda is good which leads to success, and that is bad which fails to achieve the desired result. It is not propaganda’s task to be intelligent, its task is to lead to success.

If you tell a lie, tell a big one.

Everything is what you make of it, even yourself.

The Jew is contrary to our being. ... He desecrated our people, spit on our ideals, paralyzed the strength of the nation, made our customs rotten, and polluted the morale.

At night I sit in my chamber and read the bible. Far in the distance roars the sea. Then I lie down and think for a long time about the calm and pale man from Nazareth.

A mother who is not everything for her children: a friend, a teacher, a confidant, a source of joy and founded pride, inducement and soothing, reconciliator, judge and forgiver, that mother obviously chose the wrong job.