The Politics Of Fear

The balance of fear: “When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

Thomas Jefferson 1746-1826

On spreading fear: “The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one.”

Adolf Hitler 1889-19545

The fear of the individual: A new dawn: “ ….never before was there in the hands of men an instrument so powerful to influence the thoughts and actions of the multitudes.”

Ireland’s President on his fear for Televisions introduction in the dawn of 1962

Eamon De Valera 1882-1975

The appeasement of fear: “An appeaser is one who fears yet feeds a crocodile hoping it will eat him last.”

Winston Churchill 1874- 1965

The fear of no choice: It take more courage to retreat in the Russian army than to advance“

Stalin 1879-1953

Fearful courage: Cowards die many times before their actual deaths. Men of courage die but once.

Julius Caeser 100 BC-44BC

Prison scribe on his fear for having done nothing: 

“ In Germany they came for the communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.”

Reverand Martin Niemoller 1892-1984

On unreasonable fear: The only thing we have to fear is fear itself-nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

Franklin D Roosevelt 1882-1945