43+ Edward Bernays Quotes On Propaganda, Publicity

Edward Bernays was an Austrian-American public relations pioneer and the father of modern public relations. He was an early leader in the field of public relations and propaganda, and is often referred to as the "father of public relations". He was one of the first to attempt to manipulate public opinion using psychological and sociological techniques. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Edward Bernays on propaganda, publicity, propaganda.

Top 10 Edward Bernays Quotes

1. If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without them knowing it.
2. We are dominated by the relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.
3. The only difference between 'propaganda' and 'education,' really, is in the point of view. The advocacy of what we believe in is education. The advocacy of what we don't believe in is propaganda.
4. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.
5. The engineering of consent is the very essence of the democratic process, the freedom to persuade and suggest.
6. Look for a situation in which your work will give you as much happiness as your spare time.
7. Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government.
8. The best defense against propaganda: more propaganda.
9. The normal school should provide for the training of the educator to make him realize that his is a twofold job: education as a teacher and education as a propagandist.
10. Propaganda will never die out. Intelligent men must realize that propaganda is the modern instrument by which they can fight for productive ends and help to bring order out of chaos.

Edward Bernays Short Quotes

• For the same reason I read the National Geographic, I like to see places I will never visit.
• People want to go where they wanted to be led.
• Men (people) are rarely aware of the real reasons which motivate their actions.

Edward Bernays Quotes About Propaganda

In the ethical sense, propaganda bears the same relation to education as to business or politics. It may be abused. It may be used to over-advertise an institution and to create in the public mind artificial values. There can be no absolute guarantee against its misuse. — Edward Bernays

Small groups of persons can, and do, make the rest of us think what they please about a given subject. But there are usually proponents and opponents of every propaganda, both of whom are equally eager to convince the majority. — Edward Bernays

Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. — Edward Bernays

I believe that competition in the future will not be only an advertising competition between individual products or between big associations, but that it will in addition be a competition of propaganda. — Edward Bernays

Edward Bernays Quotes About Publicity

The three main elements of public relations are practically as old as society: informing people, persuading people, or integrating people with people. Of course, the means and methods of accomplishing these ends have changed as society has changed. — Edward Bernays

Modern business must have its finger continuously on the public pulse. It must understand the changes in the public mind and be prepared to interpret itself fairly and eloquently to changing opinion. — Edward Bernays

The public is not cognizant of the real value of education, and does not realize that education as a social force is not receiving the kind of attention it has the right to expect in a democracy. — Edward Bernays

The best place to find things: the public library. — Edward Bernays

Any person or organization depends ultimately on public approval, and is therefore faced with the problem of engineering the public's consent to a program or goal. — Edward Bernays

We govern what the public think about. — Edward Bernays

Edward Bernays Quotes About Masses

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. — Edward Bernays

This is an age of mass production. In the mass production of materials a broad technique has been developed and applied to their distribution. In this age, too, there must be a technique for the mass distribution of ideas. — Edward Bernays

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. — Edward Bernays

The systematic study of mass psychology revealed to students the potentialities of invisible government of society by manipulation of the motives which actuate man in the group. — Edward Bernays

Edward Bernays Famous Quotes And Sayings

When I came back to the United States, I decided that if you could use propaganda for war, you could certainly use it for peace. And "propaganda" got to be a bad word because of the Germans using it, so what I did was to try and find some other words so we found the word "councelor of public relations". — Edward Bernays

We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. — Edward Bernays

In some departments of our daily life, in which we imagine ourselves free agents, we are ruled by dictators exercising great power. — Edward Bernays

In theory, everybody buys the best and cheapest commodities offered to him on the market. In practice, if every one went around pricing, and chemically testing before purchasing, the dozens of soaps or fabrics or brands of bread which are for sale, economic life would become hopelessly jammed. — Edward Bernays

A single factory, potentially capable of supplying a whole continent with its particular product, cannot afford to wait until the public asks for its product; it must maintain constant touch, through advertising and propaganda, with the vast public in order to assure itself the continuous demand which alone will make its costly plant profitable. — Edward Bernays

The counsel on public relations is not an advertising man but he advocates for advertising where that is indicated. Very often he is called in by an advertising agency to supplement its work on behalf of a client. His work and that of the advertising agency do not conflict with or duplicate each other. — Edward Bernays

It is sometimes possible to change the attitudes of millions but impossible to change the attitude of one man. — Edward Bernays

Mass production is only profitable if its rhythm can be maintained.. that is, if it can continue to sell its product in steady or increasing quantity. The result is that while, under the handicraft or small-unit system of production that was typical a century ago, demand created the supply, today supply must actively seek to create its corresponding demand. — Edward Bernays

As civilization has become more complex, and as the need for invisible government has been increasingly demonstrated, the technical means have been invented and developed by which opinion may be regimented. — Edward Bernays

Once he could read and write he would have a mind fit to rule. So ran the democratic doctrine. But instead of a mind, universal literacy has given him rubber stamps, rubber stamps inked with advertising slogans, with editorials, with published scientific data, with the trivialities of the tabloids and the platitudes of history, but quite innocent of original thought. — Edward Bernays

No serious sociologist any longer believes that the voice of the people expresses any divine or specially wise and lofty idea. The voice of the people expresses the mind of the people, and that mind is made up for it by the group leaders in whom it believes and by those persons who understand the manipulation of public opinion. It is composed of inherited prejudices and symbols and clichés and verbal formulas supplied to them by the leaders. — Edward Bernays

Our invisible governors are, in many cases, unaware of the identity of their fellow members in the inner cabinet. — Edward Bernays

If you can influence the leaders, either with or without their conscious cooperation, you automatically influence the group which they sway. But men do not need to be actually gathered together in a public meeting or in a street riot, to be subject to the influences of mass psychology. Because man is by nature gregarious he feels himself to be member of a herd, even when he is alone in his room with the curtains drawn. — Edward Bernays

The great enemy of any attempt to change men's habits is inertia. Civilization is limited by intertia. — Edward Bernays

The invisible government tends to be concentrated in the hands of the few because of the expense of manipulating the social machinery which controls the opinions and habits of the masses. To advertise on a scale which will reach fifty million persons is expensive. To reach and persuade the group leaders who dictate the public's thoughts and actions is likewise expensive. — Edward Bernays

If you can influence the leaders, either with or without their conscious cooperation, you automatically influence the group which they sway. — Edward Bernays

Life Lessons by Edward Bernays

1. Edward Bernays taught us the importance of understanding and manipulating public opinion to achieve desired outcomes.
2. He showed us how to use psychological techniques to influence people's behaviour and attitudes.
3. He demonstrated the power of strategic communication to shape public opinion and create social change.