J. Edgar Hoover > Quotes

“The individual is handicapped by coming face-to-face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists. The American mind simply has not come to a realization of the evil which has been introduced into our midst. It rejects even the assumption that human creatures could espouse a philosophy which must ultimately destroy all that is good and decent.”
― J. Edgar Hoover

“There is something addictive about secrets.”
― J. Edgar Hoover

“The cure for crime is not the electric chair, but the high chair.”
― J. Edgar Hoover

“it is the function of mass agitation to exploit all the grievances, hopes, aspirations, prejudices, fears, and ideals of all the special groups that make up our society, social, religious, economic, racial, political. Stir them up. Set one against the other. Divide and conquer. That’s the way to soften up a democracy.”
― J. Edgar Hoover, Masters Of Deceit: The Story Of Communism In America And How To Fight It

“Of particular interest to the communists is the influence of fellow travelers and sympathizers in the “thought-molding” field: teachers, script writers, newspapermen, news analysts. If these individuals can be subjected to the slightest bit of communist thought control, the Party will have won a major victory.”
― J. Edgar Hoover, Masters Of Deceit: The Story Of Communism In America And How To Fight It

“It is a bitter irony of history, indeed, that the founder of communism should be literally kept alive by a wealthy industrialist, and that a “capitalist’s” son, turned communist, should become the second “father” of this revolutionary movement.”
― J. Edgar Hoover, Masters Of Deceit: The Story Of Communism In America And How To Fight It

“Actually the vast majority of Negroes and members of foreign-language groups have rejected communism for what it is: a heartless, totalitarian way of life which completely disregards the dignity of man.”
― J. Edgar Hoover, Masters Of Deceit: The Story Of Communism In America And How To Fight It

“The best way to appreciate the nature and objectives of an enemy is to observe him in action.”
― J. Edgar Hoover, Masters Of Deceit: The Story Of Communism In America And How To Fight It

“Dictatorship is power based directly upon force and unrestricted by any laws.”
― J. Edgar Hoover, Masters Of Deceit: The Story Of Communism In America And How To Fight It

“Party leaders stay in fancy hotels or take vacations, while rank-and-file members are hounded to donate the last dollar”
― J. Edgar Hoover, Masters Of Deceit: The Story Of Communism In America And How To Fight It

“Noncommunist ranks must be infiltrated, penetrated, and subverted. The success of the communist mission depends on capturing the enemy’s stronghold from within.”
― J. Edgar Hoover, Masters Of Deceit: The Story Of Communism In America And How To Fight It

“The communists have a special disdain for lawyers. Perhaps it is because there will be no need for lawyers when there are no rights to defend. At any rate, Foster has said, “The pest of lawyers will be abolished.”
― J. Edgar Hoover, Masters Of Deceit: The Story Of Communism In America And How To Fight It

“God grant”
― J. Edgar Hoover, Masters Of Deceit: The Story Of Communism In America And How To Fight It

“Millions of Russians found themselves gripped by a tyranny incomparably worse than that of the Czar.”
― J. Edgar Hoover, Masters Of Deceit: The Story Of Communism In America And How To Fight It

“The huge seventy-billion a year ‘defense’ budget”
― J. Edgar Hoover, Masters Of Deceit: The Story Of Communism In America And How To Fight It

“When it’s impossible to change the rules, follow them with a vengeance.”
― J. Edgar Hoover

“Justice is incidental to law and order”
― J. Edgar Hoover

“In June, 1957, Nikita Khrushchev, Soviet Communist Party boss, was interviewed before a nation-wide American television audience. With calm assurance he stated: “. . . I can prophesy that your grandchildren in America will live under socialism. And please do not be afraid of that. Your grandchildren will not understand how their grandparents did not understand the progressive nature of a socialist society.”
― J. Edgar Hoover, Masters Of Deceit: The Story Of Communism In America And How To Fight It

“Folks-Shtimme,”
― J. Edgar Hoover, Masters Of Deceit: The Story Of Communism In America And How To Fight It

“a funeral dirge will be sung either over the Soviet Republic”
― J. Edgar Hoover, Masters Of Deceit: The Story Of Communism In America And How To Fight It

“Espionage is utilized not only to secure information but also to weaken the “enemy” from within.”
― J. Edgar Hoover, Masters Of Deceit: The Story Of Communism In America And How To Fight It

“Karl Marx described Judaism as “anti-social” and an expression of Jewish “egoism.” Marx, better than any other communist leader, illustrates the gulf between Jewish tradition and communism. He could not be loyal to both, so in accepting the communist ideal, he was not content to reject Jewish tradition; he had to malign it and seek to destroy it with such bitterness as: “Money is the jealous God of Israel, by the side of which no other god may exist. . . . Exchange is the Jew’s real God.”
― J. Edgar Hoover, Masters Of Deceit: The Story Of Communism In America And How To Fight It

“The Party member may physically reside in the United States, but he “lives” in a communist “world.”
― J. Edgar Hoover, Masters Of Deceit: The Story Of Communism In America And How To Fight It

“Communists are not progressives.”
― J. Edgar Hoover, Masters Of Deceit: The Story Of Communism In America And How To Fight It

“The Communist Party, USA, first emerged in Chicago, Illinois, in 1919.”
― J. Edgar Hoover, Masters Of Deceit: The Story Of Communism In America And How To Fight It

“Communism is the very opposite of liberalism. Liberalism means increased rights for the citizen; a curb on the powers of the central government; freedom of speech, religion, and the press.”
― J. Edgar Hoover, Masters Of Deceit: The Story Of Communism In America And How To Fight It

“it is the function of mass agitation to exploit all the grievances, hopes, aspirations, prejudices, fears, and ideals of all the special groups that make up our society, social, religious, economic, racial, political. Stir them up. Set one against the other. Divide”
― J. Edgar Hoover, Masters Of Deceit: The Story Of Communism In America And How To Fight It

“Communism, Marx proclaimed, represented the new “synthesis” of the capitalist-proletariat struggle and the apex of all history. At this point, said Marx, conflict would now cease, although, again, he does not say why. This new world would be the “perfect” and “final” society: stateless, classless, godless, where all property used in production would be held in common, and human activities would conform to the principle “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.”
― J. Edgar Hoover, Masters Of Deceit: The Story Of Communism In America And How To Fight It

“Communists are not liberals.”
― J. Edgar Hoover, Masters Of Deceit: The Story Of Communism In America And How To Fight It

“Lenin’s distinction is decisive. A propagandist, he says, to explain unemployment must talk about the capitalist nature of the crisis, the need for building a socialist society, etc.”
― J. Edgar Hoover, Masters Of Deceit: The Story Of Communism In America And How To Fight It