Conspiracy Theories Quotes

“The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory, is that conspiracy theorists believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is actually chaotic. The truth is that it is not The Iluminati, or The Jewish Banking Conspiracy, or the Gray Alien Theory.

The truth is far more frightening - Nobody is in control.

The world is rudderless.”
― Alan Moore

“The amount of violations of human rights in a country is always an inverse function of the amount of complaints about human rights violations heard from there. The greater the number of complaints being aired, the better protected are human rights in that country.”
― Daniel Patrick Moynihan

“The mentally disturbed do not employ the Principle of Scientific Parsimony: the most simple theory to explain a given set of facts. They shoot for the baroque.”
― Philip K. Dick, VALIS

“History is much more the product of chaos than of conspiracy”
― Zbigniew Brzezinski

“The emotional appeal of a conspiracy theory is in its simplicity. It explains away complex phenomena, accounts for chance and accidents, offers the believer the satisfying sense of having special, privileged access to the truth. For those who become the one-party state’s gatekeepers, the repetition of these conspiracy theories also brings another reward: power.”
― Anne Applebaum, Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism

“Behind the hieroglyphic streets there would either be a transcendent meaning, or only the earth.”
― Thomas Pynchon

“Antisemitism is unique among religious hatreds. It is a racist conspiracy theory fashioned for the needs of messianic and brutal rulers, as dictators from the Tsars to the Islamists via the Nazis have shown. Many other alleged religious 'hatreds' are not hatreds in the true sense. If I criticise Islamic, Orthodox Jewish or Catholic attitudes towards women, for instance, and I'm accused of being a bigot, I shrug and say it is not bigoted to oppose bigotry.”
― Nick Cohen

“The reason people don't buy conspiracy theories is they think 'conspiracy' means everybody's on the same program. That's not how it works. Everybody's got a different program. They just all want the same guy dead. Socrates was a gadfly, but I bet he took time out to screw somebody's wife.”
― James Lee Burke, Sunset Limited

“This brings us to the crux moment in the supposed 'Show Trial' melodrama. Employing the confusing and confused testimony of Jude Wanniski (who he also describes as a political nut-case, if not a nut-case flat-out, and to whom he introduced me in the first place) Blumenthal suggests that I concerted my testimony in advance with the House Republicans, notably James Rogan and Lindsey Graham. Feebly bridging the gap between sheer conjecture and outright conspiracy, Rogan is quoted as saying: 'Hitchens may well have called Lindsey..' I did not in fact do any such thing. Why should my denial be believed? It's not as if I care. I probably should have colluded with them, if my intention was to land a blow on Clinton (which it was) let alone to plant a Judas kiss on Blumenthal (which it was not). But every other fragment of Blumenthal's evidence and description shows—even boasts—that Congressman Graham was essentially punching air until the last day of the trial. That could not possibly have been true, especially in his cross-examination of Blumenthal, if he knew he had an ace in his vest-pocket all along. Only a tendency to paranoia or to all-explaining theories could suggest the contrary. I'd even be able to claim for myself, I hope, that if I'd truly wanted to gouge a deep or vengeful wound I could or would have made a better job of it.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“After Tony [Judt]'s death, in August 2010, I toured to discuss the book we had written together, which he had entitle 'Thinking the Twentieth Century.' I realized as I traveled around the United States that its subject had been forgotten all too well. In hotel rooms, I watched Russian television toy with the traumatic American history of race, suggesting that Barack Obama had been born in Africa. It struck me as odd that the American entertainer Donald Trump picked up the theme not long thereafter.”
― Timothy Snyder, The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America

“An empty attic is a primate's olympus.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Neurosonnets: The Naskar Art of Neuroscience

“When Convention is Contaminated:

Brain cannot survive the vacuum of space, mind cannot survive the vacuum of time - so the body produces spinal fluid for the brain to float, and the brain produces beliefs for the mind to survive. But while the immune system keeps the spinal fluid sterilized of infection without conscious intervention, brain does nothing to keep beliefs sterilized of prejudice, unless you make it a habit to question convention.

Choose to fight physical infection or not, your body will do it for you, but as for psychological contaminations, you have to fight them yourself - the faculties are already carved in your brain circuits, but you have to be willing to use them, defying the comforting fantasies of convention, that's how an ape evolves into human.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“Keep your mind open, just not so open that your brain starts leaking - an empty attic is a primate's olympus.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Neurosonnets: The Naskar Art of Neuroscience

“These days, it seems as though we’ve all gotten used to having people like that in our lives—friends, family members, or colleagues with whom we carefully restrict our conversations. Perhaps they’re just casual acquaintances on social media, but they may also be people we know intimately. I’d be willing to bet that almost everyone reading this knows someone who has undergone a dramatic shift in their deep beliefs about health, the media, the government, the pharmaceutical industry, and more over the last few years. They may not suddenly believe that the earth is flat (though a surprising number of people do). But they may well deny the existence of Covid-19 or think it’s a bioweapon. They may refuse to admit the legitimacy of the 2020 US presidential election or think that Antifa staged the storming of the Capitol. They may insist on telling the real story behind the assassination of John F. Kennedy, climate change, the events of 9/11, or the death of Princess Diana. Some may confidently declare that all vaccines are evil. Others think that antivaxxers are actually lizard people who came up with an ingenious plot to destroy humanity. (Okay, the last one was made up by the folks behind the ScienceSaves campaign to promote vaccines. But you get my point.)

It sometimes seems that the growing tide of misinformation and false beliefs has left no community or family unscathed. And jokes about lizard people aside, it’s no longer something we laugh about. When you hear the words conspiracy theory, what comes to mind probably isn’t tinfoil hats or little green men; it’s much more serious and more personal. Anytime I mention this topic, I see pained expressions. People shake their heads and tell me about their friend, their cousin, their parents, their in-laws, their kids. The ones they’re afraid to invite to parties or family events. The ones they can’t talk to at all. They just can’t wrap their minds around how that person ended up believing those things.”
― Dan Ariely, Misbelief: What Makes Rational People Believe Irrational Things

“Brain cannot survive the vacuum of space, mind cannot survive the vacuum of time - so the body produces spinal fluid for the brain to float, and the brain produces beliefs for the mind to survive. But while the immune system keeps the spinal fluid sterilized of infection without conscious intervention, brain does nothing to keep beliefs sterilized of prejudice, unless you make it a habit to question convention.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“Wake up, sheeple! The pigeons aren't real!”
― Unknown Author

“Truth isn't known, man. It's suppressed! Hidden in plain sight, encoded in sitcom laugh tracks, and beamed directly into your toothpaste by the fluoride cartel. Wake up, sheeple! The pigeons aren't real!”
― Unknown Author

“Look, you want to know why conspiracy theories are wrong? Because people are just not that good at keeping secrets.”
― Unknown Author

“The biggest conspiracy isn't what 'they' are hiding, it's how much of the world's dysfunction can be attributed to plain old human error.”
― Unknown Author

“Conspiracy theories are like trying to explain a light switch by inventing an interdimensional gnome pushing the button. It's usually just faulty wiring.”
― Unknown Author

“Conspiracy theory has gone too far when the explanation for everything being connected is less believable than the idea that sometimes, people just make mistakes, or... you know, gravity happens.”
― Unknown Author

“The Epstein list didn't kill itself.”
― Oliver Markus Malloy, American Fascism: A German Writer's Urgent Warning To America

“Superstition in Our Marrow (Sonnet 2428)

Earth is a planet of apes,
ivory tower apes diss faith out of reason,
pulpit apes diss reason out of faith -

then there are the newage apes,
chasing goat yoga, chakra penetration,
fortune cards, and aura farming,
who diss both conventional religion
and science, for they've found a more
self-absorbed method of hallucination.

Superstition runs through the marrow
of the human race, with each new generation
it merely changes costume.
Religion is superstition,
intellect is superstition,
newage spirituality is superstition -

from the sharpest of reason to the blindest of faith,
eventually all end up in superstition,
because in pursuit of a meaning higher than life,
we get disconnected from simple miracles of nature.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“Conspiracy thinking generally follows a similar pattern: a sense of “knowing what others don’t” that offers temporary superiority or certainty, but rarely leads to wisdom, peace, or meaningful change.”
― Donna Goddard, Consciousness Rising

“But no one who studies autocratic propaganda believes that fact-checking or even swift reactions are sufficient. By the time the correction is made, the falsehood has already traveled around the world. Our old models never acknowledged the truth that many people desire disinformation. They are attracted by conspiracy theories and will not necessarily seek out reliable news at all.”
― Anne Applebaum, Autocracy, Inc.

“According to Terry Nichols, that winter of 1995, in Junction City, Timothy McVeigh accidentally let slip his FBI handler’s name: “Larry Potts.” Potts, the demoted former FBI deputy director, would surely have outraged McVeigh for his prominent roles in the FBI sieges at Ruby Ridge and Waco. Potts had set the rules of engagement that led to the horrendous sniper killing of Vicki Weaver on her cabin porch in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, as she held her newborn baby in her arms. Then at Waco, Potts had toured the scene late in the FBI’s long siege and recommended the attorney general approve the deadly tear gas raid that ended the Texas standoff with scores of deaths.

“McVeigh said he believed Potts was manipulating him and forcing him to go off script, which I understood meant to change the target of the bombing,” Nichols said. “That was the only time I ever heard McVeigh refer to Larry Potts in that context.”
― Margaret Roberts, Blowback: The Untold Story of the FBI and the Oklahoma City Bombing

“The Oklahoma City bombing was an FBI PATCON plot allowed to go too far, unleashing neo-Nazi violence on hundreds of innocent citizens.”
― Margaret Roberts, Blowback: The Untold Story of the FBI and the Oklahoma City Bombing

“Eric Holder (Deputy Attorney General) and Janet Napolitano (Secretary of Homeland Security) — both of whom were knee deep in PATCON and the cover-up of the true circumstances behind the deaths of [168] men, women and children in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995.”
― Margaret Roberts, Blowback: The Untold Story of the FBI and the Oklahoma City Bombing

“For over six months the order had been publishing The Warning, an eight-page newspaper carrying lurid red headlines and poorly-drawn quarter-page cartoons, and edited by Matthew. The noble Southern working people purchased it eagerly, devouring and believing every word in it. Matthew, in 14-point, one-syllable word editorials painted terrifying pictures of the menace confronting white supremacy and the utter necessity of crushing it. Very cleverly he linked up the Pope, the Yellow Peril, the Alien Invasion and Foreign Entanglements with Black-No-More as devices of the Devil. He wrote with such blunt sincerity that sometimes he almost persuaded himself that it was all true.”
― George S. Schuyler, Black No More

“The great mass of white workers, however, was afraid to organize and fight for more pay because of a deepset fear that the Negroes would take their jobs. They had heard of black labor taking the work of white labor under the guns of white militia, and they were afraid to risk it. They had first read of the activities of Black-No-More, Incorporated, with a secret feeling akin to relief but after the orators of the Knights of Nordica and the editorials of The Warning began to portray the menace confronting them, they forgot about their economic ills and began to yell for the blood of Dr. Crookman and his associates. Why, they began to argue, one couldn't tell who was who! Herein lay the fundamental cause of all their ills. Times were hard, they reasoned, because there were so many white Negroes in their midst taking their jobs and undermining their American standard of living. None of them had ever attained an American standard of living to be sure, but that fact never occurred to any of them. So they flocked to the meetings of the Knights of Nordica and night after night sat spellbound while Rev. Givens, who had finished the eighth grade in a one-room country school, explained the laws of heredity and spoke eloquently of the growing danger of black babies.”
― George S. Schuyler, Black No More