Andrew Cook

“Orwell understood that a government that is beyond the reach of accountability has little incentive to tell the truth. Indeed, its power may arise from the obliteration of objective facts. In the world of 1984, contradictory statements lose all sense of context and we are left with preposterous slogans: “War Is Peace. Freedom Is Slavery. Ignorance Is Strength.” And yet Orwell asks us, if there is no one with the power to call out a lie as a lie, does it end up ceasing to be a lie?”
― Dan Rather, What Unites Us: Reflections on Patriotism

“The time of lurching blindly towards the horizon is over, for now there might be something just over the horizon. The time for decisive action has arrived. Time for throats to be cut. For at last there’s someone to attack. Those who haven’t understood till now, let them understand–we finally have a clear-cut enemy within reach.”
― Andrzej Sapkowski, The Tower of Swallows

“The mass of people are so stupid, so gullible, because they want to be misled. There’s no way to make them not want it. You have to work with the human race as it exists, with all of its flaws. Getting them to see reason is a fool’s errand.”
― Neal Stephenson, Fall; or, Dodge in Hell

“Verily, great self-righteousness and great blindness are needed to call the gore pouring from the scaffold justice. Vysogota of Corvo”
― Andrzej Sapkowski, The Tower of the Swallow