1,318 books
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5,845 voters
Simon deVeer
http://www.simonsaystraining.com
The social body to which we belong is at this moment passing through one of the greatest crises of its history, a colossal process which may best be likened to a birth. We have each of us a share in this process, we are to a greater or less
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“Most people are convinced that as long as they are not overtly forced to do something by an outside power, their decisions are theirs, and that if they want something, it is they who want it. But this is one of the great illusions we have about ourselves. A great number of our decisions are not really our own but are suggested to us from the outside; we have succeeded in persuading ourselves that it is we who have made the decision, whereas we have actually conformed with expectations of others, driven by the fear of isolation and by more direct threats to our life, freedom, and comfort.”
― Escape from Freedom
― Escape from Freedom
“When Fascism came into power, most people were unprepared, both theoretically and practically. They were unable to believe that man could exhibit such propensities for evil, such lust for power, such disregard for the rights of the weak, or such yearning for submission. Only a few had been aware of the rumbling of the volcano preceding the outbreak.”
― Escape from Freedom
― Escape from Freedom
“For the Enemy is permanent. He is not in the emergency situation but in the normal state of affairs. He threatens in peace as much as in war (and perhaps more than in war); he is thus being built into the system as a cohesive power.”
― One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society
― One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society
“It seems that nothing is more difficult for the average man to bear than the feeling of not being identified with a larger group.”
― Escape from Freedom
― Escape from Freedom
“Man does not suffer so much from poverty today as he suffers from the fact that he has become a cog in a large machine, an automaton, that his life has become empty and lost its meaning.”
― Escape from Freedom
― Escape from Freedom
Simon’s 2025 Year in Books
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