"As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: You liberate a city by destroying it. Words are used to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests."
—Gore Vidal, Imperial America, 2004

"Propaganda is a soft weapon; hold it in your hands too long, and it will move about like a snake, and strike the other way."
—Jean Anouilh, L'Alouette, 1952

"Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state." 

—Noam Chomsky, Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda, 1997