PERICLES: I knew him tyrannous, and tyrants’ fears
Decrease not but grow faster than the years.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Pericles, Act 1, sc. 2, l. 91ff (1.2.91-92) (1607) [with George Wilkins]
(Source)
Quotations about:
paranoia
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
Any historian of warfare knows it is in good part a comedy of errors and a museum of incompetence; but if for every error and every act of incompetence one can substitute an act of treason, many points of fascinating interpretation are open to the paranoid imagination. In the end, the real mystery, for one who reads the primary works of paranoid scholarship, is not how the United States has been brought to its present dangerous position but how it has managed to survive at all.
We are all sufferers from history, but the paranoid is a double sufferer, since he is afflicted not only by the real world, with the rest of us, but by his fantasies as well.
But the modern right wing, as Daniel Bell has put it, feels dispossessed: America has been largely taken away from them and their kind, though they are determined to try to repossess it and to prevent the final destructive act of subversion. The old American virtues have already been eaten away by cosmopolitans and intellectuals; the old competitive capitalism has been gradually undermined by socialistic and communistic schemers; the old national security and independence have been destroyed by treasonous plots, having as their most powerful agents not merely outsiders and foreigners as of old but major statesmen who are at the very centers of American power. Their predecessors had discovered conspiracies; the modern radical right finds conspiracy to be betrayal from on high.
Richard Hofstadter (1916-1970) American historian and intellectual
“The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” Herbert Spencer Lecture, Oxford (Nov 1963)
(Source)
Reprinted in Harpers (Nov 1964).
The enemy is clearly delineated: he is a perfect model of malice, a kind of amoral superman—sinister, ubiquitous, powerful, cruel, sensual, luxury-loving. Unlike the rest of us, the enemy is not caught in the toils of the vast mechanism of history, himself a victim of his past, his desires, his limitations. He wills, indeed he manufactures, the mechanism of history, or tries to deflect the normal course of history in an evil way. He makes crises, starts runs on banks, causes depressions, manufactures disasters, and then enjoys and profits from the misery he has produced. The paranoid’s interpretation of history is distinctly personal: decisive events are not taken as part of the stream of history, but as the consequences of someone’s will.
Richard Hofstadter (1916-1970) American historian and intellectual
“The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” Herbert Spencer Lecture, Oxford (Nov 1963)
(Source)
Reprinted in Harpers (Nov 1964).
Sickness and sorrows come and go, but a superstitious soul hath no rest.
RICHARD: Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind;
The thief doth fear each bush an officer.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry VI, Part 3, Act 5, sc. 6, l. 11ff (5.6.11-12) (1591)
(Source)
Suspicion begets suspicion.
Publilius Syrus (d. 42 BC) Assyrian slave, writer, philosopher [less correctly Publius Syrus]
Sententiae [Moral Sayings], # 928 [tr. Lyman (1862)]
There are two kinds of fools: those who suspect nothing and those who suspect everything.
Charles-Joseph Lamoral, Prince de Ligne (1735-1814) Belgian military leader, noble, writer [Karl Fürst von Ligne, Charles-Joseph de Ligne]
Mes écarts, ou, ma tête en liberté
Captain, the problem is not that I’m paranoid. The problem is that the universe keeps justifying my paranoia.
John Scalzi (b. 1969) American writer
The End of All Things (2015)
It’s one thing to be aware of complex strategies and lies that might be going on around you. It’s another to let yourself become so worried about deception that you become paralyzed.
Steven Brust (b. 1955) American writer, systems programmer
Dragon (1998)
Once you get it into your head that somebody is controlling events, you can interpret everything in that light and find no reasonable certainty anywhere.
Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) Russian-American author, polymath, biochemist
Foundation’s Edge, ch. 12 “Agent” (1982)
It’s a police mantra that all members of the public are guilty of something, but some members of the public are more guilty than others.
The higher paranoid scholarship is nothing if not coherent — in fact the paranoid mind is far more coherent than the real world.
Richard Hofstadter (1916-1970) American historian and intellectual
“The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” Herbert Spencer Lecture, Oxford (Nov 1963)
Reprinted in Harpers (Nov 1964).
As a member of the avant-garde who is capable of perceiving the conspiracy before it is fully obvious to an as yet unaroused public, the paranoid is a militant leader. He does not see social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised, in the manner of the working politician. Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish. Since the enemy is thought of as being totally evil and totally unappeasable, he must be totally eliminated — if not from the world, at least from the theatre of operations to which the paranoid directs his attention. This demand for total triumph leads to the formulation of hopelessly unrealistic goals, and since these goals are not even remotely attainable, failure constantly heightens the paranoid’s sense of frustration. Even partial success leaves him with the same feeling of powerlessness with which he began, and this in turn only strengthens his awareness of the vast and terrifying quality of the enemy he opposes.
Richard Hofstadter (1916-1970) American historian and intellectual
“The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” Herbert Spencer Lecture, Oxford (Nov 1963)
(Source)
Reprinted in Harpers (Nov 1964).
There is a hate layer of opinion and emotion in America. There will be other McCarthys to come who will be hailed as its heroes.
Maxwell "Max" Lerner (1902-1992) American journalist, columnist, educator
“McCarthyism: The Smell of Decay,” New York Post (5 Apr 1950)
Lerner coined the term "McCarthyism" in this article. In 1954, he wrote, "For my own part I doubt seriously whether the word will outlast the political power of the man from whom it derives."
Bad rulers … are in constant fear lest others are conspiring to inflict upon them the punishment which they are conscious of deserving.
Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) Italian politician, philosopher, political scientist
The Discourses on Livy, Book 3, ch. 6 (1517) [tr. Detmold (1882)]
Nations love dangers, and when there are none to be found create them to fill the want.
Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French moralist, philosopher, essayist, poet
Pensées (1838) [tr. Collins (1928)]
Rabid suspicion has nothing in it of skepticism. The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil lurking in every person.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
The Passionate State of Mind, Aphorism 184 (1955)
(Source)
Any manifest error on the part of an enemy should make us suspect some stratagem.
Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) Italian politician, philosopher, political scientist
The Discourses on Livy, Book 3, ch. 48 (1517) [tr. Detmold (1882)]
The awareness of their individual blemishes and shortcomings inclines the frustrated to detect ill will and meanness in their fellow men. Self-contempt, however vague, sharpens our eyes for the imperfections of others. We usually strive to reveal in others the blemishes we hide in ourselves.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, Part 3, ch. 14, § 100 (1951)
(Source)
I believe that that community is already in process of dissolution where each man begins to eye his neighbor as a possible enemy, where non-conformity with the accepted creed, political as well as religious, is a mark of disaffection; where denunciation, without specification or backing, takes the place of evidence; where orthodoxy chokes freedom of dissent; where faith in the eventual supremacy of reason has become so timid that we are not enter our convictions into the open list, to win or lose. Such fears as these are a solvent which can eat out the cement that binds the stones together; they may in the end subject us to a despotism as evil as any that we dread; and they can be allayed only in so far as we refuse to proceed on suspicion, and trust one another until we have tangible ground for misgiving,
Learned Hand (1872-1961) American jurist
“A Plea for the Open Mind and Free Discussion,” speech, University of the State of New York, Albany (1952-10-24)
(Source)
You probably wouldn’t worry about what people think of you if you could know how seldom they do.
Olin Miller (fl. early 20th C) American humorist
(Attributed)
First quoted by Walter Winchell, "On Broadway" (7 Jan 1937)
Also frequently attributed to Mark Twain, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Ethel Barrett; the latter used it ("We would worry less about what others think of us, if we realized how seldom they do") in her 1968 book Don’t Look Now But Your Personality is Showing. See here for more information.
Variants:
- "You’ll worry less about what people think about you when you realize how seldom they do."
- "You wouldn’t worry about what people may think of you if you could know how seldom they do."
- "We wouldn’t worry so much about what folks think of us if we knew how seldom they do."
- "You wouldn’t worry so much about what people think of you, if you knew how seldom they do."
- "You wouldn’t worry so much about what other people think if you realized how seldom they do."
See also Johnson.
Hastur was paranoid, which was simply a sensible and well-adjusted reaction to living in Hell, where they really were all out to get you.
Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Good Omens, 6. “Saturday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]
(Source)
Par-runts of rugmonkeys everywhere are worrying that their children will want to become Force-wielding breath masked Sithlords? Sweet Cream-of-Jesus on TOAST POINTS, people!! So now we have to fear that every crib-lizard that loves Anakin Skywalker will become Evil Incarnate. It’s been a lovely planet, but I think I need to go, now.
(Other Authors and Sources)
Alan D. Swan
