Edward Bernays quotes

Edward Bernays was an Austrian-American pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda. His innovative techniques shaped modern marketing, advertising, and the ways in which public opinion is influenced. He is often called "the father of public relations" for his lasting impact on the industry. Here are 44 of his quotes:

If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing it?

Edward Bernays

Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government.

Edward Bernays

The best defense against propaganda: more propaganda.

Edward Bernays

It is sometimes possible to change the attitudes of millions but impossible to change the attitude of one man.

Edward Bernays

The best place to find things: the public library.

Edward Bernays

The only difference between "propaganda" and "education," really, is in the point of view. The advocacy of what we believe in is education. The advocacy of what we don't believe in is propaganda.

Edward Bernays

No serious sociologist any longer believes that the voice of the people expresses any divine or specially wise and lofty idea. The voice of the people expresses the mind of the people, and that mind is made up for it by the group leaders in whom it believes and by those persons who understand the manipulation of public opinion. It is composed of inherited prejudices and symbols and clichés and verbal formulas supplied to them by the leaders.

Edward Bernays

The engineering of consent is the very essence of the democratic process, the freedom to persuade and suggest.

Edward Bernays

This is an age of mass production. In the mass production of materials a broad technique has been developed and applied to their distribution. In this age, too, there must be a technique for the mass distribution of ideas.

Edward Bernays

For the same reason I read the National Geographic, I like to see places I will never visit.

Edward Bernays

When I came back to the United States, I decided that if you could use propaganda for war, you could certainly use it for peace. And "propaganda" got to be a bad word because of the Germans using it, so what I did was to try and find some other words. So we found the words "counsel on public relations."

Edward Bernays

Propaganda is of no use to the politician unless he has something to say which the public, consciously or unconsciously, wants to hear.

Edward Bernays

Who are the men, who, without our realizing it, give us our ideas, tell us whom to admire and whom to despise, what to believe about the ownership of public utilities .. about immigration who tell us how our houses should be designed, what furniture we should put into them, what menus we should serve at our table, what kind of shirts we must wear, what sports we should indulge in, what plays we should see, what charities we should support, what pictures we should admire, what slang we should affect, what jokes we should laugh at?

Edward Bernays

In almost every act of our lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons [...] who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world.

Edward Bernays

The great enemy of any attempt to change men's habits is inertia. Civilization is limited by intertia.

Edward Bernays

We govern what the public think about.

Edward Bernays

The public is not cognizant of the real value of education, and does not realize that education as a social force is not receiving the kind of attention it has the right to expect in a democracy.

Edward Bernays

Small groups of persons can, and do, make the rest of us think what they please about a given subject. But there are usually proponents and opponents of every propaganda, both of whom are equally eager to convince the majority.

Edward Bernays

But when the example of the leader is not at hand and the herd must think for itself, it does so by means of clichés, pat words or images which stand for a whole group of ideas or experiences. Not many years ago, it was only necessary to tag a political candidate with the word interests to stampede millions of people into voting against him, because anything associated with "the interests" seemed necessary corrupt. Recently the word Bolshevik has performed a similar service for persons who wished to frighten the public away from a line of action. By playing upon a old cliché, or manipulating a new one, the propagandist can sometimes swing a whole mass group emotions.

Edward Bernays

Let us assume that our problem is the intensification in the public mind of the prestige of a hotel. The problem for the public relations counsel is to create in the public mind the close relationship between the hotel and a number of ideas that represent the things the hotel desires to stand for in the public mind.

Edward Bernays

The public relations counsel, therefore, is a creator of news for whatever medium he chooses to transmit ideas. It is his duty to create news no matter what the medium which broadcasts this news.

Edward Bernays

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.

Edward Bernays