Jacques Ellul quotes - page 5

Jacques Ellul was a French philosopher, sociologist, and theologian, renowned for his writings on technology and society. His work explored the impact of technological advancement on human freedom and ethics. He remains influential among critics of technological determinism and advocates for individual autonomy. Here are 145 of his quotes:

A principal characteristic of technique ... is its refusal to tolerate moral judgments. It is absolutely independent of them and eliminates them from its domain. (Jacques Ellul)
Propaganda is a set of methods employed by an organized group that wants to bring about the active or passive participation in its actions of a mass of individuals, psychologically unified through psychological manipulations and incorporated in an organization. View quote
Jacques Ellul
The civic and technological good will and the enthusiasm for the right social myths - both created by propaganda - will finally have solved the problem of man. View quote
Jacques Ellul
This is the very heart of modern religion, the religion of the established fact, the religion on which depend the lesser religions of the dollar, race, or the proletariat, which are only expressions of the great modern divinity, the Moloch of fact. View quote
Jacques Ellul
In a society such as ours, it is almost impossible for a person to be responsible. View quote
Jacques Ellul
People think that they have no right to judge a fact - all they have to do is to accept it. View quote
Jacques Ellul
In the midst of increasing mechanization and technological organization, propaganda is simply the means used to prevent these things from being felt as too oppressive and to persuade man to submit with good grace. View quote
Jacques Ellul
Technique is totally irrelevant to this notion and pursues no end, professed or unprofessed. View quote
Jacques Ellul
In one of the temptations Satan offers to give Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, that is, the kingdoms and the related political power. ... Jesus refuses to answer the question about the tax. His "render unto Caesar” does not imply that there are two kingdoms, but that everything belongs to God. If Caesar undertakes to manufacture certain things like pieces of money, we should give them back to him; such things are of no interest or importance. Jesus pays the (political) temple tax with two coins taken from the mouth of a fish. This absurd miracle expresses simple derision and shows once again that such matters are of no importance. Jesus similarly refuses to arbitrate between two men who are contesting an inheritance. He has not come to deal with legal problems. View quote
Jacques Ellul
Every modern state is totalitarian. It recognizes no limit either factual or legal. View quote
Jacques Ellul
It seems to me that the free man, i.e., the man freed in Christ, ought to take parts in all movements that aim at human freedom. (Jacques Ellul)
Through the myth it creates, propaganda imposes a complete range of intuitive knowledge, susceptible of only one interpretation, unique and one-sided, and precluding any divergence. This myth becomes so powerful that it invades every arena of consciousness, leaving no faculty or motivation intact. It stimulates in the individual a feeling of exclusiveness, and produces a biased attitude. View quote
Jacques Ellul
I cannot think that choices of this kind are unimportant. View quote
Jacques Ellul
The church lets itself be seduced, invaded, dominated by the ease with which it can now spread the gospel by force (another force than that of God) and use its influence to make the state, too, Christian. It is great acquiescence to the temptation Jesus himself resisted, for when Satan offers to give him all the kingdoms of the earth, Jesus refuses, but the church accepts. View quote
Jacques Ellul
This movement is invading the whole intellectual domain and also that of conscience. View quote
Jacques Ellul
This is why I decide for anarchy. View quote
Jacques Ellul
Propaganda is called upon to solve problems created by technology, to play on maladjustments, and to integrate the individual into a technological world. View quote
Jacques Ellul
The most favorable moment to seize a man and influence him is when he is alone in the mass. View quote
Jacques Ellul
It tends on the contrary, to create a completely independent technical morality. View quote
Jacques Ellul
Revelation ... unavoidably challenges the institution and established power, no matter what form this may take. But the adulteration by political power has changed all this. Christianity has become a religion of conformity. View quote
Jacques Ellul
Men have never been so oppressed as in societies which set man at the pinnacle of values and exalt his greatness or make him the measure of all things. For in such societies freedom is detached from its purpose, which is, we affirm, the glory of God. (Jacques Ellul)
The point is not to enforce a particular view of society but to establish a counterbalance, a protest, a sign of cleavage. In face of an absolute power only a total confrontation has any meaning. View quote
Jacques Ellul
On the other hand, it seems to me that an anarchist attitude is the only one that is sufficiently radical in the face of a general statist system. View quote
Jacques Ellul
By anarchy I mean first an absolute rejection of violence. View quote
Jacques Ellul
That is the classic example of an irresponsible person. He carries out his technical task and isn't interested in anything else. View quote
Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul - Image
Photo: Jan van Boeckel, ReRun Productions, CC BY-SA 4.0
Occupation: French Sociologist
Born: January 6, 1912
Died: May 19, 1994
Quotes count: 145
Wikipedia: Jacques Ellul

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