The People Are The Problem : 11 Quotes

'Life is a well of delight; but where the rabble also drink, there all fountains are poisoned.'

Friedrich Nietzsche


'Last October fourth, toward the end of one of those idle, gloomy afternoons I know so well how to spend, I happened to be in the Rue Lafayette: after stopping a few minutes at the stall outside the Humanité bookstore and buying Trotsky's latest work, I continued aimlessly in the direction of the Opéra. The offices and workshops were beginning to empty out from top to bottom of the buildings, doors were closing, people on the sidewalk were shaking hands, and already there were more people in the street now. I unconsciously watched their faces, their clothes, their way of walking. No, it was not yet these who would be ready to create the Revolution...'

André Breton


'During the French Revolution, you had the choice between the cruel Robespierre and the great Danton. You chose cruelty and sent greatness and kindness to the gallows.

In Germany, you had the choice between Goering and Himmler on the one hand and Liebknecht, Landau and Mühsam on the other. You made Himmler your chief of police, and you murdered your true friends. You had the choice between Julius Streicher and Walter Rathenau. You murdered Rathenau.

You had the choice between Lodge and Wilson. You murdered Wilson.

You had the choice between the cruel Inquisition and the truth of Galileo. You tortured to death the great Galileo, from whose discoveries you are profiting, by submitting him to utter humiliation. In the twentieth century, you have again brought to flower the methods of the Inquisition.

You had the choice between an understanding of mental disease and shock therapy. You chose shock therapy, in order not to have to realize the gigantic dimensions of your own misery, in order to continue to remain blind where only open, clear eyes can help.

You have the choice between ignorance of the cancer cell and my disclosure of its secrets, which could and will save millions of human lives. You keep repeating the same stupidities about cancer in periodicals and newspapers and keep silent about the knowledge which might save your child, your wife or your mother.

You starve and die by the million, but you fight the Mohammedans about the sacredness of cows, Little Indian Man. You go in rags, Little Italian and Little Slav of Trieste, but you have no other worry than whether Trieste is "Italian" or "Slavic". I thought Trieste was a harbour for ships from all over the world.

You hang the Hitlerites after they have murdered millions of people. What were you thinking before they had killed millions? Aren't dozens of corpses enough to make you think? Does it take millions of corpses to stir your humanity?

Each one of these pettinesses elucidates the gigantic misery of the animal, man...'

Wilhelm Reich


'And you think you're so clever and classless and free.
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see...'

John Lennon


'People aren't very bright, you know. They say they want freedom, but when they get the chance, they pass up Nietzsche and choose Hitler, because he would march into a room to speak and music and lights would come on at strategic moments.'

David Bowie


'This is Joe Public speaking.
I'm controlled in the body.
I'm controlled in the mind....'

The Clash


'I've met the man in the street and he's a cunt.'

Sid Vicious


'If you listen real hard you can hear the sound
of a million people switching off for work.
Well, Listen Mr.Average
you're a jerk...'

Wham!


'Corrupting your children, telling lies
Complacent cowards, wasting your lives
You've got freedom of speech and nothing to say
Put your trust in politicians and believe you're safe.

Say you're respectable, put on your disguise
When faced with the truth you close your eyes
There are millions of you and more will follow
Make sure we never have a better tomorrow.'

Vice Squad


'You're so hassled because you're female. You're so hassled that anything where there's other people involved immediately becomes a horrible experience. Just PEOPLE SUCK MAN! I mean I hate to generalise like that but the human race gets in my face.' 

Lydia Lunch


'Oh, lay these soulless and temporary platitudes on me! Let us cram these tiny minds with illusions of worth and toil, whilst violence, ignorance, and ugliness abound in our own homes.

Crippled old England is so BUSY treating the symptoms and not the cause, so furiously attacking huge-scale problems and ignoring the "small scale" misery of the average man. Love thy neighbour? Bollocks. LOVE THY SLOGAN rings far truer.

There is no love or compassion in England, only a desperate eagerness to demonstrate our superlative magnaminity: THINGS ARE NOT CHANGING, THEY ARE SIMPLY BEING PAINTED A DIFFERENT COLOUR. A fucking miracle is needed to extinguish the suppressed anger, the pompous glory-box nationalism, the armchair communism, the sheer and terrifying bulk of ignorance we so fondly refer to as our society.'

Antonella Black