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J.B. Priestley Quotes

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“Nowadays, it is true, we have mass media and expert propaganda to spread suspicion and fear. But the people I mean—and they form the great majority—are not suspicious and fearful, as many educated and more influential persons are. Propaganda has not made them accept the Bomb. We protesters, though we may have won over some of their sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, have not made them reject it. They remain profoundly, astonishingly, shockingly indifferent.”

MediaPropagandaIndifference
Book:Man and Time
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“Well, it’s something I never felt before I joined up,” he said, returning to his slow careful manner. “But coming back this time, I’ve felt it all right. [Farming] seems to cut you off too much. After a time, if you don’t look out, you don’t seem to care what’s happening to other people. You aren’t part of anything. You’re out for yourself – and just your family. Mind you, it’s easy to feel like that – because you have to work hard and it takes nearly all your time—and you don’t meet many people who are doing different jobs, the way you do in towns. But it’s not right somehow. It shouldn’t be like that. We’ve had enough of that.”

SocietyIsolationFarmingInsularity
Book:Three Men in New Suits
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“People wonder what's the matter with the world these days. They forget that all the best fellows, the men who'd have been in their prime now, who'd have been giving us a lead in everything, are dead [in the Great War]. If you could bring 'em all back... hundreds and hundreds of thousands of 'em, you'd soon see the difference they'd make in the place. But they're dead, and a lot of people, very different sort of people, are alive and kicking.”

SacrificeSocial ChangeFirst World WarWwiSocial Decay
Book:Benighted
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