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Quote by Romain Gary

“Could you let me hear more, without the usual scientific jargon? All this talk of ‘antigravity’ and ‘antimatter’ sounds like scientists’ covering up a big, dark, uncomfortable gaping hole in their knowledge and understanding.”

Book:The Gasp

Work

The Gasp

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Author

Romain Gary

Romain Gary, born on May 21, 1914, in Lithuania, and died on December 2, 1980, in France, was a distinguished diplomat and a versatile writer. He is renowned for his successful diplomatic career and literary achievements. more

“The standard and completely moronic response of the Soviet-and subsequently of the Russian-authorities to any crisis is to decide that it is in the interests of the population that they should be lied to endlessly. Otherwise, the reasoning goes, people are sure to run out of their homes, rush around in a state of anarchy, set buildings on fire, and kill each other! The truth of the matter is that nothing of that sort has ever happened. In most crises the population is prepared to behave in a rational and disciplined manner, especially if the situation were to be explained to them and they were told what needed to be done. Instead, as I have since seen on a less dramatic scale many times, the first official reaction is invariably to lie. There is no practical benefit to the officials doing so; it is simply a rule: In an awkward situation, lie. Play down the damage, deny everything, bluff. It can all be sorted out later, but right now, at the moment of crisis, officials have no option but to lie, because the imagined idiot population is not yet ready for the truth. In the Chernobyl affair, it is pointless to look for even a scintilla of rationality. God forbid the people should have been told to stay indoors for a week and not go outside unless absolutely necessary. In Kiev, the capital city of Ukraine with a population in the millions, a May Day parade was held just five days after the explosion, for the same propaganda purposes-to pretend that all was well. We know now how these decisions were made. The leaders of the Communist Party, sitting in their offices, wanted foremost to ensure that neither the Soviet people nor-horror of horrors-foreigners should know anything about the atomic disaster. The health of tens of thousands of people was sacrificed in the cause of a grand cover-up that was ridiculous, because the radioactive fallout was so extensive it was registered by laboratories all over the globe.”

Corruption Coverup

Book:Patriot: A Memoir

Source: Patriot: A Memoir

“The Soviet Union was amazingly effective at producing propaganda and telling lies, but what was needed here was the ability to build houses in a hurry, and that it was something it could barely do and certainly couldn't do well.... The question most puzzling even to my ten-year-old self was why the authorities were lying like this when everybody around me knew the truth. What kind of pathetic attempt at deception was this? If you are going to lie, you should at least be expecting to benefit from it in some way. You claim to be sick and you don't have to go to school; that at least makes sense. But what was the point of these lies? Describing the way the Soviet Union worked, Vasily Shukshin, a Russian writer, memorably said, "Lies, lies, lies . . . Lies as redemption, lies as atonement for guilt, lies as a goal achieved, lies as a career, as prosperity, as medals, as an apartment . . . Lies! The whole of Russia was covered with lies, like a scab." An excellent description of the situation. If the Chernobyl disaster had never happened, I would probably have heard less talk of politics. It would certainly have been less personal, and my political views would have been slightly different. But things happened as they did, and many years later, when I was a grown man, I watched the newly appointed acting president of Russia, forty-seven-year-old Vladimir Putin, on television, far from sharing any enthusiasm about the country's new "energetic leader," I kept thinking, He never stops lying, just as it was in my childhood.”

Lying Corruption Deceit Coverup

Book:Patriot: A Memoir

Source: Patriot: A Memoir

“...good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgment.”

Bad Judgment

Book:Collaboration

Source: Collaboration