Suicides

"Had Hannibal had a government behind him that knew how to exploit victories – had he been born a Roman, for instance – he might have conquered the world."

"It remains, as ever, an axiom of conventional wisdom that the use of propaganda as a means of social and ideological control is distinctive of totalitarian regimes. Yet the most minimal exercise of common sense would suggest a different view: that propaganda is likely to play at least as important a part in democratic societies (where the existing distribution of power and privilege is vulnerable to quite limited changes in popular opinion) as in authoritarian societies (where it is not). It is arguable that the success of business propaganda in persuading us, for so long, that we are free from propaganda is one of the most significant propaganda achievements of the twentieth century."

"The twentieth century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy."

"Would you love me for my money? Would you love me for my head? Would you love me through the winter? Would you love me 'til I'm dead? Oh, if you would and you could, Come blow your horn on high."

"Even if you’d never heard of Nick Drake, his music would tell you everything you needed to know. The tragic singer-songwriter was in possession of a singular vision and dedication to his art that produced some of the most affecting acoustic music ever recorded. Drake’s melancholy moods and labyrinthine tunings twisted longstanding English folk traditions into mesmerising new shapes. Never a note out of place, and never a song that didn’t need to be sung."

"Since Nick Drake's death, his eerie, jazz-tinged folk music has had an ever-growing cult following."

"And now we rise And we are everywhere."

"Don't be shy you learn to fly. And see the sun when day is done. If only you see Just what you are beneath a star That came to stay one rainy day In autumn for free. Yes, be what you'll be."

"And I was strong, strong in the sun I thought I'd see when day is done. Now I'm weaker than the palest blue Oh, so weak in the need for you."

"Saw it written and I saw it say Pink moon is on its way And none of you stand so tall Pink moon's gonna get ye all."

"I never felt magic crazy as this, Never saw moons, knew the meaning of the sea, I never held emotion in the palm of my hand, Or felt sweet breezes in the top of a tree, But now you're here. Brighten my northern sky."

"Going to see the river man, Going to tell him all I can About the plan For lilac time. If he tells me all he knows 'Bout the way his river flows, And all night shows In summertime."

"Please tell me your second name. Please play me your second game. I've fallen so far For the people you are. I just need your star for a day."

"Please give me a second grace. Please give me a second face. I've fallen far down The first time around. Now I just sit on the ground in your way."

"Do you curse where you come from? Do you swear in the night? Will it mean much to you If I treat you right? Do you like what you're doing? Would you do it some more? Or will you stop once and wonder What you're doing it for? Hey slow Jane, make sense. Slow, slow, Jane, cross the fence."

"I could have been a sailor, could have been a cook, A real live lover, could have been a book, I could have been a signpost, could have been a clock, As simple as a kettle, steady as a rock. I could be here and now, I would be, I should be, but how? I could have been one of these things first."

"And at the chime of the city clock Put up your road block. Hang on to your crown. For a stone in a tin can Is wealth to the city man Who leaves his armour down."

"And what will happen in the morning when the world it gets So crowded that you can't look out the window in the morning?"

"Safe in the womb of an everlasting night, You find the darkness can give the brightest light. Safe in your place deep in the earth, That's when they'll know what you were really worth."

"Life is but a memory, Happened long ago. Theatre full of sadness For a long forgotten show. Seems so easy Just to let it go on by Till you stop and wonder Why you never wondered why."

"Fame is but a fruit tree: So very unsound. It can never flourish Till its stalk is in the ground. So men of fame Can never find a way Till time has flown Far from their dying day. Forgotten while you're here, Remembered for a while. A much updated ruin From a much outdated style."

"When the day is done, Down to earth then sinks the sun, Along with everything that was lost and won, When the day is done."

"Have you seen the land living by the breeze? Can you understand the lights upon the trees? Tell me all that you may know Show me what you have to show Tell us all today if you know the way to blue..."

"Going to see the river man. Going to tell him all I can About the ban On feeling free.If he tells me all he knows About the way his river flows, I don't suppose It's meant for me."

"So I'll leave the ways that are making me be What I really don't want to be. Leave the ways that are making me love What I really don't want to love."

"Time has told me You're a rare, rare find, A troubled cure for a troubled mind."

"The world hums on at its breakneck pace; People fly in their lifelong race. For them there's a future to find, But I think they're leaving me behind."

"I'm growing old and I wanna go home. I'm growing old and I don't wanna know."

"The units of the Waffen-SS, consisting of National Socialists, are more suitable than other armed units for the specific tasks to be solved in the Occupied Eastern Territories due to their intensive National Socialist training in regard to questions of race and nationality."

"You take an oath to a man whom you know follows the laws of providence, which he obeys independently of the influence of earthly powers, who leads the German people rightly, and who will guide Germany's fate. Through your oath you bind yourselves to a man who — that is our faith — was sent to us by higher powers. Do not seek Adolf Hitler with your mind. You will find him through the strength of your hearts!"

"I was the only man he trusted."

"I often found him warm and humourous."

"I was suspicious for several reasons... after all, Hess who had been held in Spandau for almost 30 years was by then 93-years-old and fragile. I doubted he had the strength to kill himself with a cord which was not attached at both ends to anything."

"Reflecting upon the whole of the story, I am glad not to be responsible for the way in which Hess has been and is being treated. Whatever may be the moral guilt of a German who stood near to Hitler, Hess had, in my view, atoned for this by his completely devoted and frantic deed of lunatic benevolence. He came to us of his own free will, and, though without authority, had something of the quality of an envoy. He was a medical and not a criminal case, and should be so regarded."

"A number three man who was merely an innocent middleman transmitting Hitler's orders without even reading them, like a postman or delivery boy."

"The zealot Hess, before succumbing to wanderlust [flew to Scotland in May 1941], was the engineer tending the party machinery, passing orders and propaganda down to the Leadership Corps, supervising every aspect of party activities, and maintaining the organization as a loyal and ready instrument of power."

"Hess was slightly off balance for as long as I can recall. Why the Fuhrer kept him on as head of the party was a mystery to most people, but to me I always felt it was Hitler's loyalty to his old friends. I remember Hess had a bright idea once in treating me for some neuralgia that I had at the time. It was in 1936 or so. Anyway, one day lots of pots and pans arrived of all different sizes. I didn't know what they were for. One was for soaking my arm, another my forearm, another size for my leg, my thing, and so on. I called him up and asked him what he had sent me so many pots for - did he think I wanted to start an aquarium? But Hess explained that I told him I had neuralgia and that this was the treatment for it. I thanked him over the telephone and laughed for days."

"I saw Hess's pendulum and he used it. I never paid any attention to his strange ideas. He was quiet and bothered nobody. I knew a great surgeon who believed in a similar pendulum, using it the same way Hess did. Apparently, it's a common superstition."

"The party is Hitler, Hitler is Germany, and Germany is Hitler! Sieg heil!"

"A few attempts have been made to argue that a Nazi victory over the Soviet Union might not have been wholly disadvantageous to the Western powers, and that therefore a second phase of appeasement after 1941 might have been preferable to continued war. Some British Tories, notably the late Alan Clark, have suggested that the British Empire might have been spared ignominious bankruptcy, decline and fall, had a separate peace been made along the lines Rudolf Hess seems to have envisaged and Hitler repeatedly mused about in his evening monologues; in a similar vein, some American conservatives argue that the Cold War might have been avoided had Roosevelt kept the United States out of the shooting war in Europe. On the whole, however, most writers have tended to take the view that a Nazi victory would have been a worse outcome than that of 1945. Even if a victorious Third Reich had opted for peace with Britain and America - which cannot be regarded as very probable - the price would have been horrendously high for the millions of people left under Nazi rule. All nine million of the Jews of Europe might have been murdered, rather than the nearly six million who actually were, to say nothing of the vast human suffering that would have been inflicted on other ethnic groups by the implementation of the Generalplan Ost, which envisaged deporting around fifty million East Europeans to Siberia."

"Among the higher leadership [in the Nazi Party], while there is still a certain unity, personalities are beginning to play a constantly greater part. Hitler is perhaps more powerful than before, but he becomes more and more a figure separated from actualities. He depends a great deal on Hess, who is really his confidential man now and whom it is likely he may make Foreign Minister. Goering and Goebbels still remain good comrades of Hitler and are undoubtedly attached to him, but the difference between Goering and Goebbels are becoming more evident. Goering is more moderate, while Goebbels, sensing the feeling of the masses and being above all an opportunist is becoming more radical. If It would come to a show-down between the radical and moderate elements, Goering would, however, undoubtedly be likely to be on the radical side as the one having the more chances. [...] If this Government remains in power for another year and carries on in the same measure in this direction, it will go far towards making Germany a danger to world peace for years to come. This is a very disjointed and incoherent letter. I am dictating it under pressure as I wish to catch the courier pouch. What I do want to say really is that for the present this country is headed in directions which can only carry ruin to it and will create a situation here dangerous to world peace. With few exceptions, the men who are running this Government are of a mentality that you and I cannot understand. Some of them are psychopathic cases and would ordinarily be receiving treatment somewhere. Others are exalted and in a frame of mind that knows no reason. The majority are woefully ignorant and unprepared for the tasks which they have to carry through every day. Those men in the party and in responsible positions who are really worth-while, and there are quite a number of these, are powerless because they have to follow the orders of superiors who are suffering from the abnormal psychology prevailing in the country."

"I have been reading about the problems of youth. You know, with all the criticism that was levelled at von Schirach and his Hitler Jugend, it is forgotten that he did a fantastic thing with Germany's young. He kept them busy, he kept them out of trouble. In those years we did not have to concern ourselves with the worry of youths taking drugs, getting involved in crime, and sexual permissiveness. We did not have burning of national flags and draft cards. We had a healthy youth with healthy minds, all pulling together to build a nation. That is what we need today. We need to get them back on the right track."

"People don't forget, do they?"

"Thanks to the directors for addressing this message to my home. Written several minutes before my death."

"Our nation has the good fortune today to be led largely by front soldiers, by front soldiers who carried the virtues of the front to the leadership of the state. The rebuilding of the Reich was guided by the spirit of the front. It was the spirit of the front that created National Socialism. In the face of looming death at the front, ideas of social standing and class collapsed. At the front, the sharing of common joys and common sorrows led to a previously unknown camaraderie between citizens. At the front, everyone could see that the common fate towered above the individual fate."

"Bravo, Streicher!"

"I was permitted to work for many years of my life under the greatest son whom my people has brought forth in its thousand year history. Even if I could, I would not want to erase this period of time from my existence. I am happy to know that I have done my duty, to my people, my duty as a German, as a National Socialist, as a loyal follower of my Führer. I do not regret anything. If I were to begin all over again, I would act just as I have acted, even if I knew that in the end I should meet a fiery death at the stake. No matter what human beings may do, I shall some day stand before the judgment seat of the Eternal. I shall answer to Him, and I know He will judge me innocent."

"My coming to England in this way is, as I realize, so unusual that nobody will easily understand it. I was confronted by a very hard decision. I do not think I could have arrived at my final choice unless I had continually kept before my eyes the vision of an endless line of children's coffins with weeping mothers behind them, both English and German, and another line of coffins of mothers with mourning children."

"The most important woman in German politics since Rosa Luxemburg"

"Ulrike Mainhod is Dead - Let's Rescue the Living"