# Jacques Ellul - Quotes: 27 - Author page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/jacques-ellul ## Books - [Propaganda](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jacques-ellul/propaganda.md) — 12 quotes - [The Technological Society](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jacques-ellul/the-technological-society.md) — 15 quotes ## Recently added 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. Technique never observes the distinction between moral and immoral use. It tends on the contrary, to create a completely independent technical morality. > > Here, then, is one of the elements of weakness of this point of view. It does not perceive technique's rigorous autonomy with respect to morals; it does not see that the infusion of some more or less vague sentiment of human welfare cannot alter it. Not even the moral conversion of the technicians could make a difference. At best, they would cease to be good technicians. This attitude supposes further that technique evolves with some end in view, and that this end is human good. Technique is totally irrelevant to this notion and pursues no end, professed or unprofessed. p. 97 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jacques-ellul/the-technological-society/a-principal-characteristic.md) > The most favorable moment to seize a man and influence him is when he is alone in the mass. It is at this point that propaganda can be most effective. p. 9 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jacques-ellul/propaganda/the-most-favorable.md) > Our civilization is first and foremost a civilization of means; in the reality of modern life, the means, it would seem, are more important than the ends. p. 19 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jacques-ellul/the-technological-society/our-civilization-is-first.md) > No technique is possible when men are free. … Technique requires predictability and, no less, exactness of prediction. It is necessary, then, that technique prevail over the human being. … The individual must be fashioned by techniques … in order to wipe out the blots his personal determination introduces into the perfect design of the organization. p. 138 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jacques-ellul/the-technological-society/no-technique-is-possible.md) > The individual, by means of the discipline imposed on him by sport, not only plays and finds relaxation from the various compulsions to which he is subjected, but without knowing it trains himself for new compulsions. … Training in sports makes of the individual an efficient piece of apparatus which is henceforth unacquainted with anything but the harsh joys of exploiting his body and winning. p. 383 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jacques-ellul/the-technological-society/the-individual-by-means.md) > 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. When man will be fully adapted to this technological society, when he will end by obeying with enthusiasm, convinced of the excellence of what he is forced to do, the constraint of the organization will no longer be felt by him; the truth is, it will no longer be a constraint, and the police will have nothing to do. 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. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jacques-ellul/propaganda/in-the-midst.md) > Sport carries on without deviation the mechanical tradition of furnishing relief and distraction to the worker after he has finished his work proper so that he is at no time independent of one technique or another. In sport the citizen of the technical society finds the same spirit, criteria, morality, actions and objectives—in short, all the technical laws and customs—which he encounters in office or factory. p. 384 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jacques-ellul/the-technological-society/sport-carries-on-without.md) > First of all, modern propaganda is based on scientific analyses of psychology and sociology. Step by step, the propagandist builds his techniques on the basis of his knowledge of man, his tendencies, his desires, his needs, his psychic mechanisms, his conditioning — and as much on social psychology as on depth psychology. He shapes his procedures on the basis of our knowledge of groups and their laws of formation and dissolution, of mass influences, and of environmental limitations. Without the scientific research of modern psychology and sociology there would be no propaganda, or rather we still would be in the primitive stages of propaganda that existed in the time of Pericles or Augustus. p. 4 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jacques-ellul/propaganda/first-of-all.md) > Again I want to emphasize that the study of propaganda must be conducted within the context of a technological society. Propaganda is called upon to solve problems created by technology, to play on maladjustments, and to integrate the individual into a technological world. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jacques-ellul/propaganda/again-i-want.md) > Technique shapes an aristocratic society, which in turn implies aristocratic government. Democracy in such a society can only be a mere appearance. Even now, we see in propaganda the premises of such a state of affairs. When it comes to state propaganda, there is no longer any question of democracy. p. 275 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jacques-ellul/the-technological-society/technique-shapes-an-aristocratic.md) > Science brings to the light of day everything man had believed sacred. Technique takes possession of it and enslaves it. p. 142 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jacques-ellul/the-technological-society/science-brings-to-the.md) > Propaganda does not aim to elevate man, but to make him serve. p. 38 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jacques-ellul/propaganda/propaganda-does-not.md)