Insanity in individuals is something rare – but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
— Friedrich Nietzsche
“The disappearance of a sense of responsibility is the most far-reaching consequence of submission to authority.”
― Stanley Milgram
“It may be that we are puppets-puppets controlled by the strings of society. But at least we are puppets with perception, with awareness. And perhaps our awareness is the first step to our liberation. (1974)
― Stanley Milgram
“Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.”
― Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority
“But the culture has failed, almost entirely, in inculcating internal controls on actions that have their origin in authority. For this reason, the latter constitutes a far greater danger to human survival.”
― Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority
“The essence in obedience consists in the fact that a person comes to view himself as an instrument for carrying out another person’s wishes and he therefore no longer regards himself as responsible for his actions.”
― Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority
“It is not so much the kind of person a man is as the kind of situation in which he finds himself that determines how he will act.”
― Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority
“It has been reliably established that from 1933 to 1945 millions of innocent people were systematically slaughtered on command. Gas chambers were built, death camps were guarded, daily quotas of corpses were produced with the same efficiency as the manufacture of appliances. These inhumane policies may have originated in the mind of a single
person, but they could only have been carried out on a massive scale if a very large number of people obeyed orders.”
― Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority
“I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.”
Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
― Stanley Milgram
― Stanley Milgram
― Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority
― Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority
― Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority
― Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority
― Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority
― Robert A. Heinlein
Please post separately, as bramflakes said. Also, no more than 5 quotes per poster per monthly thread (this is in the OP).