Harold Lasswell Quotes

So great are the psychological resistances to war in modern nations, that every war must appear to be a war of defence against a menacing, murderous aggressor. There must be no ambiguity about whom the public is to hate. Guilt and guilelessness must be assessed geographically and all the guilt must be on the other side of the frontier.

Politics is who gets what, when, how.

The essential mark of the agitator is the high value he places on the emotional response of the public. Whether he attacks or defends social institutions is a secondary matter.

Political science without biography is a form of taxidermy.

Dogma is a defensive reaction against doubt in the mind of the theorist, but doubt of which he is unaware.