151 Quotes by Jacques Ellul

A major section of modern art and poetry unconsciously guides us in the direction of madness; and, indeed, for the modern man there is no other way. Only madness is inaccessible to the machine.

First our desire for money is never satisfied. Our pursuit of money is infinite. We can never say: this is enough... There is never any limit, since in order to set a limit or a stopping point, one would need self-control and wisdom. And if one had these at the outset, he would not have had such a passion for money.

Anyone who questions the value of the ‘fact’ draws down on himself the most severe reproaches of our day: he is a ‘reactionary,’ he wants to go back to the ‘good old days,’ and those who make these reproaches do not realize that such questioning is, perhaps, the only revolutionary attitude possible at the present time.

The stage in which the human being was a mere slave of the mechanical tyrant has been passed. When man himself becomes a machine, he attains to the marvelous freedom of unconsciousness, the freedom of the machine itself.

What is needed, then, is continuous agitation produced artificially even when nothing in the events of the day justifies or arouses excitement. Therefore, continuing propaganda must slowly create a climate first, and then prevent the individual from noticing a particular propaganda operation in contrast to ordinary daily events.

Those who count on the good will of mankind display a delirious, idealistic optimism. Centuries of history, despite the facts, have not been able to convince them of the contrary; reason certainly will not change them. But they are so far removed from reality that their opinion is negligible.

It is easy to boast of victory over ancient oppression, but what if victory has been gained at the price of an even greater subjection to the forces of the artificial necessity of the technical society which has come to dominate our lives?

The individual is in a dilemma: either he decides to safeguard his freedom of choice, chooses to use traditional, personal, moral, or empirical means, thereby entering into competition with a power against which there is no efficacious defense and before which he must suffer defeat; or he decides to accept technical necessity, in which case he will himself by the victor, but only by submitting irreparably to technical slavery. In effect he has no freedom of choice.

For the Greeks, physical exercise was an ethic for developing freely and harmoniously the form and strength of the human body. For the Romans, it was a technique for increasing the legionnaire’s efficiency. The Roman conception prevails today.