17 Quotes by Michael Ventura

When the people clamor to be shielded from reality, when they praise their government for keeping things from them, when they choose to conduct their lives within the limits of whatever fantasy the government supplies, then they are no longer consenting to be governed, they are begging to be ruled.

To be physically astute and psychologically tended, yet morally insulated and conceptually blind – is to be crazy, not healthy.

That’s what America’s all about, man, if it’s about anything. You can choose your own name.

If I had the money and the drinking capacity, I’d probably live at a roulette table and let my life go to hell.

The people that you have to lie to, own you. The things you have to lie about, own you. When your children see you owned, they are not your children any more, they are the children of what owns you. If money owns you, they are the children of money. If your need for pretense and illusion owns you, they are the children of pretense and illusion. If your fear of loneliness owns you, they are the children of loneliness. If your fear of the truth owns you, they are the children of fear of the truth.

My employer uses twenty-six years of my life for every year I get to keep. And what do I get in return for the enormous thing I am giving? What do I get in return for my life?

Our choices are truncated in evil’s presence.

It may be that it is not given to us to know when we are angels. We may only be given to know when others are. This may be one of the reasons we need each other so.