By thinking in the prescribed language, we conform without realising.

People want the Government to do their thinking for them. They happily regurgitate their catchphrases and slogans, thinking they’ve come up with the ideas themselves. It’s a well-known phenomenon: it’s called passive cognition.

If you load oppositional words with negative connotations, then critical thought is stifled. If you load supportive words with positive connotations, then people can’t avoid thinking in the prescribed way.

He looked back as they shepherded the children indoors, thinking of the cities with their walls, gatehouses, razor wire, shutters, barriers, alarms, security cameras and bulletproof screens; it was the architecture of siege, not harmony. Division was engraved in the landscape and fear expressed in physical form.

If you’re drowning and a murderer throws you a line, you can’t wait for someone more agreeable to come along.

Rome might not have been built in a day, but it didn’t fall overnight either.

Life is rarely a choice between good and bad, but bad and worse.

An unquestioned assertion is as good as a truth.

If it hadn’t been seen, it hadn’t happened.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s true, only that it’s believable.