Here are two more quotes that I feel offer a keen insight into human nature:
"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum – even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate." – Noam Chomsky1
"A stupid man’s report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconciously translates what he hears into something he can understand" – Bertrand Russell2 [http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/27667.html]
"A stupid man’s report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconciously translates what he hears into something he can understand" – Bertrand Russell2 [http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/27667.html]
1 Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is the Institute Professor Emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Chomsky is credited with the creation of the theory of generative grammar, often considered the most significant contribution to the field of theoretical linguistics of the 20th century. See further [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky]
2 Bertrand Arthur William Russell (b.1872 – d.1970) was a British philosopher, logician, essayist, and social critic, best known for his work in mathematical logic and analytic philosophy. See further [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/russell/]