40+ Adolf Hitler Quotes for Historical Reflection and Lessons on Leadership
- April 20, 1889 – April 30, 1945
- Born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire
- Political leader of Nazi Germany
- As the leader of the Nazi Party, he caused World War II and led the Holocaust (the persecution and genocide of European Jews)
- “The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one.”
- “The day of individual happiness has passed.”
- “The great strength of the totalitarian state is that it forces those who fear it to imitate it.”
- “Hate is more lasting than dislike.”
- “Germany will either be a world power or will not be at all.”
- “All great movements are popular movements. They are the volcanic eruptions of human passions and emotions, stirred into activity by the ruthless Goddess of Distress or by the torch of the spoken word cast into the midst of the people.”
- “The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force.”
- “I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator.”
- “I use emotion for the many and reserve reason for the few.”
- “Success is the sole earthly judge of right and wrong.”
- “Mankind has grown strong in eternal struggles and it will only perish through eternal peace.”
- “As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice.”
- “The art of leadership… consists in consolidating the attention of the people against a single adversary and taking care that nothing will split up that attention.”
- “Struggle is the father of all things. It is not by the principles of humanity that man lives or is able to preserve himself above the animal world, but solely by means of the most brutal struggle.”
- “The victor will never be asked if he told the truth.”
- “What good fortune for governments that the people do not think.”
- “It is not truth that matters, but victory.”
- “I go the way that Providence dictates with the assurance of a sleepwalker.”
- “Those who want to live, let them fight, and those who do not want to fight in this world of eternal struggle do not deserve to live.”
- “Any alliance whose purpose is not the intention to wage war is senseless and useless.”
- “Words build bridges into unexplored regions.”
- “Anyone who sees and paints a sky green and fields blue ought to be sterilized.”
- “Demoralize the enemy from within by surprise, terror, sabotage, assassination. This is the war of the future.”
- “Whoever lights the torch of war in Europe can wish for nothing but chaos.”
- “As soon as by one’s own propaganda even a glimpse of right on the other side is admitted, the cause for doubting one’s own right is laid.”
- “The very first essential for success is a perpetually constant and regular employment of violence.”
- “If today I stand here as a revolutionary, it is as a revolutionary against the Revolution.”
- “Sooner will a camel pass through a needle’s eye than a great man be ‘discovered’ by an election.”
- “All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach.”
- “Humanitarianism is the expression of stupidity and cowardice.”
- “Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way round, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise.”
- “How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don’t think.”
- “Universal education is the most corroding and disintegrating poison that liberalism has ever invented for its own destruction.”
- “Great liars are also great magicians.”
- “The doom of a nation can be averted only by a storm of flowing passion, but only those who are passionate themselves can arouse passion in others.”
- “He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.”
- “The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belonged to one category.”
- “By the skillful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make a people see even heaven as hell or an extremely wretched life as paradise.”
- “Generals think war should be waged like the tourneys of the Middle Ages. I have no use for knights; I need revolutionaries.”
- “I do not see why man should not be just as cruel as nature.”
- “Who says I am not under the special protection of God?”
- “Strength lies not in defence but in attack.”
- “It is always more difficult to fight against faith than against knowledge.”