Top 63 Jacques Ellul Quotes

#1. No matter what God's power may be, the first aspect of God is never that of the absolute Master, the Almighty. It is that of the God who puts himself on our human level and limits himself.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #27703
#2. Mass media provides the essential link between the individual and the demands of the technological society.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #44296
#3. No one knows where we are going, the aim of life has been forgotten, the end has been left behind. Man has set out at tremendous speed- to go nowhere.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #70327
#4. Christians should be troublemakers, creators of uncertainty, agents of a dimension incompatible with society.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #75236
#5. Modern technology has become a total phenomenon for civilization, the defining force of a new social order in which efficiency is no longer an option but a necessity imposed on all human activity.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #78769
#6. The goal of modern propaganda is no longer to transform opinion but to arouse an active and mythical belief.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #121812
#7. I hold that in every situation of injustice and oppression, the Christian
who cannot deal with it by violence
must make himself completely a part of it as representative of the victims.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #123052
#8. Journalistic content is a technical complex expressly intended to adapt man to the machine.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #131451
#9. The qualities which technique requires for its advance are precisely those characteristics of a technical order which do not represent indivisual intelligence ... The individual, in order to make use of technical instruments, no longer needs to know about his civilization.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #134489
#10. Thinking has become a superfluous exercise ... purely internal, without compelling force, more or less a game.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #171919
#11. It is the emergence of mass media which makes possible the use of propaganda techniques on a societal scale.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #201951
#12. We have to admit that there is an immeasurable distance between all that we read in the Bible and the practice of the Church and of Christians.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #268857
#13. There is one act par excellence which profanes money by going directly against the law of money, an act for which money is not made. That act is giving.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #285697
#14. Technique has taken over the whole of civilization. Death, procreation, birth all submit to technical efficiency and systemization.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #325015
#15. The individual who is the servant of technique must be completely unconscious of himself.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #352890
#16. The aim of modern propaganda is no longer to modify ideas, but to provoke action.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #353989
#17. The will of the world is always a will to death, a will to suicide. We must not accept this suicide, and we must so act that it cannot take place.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #378656
#18. All human language draws its nature and value from the fact that it both comes from the Word of God and is chosen by God to manifest himself. But this relationship is secret and incomprehensible, beyond the bounds of reason and analysis.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #398757
#19. So I can very well say without hesitation that all those who have political power, even if they use it well have acquired it by demonic mediation and even if they are not conscious of it, they are worshippers of diabolos.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #422619
#20. The machine is a tool. But it is not a neutral tool. We are deeply influenced by the machine while using it.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #425932
#21. Propaganda does not aim to elevate man, but to make him serve .

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #426562
#22. Technical civilization has made a great error in not suppressing death, the only human reality still intact

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #486178
#23. And an apprenticeship to whatever gadgetry is useful in a technical world

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #691544
#24. Because of the myth of progress, it is much easier to sell a man an electric razor than a straight-edged one.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #714398
#25. The most favorable moment to seize a man and influence him is when he is alone in the mass. It is at this point that propaganda can be most effective.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #734489
#26. Fate operates when people give up

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #775808
#27. Propaganda ceases where simple dialogue begins.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #782016
#28. Everyone has been taught that technique is an application of science ... This traditional view is radically false. It takes into account only a single category of science and only a short period of time

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #787157
#29. Almost always, it is the conviction that 'I am right' or 'my cause is the cause of justice' that triggers violence. That is, ... the moment propaganda does its work, violence is unleashed. And violence can be reduced by countering this propaganda.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #817118
#30. This is where each individual must decide for himself. The essential thing is the decision to challenge the modern state, which without this small group of protesters will be checked by neither brake, value, nor reason.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #887745
#31. True technique will know how to maintain the illusion of liberty, choice, and individuality; but these will have been carefully calculated so that they will be integrated into the mathematical reality merely as appearances!

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #899678
#32. Salvation is universal because the love of God encompasses all. If God is God and if God is love, nothing is outside the love of God. A place like hell is thus inconceivable.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #909533
#33. In sum, thought and reflection have been rendered thoroughly pointless by the circumstances in which modern men and women live and act.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #982994
#34. What seems to be one of the disasters of our time is that we all appear to agree that the nation-state is the norm ... Whether the state be Marxist or capitalist, it makes no difference. The dominant ideology is that of sovereignty.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #989207
#35. God is not an encyclopedia whose task it is to satisfy our curiosity.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #1105475
#36. Science brings to the light of day everything man had believed sacred. Technique takes possession of it and enslaves it.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #1108823
#37. Philosophy which asserts that human experience repeats itself is ineffectual.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #1122033
#38. Again I want to emphasize that the study of propaganda must be conducted within the context of a technological society. Propaganda is called upon to solve problems created by technology, to play on maladjustments, and to integrate the individual into a technological world.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #1140630
#39. Belief is reassuring. People who live in the world of belief feel safe. On the contrary, faith is forever placing us on the razor's edge.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #1148966
#40. The fact of knowing how to read is nothing, the whole point is knowing what to read.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #1169384
#41. The Holy Spirit alone can do this, the Holy Spirit alone can establish this link with one's neighbor.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #1183693
#42. For the word is dialectical in itself and at the same time is integrated into the whole of existence. By this I mean that the word is intended to be lived.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #1224274
#43. When God picks out a man and speaks to him, it is to engage him in a work, an action. Nowhere in Scripture do we find indeterminate or purely mystical vocation.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #1228118
#44. Our civilization is first and foremost a civilization of means; in the reality of modern life, the means, it would seem, are more important than the ends. Any other assessment of the situation is mere idealism.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #1235960
#45. The biblical God lets us make our own history, and goes with us on the more or less unheard-of adventures we concoct.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #1259509
#46. For in a civilization which has lost the meaning of life, the most important thing a Christian can do is to live, and life, understood from the point of view of faith, has an extraordinary explosive force.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #1272706
#47. The orchestration of press, radio and television to create a continuous, lasting and total environment renders the influence of propaganda virtually unnoticed precisely because it creates a constant environment.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #1329518
#48. When there is propaganda, we are no longer able to evaluate certain questions, or even to discuss them

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #1416793
#49. What we are witnessing at the moment is a rearrangement of the world in an intermediate stage; the change is not in the use of a natural force but in the application of technique to all spheres of life.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #1509164
#50. Propaganda begins when dialogue ends. (Quoted by Marshall McLuhan in McLuhan Hot & Cool)

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #1519596
#51. Education no longer has a humanist end or any value in itself; it has only one goal, to create technicians.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #1546967
#52. Prayer holds together the shattered fragments of creation. It makes history possible.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #1652567
#53. Human life as a whole is not inundated by technique. It has room for activities that are not rationally or systematically ordered. But the collision between spontaneous activities and technique is catastrophic for the spontaneous activities.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #1660084
#54. I describe a world with no exit, convinced that God accompanies man throughout his history .

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #1698735
#55. The propagandist must utilize all of the technical means at his disposal - the press, radio, TV, movies, posters, meetings, door-to-door canvassing ... There is no propaganda as long as one makes use, in a sporadic fashion and at random, of a newspaper article here, a poster or radio program there.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #1706203
#56. The intellectual who wants to do her work properly must today go back to the starting point: the woman whom she knows, and first of all to herself. It is at that level, and at no other, that she ought to begin to think about the world situation.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #1720122
#57. No technique is possible when men are free ... Technique requires predictability and, no less, exactness of prediction. It is necessary, then, that technique prevail over the human being.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #1727634
#58. (Propaganda) proceeds by psychological manipulations, character modifications, by creation of stereotypes useful when the time comes - The two great routes that this sub-propaganda takes are the conditioned reflex and the myth

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #1760762
#59. There are different forms of anarchy and different currents in it. I must, first say very simply what anarchy I have in view. By anarchy I mean first an absolute rejection of violence.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #1768657
#60. By thinking globally I can analyze all phenomena, but when it comes to acting, it can only be local and on a grassroots level if it is to be honest, realistic, and authentic.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #1780958
#61. To the ideal of high consumption and the downgrading of spiritual values corresponds a conception of injustice that centers exclusively on the problem of consumption; and equality in consumption cannot be achieved except by violence.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #1835807
#62. Freedom is completely without meaning unless it is related to necessity, unless it represents victory over necessity.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #1847540
#63. It is the multiplication of men who are exluded from working which provokes war. We ought at least to bear this in mind when we boast of the continual decrease in human participation in technical operations.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Quotes #1865335

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