My goal is to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone, but agnosticism about everything.
Robert Anton WilsonRead
And as a matter of fact, governments don't act, governments only react. The bankers make the decisions, and then governments decide how are we going to adjust to this. Government can't do anything unless the bank gives them the money to do it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that governments merely respond to the actions of banks rather than taking initiative themselves.
Robert Anton Wilson's quote highlights the often perceived dependency of governments on financial institutions, implying that true power lies with bankers who make pivotal decisions that shape economic and political landscapes. It suggests that governments, constrained by financial resources, are reactive rather than proactive, merely adjusting their policies according to the dictates of bankers who control the flow of money.
Themes
GovernmentBanksReactiveEconomyPower
In practice
Example use cases
In a political debate discussing the influence of banks on government policy.
More from Robert Anton Wilson
All quotes →There is no governor anywhere. You are all absolutely free. There is no restraint that cannot be escaped. If anybody could go into dhyana at will, nobody could be controlled - by fear of prison, by fear of whips or electroshock, by fear of death, even. All existing society is based on keeping those fears alive, to control the masses. Ten people who know would be more dangerous than a million armed anarchists.
Robert Anton WilsonRead
I see anarchism as the theoretical ideal to which we are all gradually evolving to a point where everybody can tell the truth to everybody else and nobody can get punished for it. That can only happen without hierarchy and without people having the authority to punish other people.
Robert Anton WilsonRead
To work for libertarianism - to oppose the growth of government and aid the liberation of the individual - used to be an idealistic choice taken for purely idealistic reasons. Now it is an act of intelligent and almost desperate self-defense.
Robert Anton WilsonRead
The abandoned infant's cry is rage, not fear.
Robert Anton WilsonRead
The only way to stave off boredom, in a complex domesticated primate like humankind, is to increase one's intelligence. This is not appealing to the average primate, who instead invents emotional games (soap opera and grand opera dramatics).
Robert Anton WilsonRead
Similar quotes
Party honesty is party expediency.
Grover ClevelandRead
The president of the United States is not a king. You know? Barack Obama was elected by the American people.
Ta-Nehisi CoatesRead
Power in America today is control of the means of communication.
Theodore WhiteRead
Never has so much military and economic and diplomatic power been used so ineffectively, and if after all of this time, and all of this sacrifice, and all of this support, there is still no end in sight, then I say the time has come for the American people to turn to new leadership not tied to the mistakes and policies of the past.
Richard M. NixonRead
One day after laying a wreath at the tomb of Martin Luther King Jr., President Bush appoints a federal judge who has built his career around dismantling Dr. King's legacy.
Hillary ClintonRead
Politics is the art of the next best.
Otto Von BismarckRead