Niccolo Machiavelli
Political Philosopher, Historian
"Always assume incompetence before looking for conspiracy."
Conspiracy quotes
Conspiracy
95 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Poet, Playwright, Novelist
"Why look for conspiracy when stupidity can explain so much"
Christopher Hitchens
Author, Critic, Journalist
"Human beings are pattern-seeking animals who will prefer even a bad theory or a conspiracy theory to no theory at all."
John Lennon
Musician, Activist
"A Conspiracy of silence speaks louder than words."
George Bernard Shaw
Playwright, Critic
"Decency is indecency's conspiracy of silence"
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Topics related to Conspiracy
Browse quotes that often appear alongside conspiracy — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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Conspiracy quotes (page 1 of 5)
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"Conspiracy is just another name for coalition."
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"I'm definitely antiscientist because I feel that science represents a conspiracy to impose as the real and only universe, the universe of scientists themselves - they're reality-addicts, they've got to have things so real so they can get their hands on it."
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"All professions are conspiracies against the laity."
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"I’m not a conspiracy theorist - I’m a conspiracy analyst."
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"I would not call myself a veteran conspiracy theorist. Or an obsessed one. I pretty much peaked on the whole conspiracy theory thing in the '60s, with the grassy knoll, who really killed JFK, and who ordered the hit on Lee Harvey Oswald."
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"Apparently, 'conspiracy stuff' is now shorthand for unspeakable truth."
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"The trouble with conspiracies is that they rot internally."
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"The greatest propaganda coup of the American right has been to convince its citizens that we are in the grip of a liberal conspiracy."
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"It is ironic that a nation that has never experienced a coup d'etat should be so obsessed with the idea of conspiracy."
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"The very word Secrecy is repugnant in a free and open society."
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"I have always been fascinated by paranoid people imagining conspiracies. I am fascinated by this in a critical way."
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"Conspiracy theory is the ultimate refuge of the powerless. If you cannot change your own life, it must be that some greater force controls the world."
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"Conspiracy theories are an irresistible labor-saving device in the face of complexity."
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"At times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles."
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"An agreement of rash men (a conspiracy)."
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"Everyone loves a conspiracy."
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"Lenin thought abstract art was a conspiracy by the bourgeois to demoralize the proletariat. Yeah, socialist realism!"
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"Conspiracies and all the theories of conspiracy are a part of the canon of fakes. And I'm involved, in all of my writings, the theoretical ones as well as the novels, with the production of fakes."
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"Conspiracy theories are the refuge of the disempowered."
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"Every profession is a conspiracy against the laity."
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