It is asked whether, in fact, the leader makes propaganda, or whether propaganda makes the leader. There is a widespread impression that a good press agent can puff up a nobody into a great man.
The answer is the same as that made to the old query as to whether the newspaper makes public opinion or whether public opinion makes the newspaper. There has to be fertile ground for the leader and the idea to fall on. But the leader also has to have some vital seed to sow. To use another figure, a mutual need has to exist before either can become positively effective. Propaganda is of no use to the politician unless he has something to say which the public, consciously or unconsciously, wants to hear.

Universal literacy was supposed to educate the common man to control his environment. Once he could read and write he would have a mind fit to rule. So ran the democratic doctrine. But instead of a mind, universal literacy has given him rubber stamps, rubber stamps inked with advertising slogans, with editorials, with published scientific data, with the trivialities of the tabloids and the platitudes of history, but quite innocent of original thought. Each man’s rubber stamps are the duplicates of millions of others, so that when those millions are exposed to the same stimuli, all receive identical imprints. It may seem an exaggeration to say that the American public gets most of its ideas in this wholesale fashion. The mechanism by which ideas are disseminated on a large scale is propaganda, in the broad sense of an organized effort to spread a particular belief or doctrine.

I keep trying to convey something which cannot be conveyed, to explain something which cannot be explained, something in my bones, which can only be experienced in the same bones. In essence it might be nothing more than that fear of the greatest things as well as the smallest, fear, convulsive fear of pronouncing a single word. On the other hand, maybe this fear isn’t simply fear, but also longing for something greater than anything that can aspire fear. Only I am at fault, because there is too little truth on my part, still far too little truth, still mostly lies, lies told out of fear of myself and fear of people. This pitcher was broken long before it went to the well. And now I am keeping my mouth shut in order to stick with the truth a little. Lying is horrible, there is no worse mental agony. Therefore I beg you: let me be silent.

ولكن تأمل يا خوجة عمر أنه مهما يكن من سعة إمبراطورية ما ووفرة أهلها وثرائها فهناك دائما قحط في الرجال. فكم في الظاهر من مخلوقات ومن أمكنة تعجّ بالناس وجموع غفيرة، ومع ذلك يحدث أن أتأمل في جيشي المبثوث، وفي مسجد وقت الصلاة، وفي سوق من الأسواق، وحتى في ديواني، وأتسائل: لو طالبت هؤلاء الرجال بعمل حكيم، بمعرفة من المعارف، بولاء ما، بإبداء النزاهة والإخلاص، فلا أرى الحشد عند كل مزية أعددّها يرقّ ثم يذوب ويتلاشى؟ أجد نفسي وحيدًا يا خوجة عمر، وحيدًا إلى حد القنوط

ليس هناك رجل كجزيرةٍ مستقلّ بذاته، كل رجل جزء من القارة، جزء من كلّ. فإن جرف البحر حفنة من التراب نقصت أوروبا، وكذلك إن كان جُرفت صخرة أو جُرف قصر صديقك أو حتى قصرك، موت أي رجل ينتقص مني، لأنني مشاركٌ في البشرية، ولذا لا تبعث لي أبدًا لتسألني لمن تُقرع الأجراس؛ إنها تُقرع من أجلك