John Edgar Hoover who was born in Washington DC during the year 1895 was the first man to hold the position of director of the Federal Investigation Agency, more commonly known by its initials FBI.
At the head of the FBI, this man managed to obtain a notable amount of information, information that according to some people this man would later use to obtain his own benefit. The only thing we can be sure of is that information, as we all know, is power and whoever has a large amount of information will undoubtedly be someone very powerful within our society.
Phrases and reflections by John Edgar Hoover, former director of the FBI
Below you can enjoy the 40 best phrases of John Edgar Hoover a man of humble origins who, with his work, managed to become one of the most powerful people in the entire United States.
1. The cure for crime is not the electric chair, but the high chair.
The education of our children is the best weapon we have to be able to efficiently combat crime.
2. It is the function of mass agitation to exploit all the grievances, hopes, aspirations, prejudices, fears and ideals of all the special groups that make up our society, social, religious, economic, racial, political. Stir them. Set against each other. Divide and conquer. That’s the way to soften a democracy
If we are united, human beings are much more powerful, so the government usually pits us against each other, in order to control us more easily.
3. Dictatorship is power based directly on force and unrestricted by any law.
Dictatorships should never have a place in today’s world. Democracy and human rights are the pillars thanks to which our society will undoubtedly flourish in the future.
4. I regret to say that we at the FBI are unable to act in cases of oral-genital intimacy, unless it has somehow obstructed interstate commerce.
Some states have truly implausible laws, many of which have already been scrapped today.
5. No amount of law enforcement can solve a problem that goes back to the family.
The law can punish a single person, but not the entire society as a whole. Moral problems are so complicated that they cannot be settled in court.
6. Above all, I would teach him to tell the truth. The truth is that telling the truth is the key to responsible citizenship. The thousands of criminals I have seen in 40 years of law enforcement have had one thing in common: they were all liars.
By being honest we will surely go further in our lives, since honesty is a totally essential quality to achieve personal success.
7. Banks are an almost irresistible attraction for that element of our society that seeks unearned money.
Free money does not exist, whether with our work or with possible income we will always end up having to pay every dollar we have.
8. The moment the FBI starts making recommendations about what should be done with your information, it becomes a Gestapo.
The FBI was to avoid becoming the secret police of the United States, this police force aimed to be much more transparent than some of its European counterparts.
9. There is no doubt that the United States is now the main target of international communism.
The United States was certainly the number one enemy of the Stalinist nations, but no matter how hard they tried, they were never able to subdue the North American giant.
10. Law and order is what covers the whole picture. Justice is part of this, but it cannot be separated as one thing.
Justice could not be understood without laws, since laws are the basis with which we apply what we all commonly know as justice.
11. Experts say that children are neither born criminals nor pampered parasites. The environment in which they live creates them this way.
Those values that we received during our childhood mark us for life; there are no bad children, only bad parents.
12. What you need is a good vacuum cleaner.
Today’s home technology has made our lives much easier, a revolution in our comforts that has been in the making in the United States for more than 60 years.
13. We (the FBI) are a data collection organization only. We don’t clean anyone. We do not condemn anyone.
The FBI is simply an information agency, as such its only tasks are investigation and data collection.
14. The Federal Bureau of Investigation was asked to assist in the investigation of the flying disc sightings.
As we see, the FBI began to investigate the UFO issue, some of these documents have already been declassified today.
15. What we need in America today is a vigorous return to the god of our fathers.
Hoover was convinced that Christianity could inspire many people in the United States. This religion was seen by him as a key that could open the door to a much more prosperous future.
16. I would (study UFOs), but before we agree to do so, we must insist on full access to the recovered disks. For example, in the Los Angeles case, the Army seized it and did not allow us to have it for a cursory examination.
A very curious quote in which Hoover speaks about the UFO conspiracy, a very hot and interesting topic for society in the 50s and 60s.
17. Why should you care if you have nothing to hide?
Only those who have committed a crime should be afraid of the police. If we have nothing to hide, the police will never be our enemy.
18. It can be assured that the information that is withheld or suppressed contains truths that are harmful to the people involved in the repression.
How information is managed in a certain event can mean that public opinion has a completely distorted idea about it. A way of acting that Hoover used on numerous occasions.
19. All people who bear the title of blessed father have a personal responsibility to see that their children grow up fully appreciating the rights of God and their fellow men.
Being a father is a great responsibility, a position that no man should ever take lightly.
20. I don’t need to tell you that what determines a man’s legacy is often what is unseen.
We all have some secret that we jealously keep just for ourselves, in some cases these secrets could ruin the life of more than one person.
21. The flames of freedom that were kindled in this great land of ours in the days of Thomas Jefferson have continued to burn with intense, magnetic light for nearly 200 years. They have been fueled by the spiritual fuel that abounds only in a land where an abiding faith in God and recognition of Him as the true Author of Liberty prevails.
As we see, Hoover had great faith in God, the Lord apparently occupied his first and last thought every day.
22. If the facts are present, it helps the success of the proposal, but the Office believes… that the interruption can be achieved without supporting facts.
The FBI was not afraid to act, this police force would do everything in its power to make the United States a much safer nation.
23. Justice is incidental to law and order.
Law and order make a peaceful life in society possible; no nation could develop efficiently if it were not for these two great pillars.
24. Even great men can be corrupted.
We can all be victims of our greed, it is up to ourselves to be strong enough not to let ourselves be carried away by it.
25. There is something addictive about secrets.
Knowledge, as Hoover very well knew, is power.
26. The purpose of the counterintelligence action is to disrupt and it is irrelevant whether there are facts to corroborate the charge.
This well-known FBI leader managed to obtain a large number of secrets, valuable information that would later make him one of the most powerful people in the world.
27. The American mind simply has not realized the evil that has entered our midst.
The United States was a country with great social and economic differences, the future that awaited that nation seemed to be totally uncertain at that time.
28. The will to do, the tenacity to overcome all obstacles and finish the course, the strength to cling to inexorable ideals, are all rooted in courage.
We must be brave if we want to live a better life tomorrow, our daily actions will be those that will take us directly to the destination that each of us deserves.
29. There is only one way to eliminate juvenile delinquency: to provide every child in America with competent parents.
A very interesting quote that many people should take into account, only by giving correct values to our children will we be able to have a better society in the future.
30. A child who has been taught to respect the laws of God will have little difficulty respecting the laws of men.
As we see, religion was very important to him. Hoover thought that thanks to it everyone could obtain more correct moral principles, something that would later help us develop better within society.
31. There will never be another black messiah unless we believe it.
The fight for civil rights was very present in those times, a time in which racial segregation was still viewed very favorably by an important part of society.
32. The important thing at this moment is to clarify again the difference between hero and villain.
Some criminals were seen in those times as the “Robin Hood” of the time, a very distorted view of reality that obviously had to change.
33. The individual is at a disadvantage by coming face to face with a conspiracy so monstrous that he cannot believe it exists.
Some conspiracies seem straight out of a science fiction book, some plots to which Hoover had total access thanks to his position as top leader of the FBI.
34. The communist threat from without should not blind us to the communist threat from within. The latter is reaching into the heart of America through its spy agents and a cunning, defiant, lawless communist party that is fanatically dedicated to the Marxist cause of global slavery and the destruction of the foundations of our republic.
Communism was a great evil of that time that undoubtedly had to be fought, or at least that was the vision that North American leaders preached.
35. The efforts of all law enforcement agencies with the support and understanding of the American people.
Before the FBI, there was no police agency in the United States with the capacity to operate throughout its territory, something that fortunately changed with its creation.
36. Reject even the assumption that human creatures could adopt a philosophy that must ultimately destroy all that is good and decent.
What society will be like in the future is something that none of us knows, let’s hope that luck will always be a factor that accompanies us throughout our development.
37. When morality declines and good men do nothing, evil flourishes.
If good people do not act on their thoughts, evil people will certainly have a free way.
38. We must never forget our history.
Those events that unfortunately happened in the past can help us make better decisions in the future.
39. A society that is unwilling to learn from the past is doomed.
Only if we learn from our mistakes will we make society much better in the future, a task in which we must all do our part.
40. The most effective weapon against crime is cooperation.
When state agencies act together, there is very little criminals can do to try to avoid them.
