Quoted in Adam Curtis' The Century of the Self (2002)
“

When I came back to the United States, I decided that if you could use propaganda for war, you could certainly use it for peace. And "propaganda" got to be a bad word because of the Germans using it, so what I did was to try and find some other words. So we found the words "counsel on public relations".

— Edward Bernays

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "When I came back to the United States, I decided that if you could use propaganda for war, you could certainly use it for peace. And "propaganda" got to be a bad word because of the Germans using it, so what I did was to try and find some other words. So we found the words "counsel on public relations"." in the context of "Quoted in Adam Curtis' The Century of the Self (2002)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "Edward Bernays" (Quotes) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Edward Bernays

About Edward Bernays

Edward Bernays (November 22, 1891 – March 9, 1995) was an Austrian-born American publicist, sometimes called "the father of public relations".