The three main elements of public relations are practically as old as society: informing people, persuading people, or integrating people with people… - Edward Bernays

It is chiefly the psychologists of the school of Freud who have pointed out that many of man's thoughts and actions are compensatory substitutes for desires which he has been obliged to suppress. A thing may be desired not for its intrinsic worth or usefulness, but because he has unconsciously come to see in it a symbol of something else, the desire for which he is ashamed to admit to himself...This general principle, that men are very largely actuated by motives which they conceal from themselves, is as true of mass as of individual psychology...Human desires are the steam which makes the soial machine work. Only by understanding them can the propagandist control that cast, loose-jointed mechanism which is modern society.

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.

When Napoleon said, 'Circumstance? I make circumstance‚' he expressed very nearly the spirit of the public relations counsel's work.