“… Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses…“

(Juvenal, Satire 10.77–81. “Juvenal” is the English name of a Roman poet, who lived in the 1st and 2nd centuries of the Christian Era. This famous critique of the degraded mentality of the Roman masses has been widely and often used to disparage the ways in which governments try to keep their citizens tranquillized, and which the public often and willingly accepts. In Spain, they’ve called it “bread and bullfights”, for example.)

And, to increase the linguistic richness of JH.com, and thanks to dear young
Wikipedia, here is the original Latin of Juvenal’s statement:

[…] iam pridem, ex quo suffragia nulli / uendimus, effudit curas; nam qui dabat olim / imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se / continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat, / panem et circenses. […]