Random Thoughts on Free Expression (loosely defined)
Compiled by Ted Pease
Compiled by Ted Pease
(Samples from TODAY’S WORD ON JOURNALISM, the daily subscription “service” transmitted
via email to some 1,700 subscribers worldwide.)
“I thank God we have no free schools or printing, and I hope that we shall not have these for a hundred years. For learning has brought disobediences and heresy and sects into the world; and printing has divulged them and libels against the government. God keep us from both.”
—Sir William Berkeley
Governor, Virginia Colony, 1671
Governor, Virginia Colony, 1671
“A popular Government without popular information or the means of acquiring it is but a prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own Governors must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives.”
—James Madison, 4th U.S. President
(This quote is preamble to the congressional “Citizen’s Guide” on the use of the Freedom of
(This quote is preamble to the congressional “Citizen’s Guide” on the use of the Freedom of
Information Act, enacted by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966.)
“To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies and pause to America’s friends.”
—John Ashcroft, U.S. attorney general, 12/6/01
“As much as I hate to admit it, the American media are really indispensable to our country.”
—U.S. Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, R-Utah, 1997
“They are rude and accusatory, cynical and almost unpatriotic. They twist facts
to suit their not-so-hidden liberal agenda. They meddle in politics, harass business,
invade people’s privacy and then walk off without regard to the pain and chaos
they leave behind. They are arrogant and self-righteous, brushing aside most criticism
as the uninformed carping of cranks and ideologues. To top it off, they claim that their behavior is sanctioned — indeed, sanctified — by the U.S. Constitution.”
to suit their not-so-hidden liberal agenda. They meddle in politics, harass business,
invade people’s privacy and then walk off without regard to the pain and chaos
they leave behind. They are arrogant and self-righteous, brushing aside most criticism
as the uninformed carping of cranks and ideologues. To top it off, they claim that their behavior is sanctioned — indeed, sanctified — by the U.S. Constitution.”
—William A. Henry III, reporter, TIME magazine, December 1983
“Newspapers’ traditional role has been consciousness-raising, and we do it real well. What we don’t do is help the public to the next step. We don’t help them focus on steps that need to be taken. We’ve got to get to solutions; everyone knows what the problems are.”
—Davis “Buzz” Merritt, editor, The Wichita (Kan.) Eagle, 1992
“When I was a child, people simply looked about them and were moderately happy; today they peer beyond the seven seas, bury themselves waist-deep in tidings, and by and large what they see and hear makes them unutterably sad. . . . I believe television is going to be
the test of the modern world, and that in this new opportunity to see beyond
the range of our vision we shall discover either a new and unbearable disturbance
of the general peace, or a saving radiance in the sky.
We shall stand or fall by television—of that I am quite sure.”
the test of the modern world, and that in this new opportunity to see beyond
the range of our vision we shall discover either a new and unbearable disturbance
of the general peace, or a saving radiance in the sky.
We shall stand or fall by television—of that I am quite sure.”
—E.B. White, author, “Removal,” One Man’s Meat, 1938
“What makes a good newspaperman? The answer is easy. He knows everything. He is aware not only of what goes on in the world today, but his brain is a repository of the accumulated wisdom of the ages. He is not only handsome, but he has the physical strength which enables him to perform great feats of energy. He can go for nights on end without sleep. He dresses well and talks with charm. Men admire him; women adore him; tycoons and statesmen are willing to share their secrets with him. He hates lies and meanness and sham, but he keeps his temper. He is loyal to his paper and to what he looks upon as the profession; whether it is a profession, or merely a craft, he resents attempts to debase it. When he dies, a lot of people are sorry, and some of them remember him for several days.”
—Stanley Walker, newspaperman, New York Herald-Tribune, 1924
“If you read a lot of books you're considered well read. But if you watch a lot of TV
you’re not considered well viewed.”
you’re not considered well viewed.”
—Lily Tomlin, comedian
“Some books make me want to go adventuring, others feel that they
have saved me the trouble.”
have saved me the trouble.”
—Ashley Brilliant, writer
“Language is a very difficult thing to put into words.”
—Voltaire (Francois Marie Arouet), writer, 1694-1778
“It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day
for lack of what is found there.”
for lack of what is found there.”
—William Carlos Williams, author and poet
“She thought him to be a poet . . . an impractical man.”
—Meyer Levin, writer
“Though it has been discovered that the human brain has 10 billion cells, each capable of making 5,000 connections, many connections are never made, and messages, feelings, visions, and thoughts never register, simply bump blindly into each other without any result.”
—Leon D’Souza, USU journalism student, 2001
(at candlelight vigil for World Trade Center attack)
(at candlelight vigil for World Trade Center attack)
“A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.”
—Arthur Miller, playwright, 1961
“Hollywood is one of the main centers of communist activities in America due to the fact
that our greatest medium of propaganda—the motion pictures—is located here.
It is the desire of the masters in Moscow to use this medium for their purposes, which is the overthrow of the American government.”
that our greatest medium of propaganda—the motion pictures—is located here.
It is the desire of the masters in Moscow to use this medium for their purposes, which is the overthrow of the American government.”
—Adolphe Menjou, actor, in closed-door hearing
before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, 1947.
before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, 1947.
“The world is a hellish place and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering. It cheapens and degrades the human experience, when it should inspire and elevate.”
—Tom Waits, writer, 2001
“Rest assured, there'll never be a shortage of Bozos on television.”
—Dan Rather, CBS News anchor, lamenting the end of WGN-TV's “Bozo,” 2001
“Journalists by nature must be optimists. Otherwise, they’d find something less tedious
and depressing (and better paid) to do than kibbitzing over and over again
on the same foibles of human folly.”
and depressing (and better paid) to do than kibbitzing over and over again
on the same foibles of human folly.”
—Ted Pease, journalistic kibbitzer, 1997
“The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.”
—Plutarch
“There are three rules for writing the novel.
Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”
Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”
—W. Somerset Maugham, novelist
“Every generation is supposedly ruined by entertainment. Entertainment is an easy fall guy. People always look for reasons why they aren’t responsible for their own kids,
but parents are responsible.”
but parents are responsible.”
—Sidney Lumet, movie director
“Find what gave you emotion; what the action was that gave you excitement. Then write it down making it clear so that the reader can see it too. Prose is architecture, not interior decoration, and the Baroque is over.”
—Ernest Hemingway, writer
“You will know you have spoken the truth when you are angrily denounced; and you will know you have spoken both truly and well when you are visited by the police.”
—Anon.
“Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad.”
—Aldous Huxley, author
“Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill.”
—Barbara Tuchman, historian
“The press is the public educator, the Archimedean lever that moves the world
—to retch itself into spasms.”
—to retch itself into spasms.”
—William Cowper Brann, editor of The Iconoclast,
was gunned down by an enraged reader in Waco, Texas, April 1, 1898
was gunned down by an enraged reader in Waco, Texas, April 1, 1898
“I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer
“With every mistake
we must surely be learning.
Still my guitar gently weeps.”
we must surely be learning.
Still my guitar gently weeps.”
—George Harrison (1943 - 2001)
“When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.”
—Henny Youngman, comedian
“A free press is not only a right, and not only a privilege,
but an organic necessity in a great society.”
but an organic necessity in a great society.”
—Walter Lippmann, journalist, 1889-1974
“There is no danger in letting people have their say. . . . There is a danger
when you try to stop them from saying it.”
when you try to stop them from saying it.”
—Helen Gahagan Douglas, writer and politician, 1946
“People demand freedom of speech to make up
for the freedom of thought that they avoid.”
for the freedom of thought that they avoid.”
—Sören Aalys Kierkegaard, philosopher
“There is no freedom of speech when people are terrified to be wrong.
Being wrong is just part of being human.”
Being wrong is just part of being human.”
—Garrison Keillor, radio host and author, 2001
“Books are good but experience is better.”
—from my fortune cookie the other day
“It has often been said
there’s so much to be read,
you never can cram
all those words in your head.
So the writer who breeds
more words than he needs
is making a chore
for the reader who reads.
That's why my belief is
the briefer the brief is,
the greater the sigh
of the reader's relief is.
And that's why your books
have such power and strength.
You publish with shorth!
(Shorth is better than length.)”
there’s so much to be read,
you never can cram
all those words in your head.
So the writer who breeds
more words than he needs
is making a chore
for the reader who reads.
That's why my belief is
the briefer the brief is,
the greater the sigh
of the reader's relief is.
And that's why your books
have such power and strength.
You publish with shorth!
(Shorth is better than length.)”
