“Advertisers are the interpreters of our dreams — Joseph interpreting for Pharaoh. Like the movies, they infect the routine futility of our days with purposeful adventure. Their weapons are our weaknesses: fear, ambition, illness, pride, selfishness, desire, ignorance. And these weapons must be kept as bright as a sword.”

—  E. B. White

"Truth in Advertising," The New Yorker (11 July 1936)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Advertisers are the interpreters of our dreams — Joseph interpreting for Pharaoh. Like the movies, they infect the rout…" by E. B. White?
E. B. White photo
E. B. White54
American writer 1899–1985

Related quotes

Robert A. Heinlein photo

“Madam, the commonest weakness of our race is our ability to rationalize our most selfish purposes.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Star Beast

Source: The Star Beast (1954), Chapter 14, “Destiny? Fiddlesticks!” (p. 219)

Lin Yutang photo

“Human history is not the product of the wise direction of human reason, but is shaped by the forces of emotion—our dreams, our pride, our greed, our fears, and our desire for revenge.”

Lin Yutang (1895–1976) Chinese writer

Confucius Saw Nancy and Essays about Nothing (1936), p. 95

Joseph Stalin photo

“The press must grow day in and day out — it is our Party's sharpest and most powerful weapon.”

Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Speech at The Twelfth Congress of the R.C.P.(B.) (19 April 1923) http://marx2mao.com/Stalin/TC23.html#s2 <br class="br">Stalin&#x27;s speeches, writings and authorised interviews

“We must seek another interpretation of the cross, and at the same time we must realize that the generations ahead will discard our interpretations.”

Leslie Weatherhead (1893–1976) English theologian

Source: The Christian Agnostic (1965), p.119

Prevale photo

“The night dresses us with magic, leaving us free to dream, travel, interpret everything with the depth of our soul. The power of thought and will transform desire into reality.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) La notte ci veste di magia, lasciandoci liberi di sognare, viaggiare, interpretare tutto con la profondità della propria anima. La forza del pensiero e di volontà, trasforma il desiderio in realtà.
Source: prevale.net

Megan Whalen Turner photo

“We are taught to treat a practice sword with all the respect of a real weapon, so no thoughtless mistakes are made"
"Oh… In Eddis, we learn to keep tack of the weapon we have in our hand.”

Megan Whalen Turner The King of Attolia

Source: The King of Attolia

Mikhail Gorbachev photo

“As long as weapons of mass destruction exist, primarily nuclear weapons, the danger is colossal. All nations should declare... that nuclear weapons must be destroyed. This is to save ourselves and our planet.”

Mikhail Gorbachev (1931) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Quoted in https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-50265870/mikhail-gorbachev-tells-the-bbc-world-in-colossal-danger Mikhail Gorbachev tells the BBC: World in ‘colossal danger’, BBC World News,(4 November 2019)
2000s

“Why should old interpretations of scripture, all of which reflect the ignorance and prejudice and limitations of the age in which they were formulated, bar the way to progress in our modern day?”

Benjamin Fish Austin (1850–1933) Nineteenth-century Canadian educator/Methodist Minister/Spiritualist

Sermon (1899)

Alfred North Whitehead photo

“Our habitual experience is a complex of failure and success in the enterprise of interpretation. If we desire a record of uninterpreted experience, we must ask a stone to record its autobiography.”

Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English mathematician and philosopher

Pt. I, ch. 1, sec. 6.
1920s, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)

Related topics