
Source: The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
Source: Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! (2008), Ch. 3 (p. 48)
Context: The media today are controlled by the big corporations. It's all about ratings and money. Believe it or not, I think the downfall of our press today was the show 60 Minutes. Up until it came along, news was expected to lose money, in order to bring the people fair reporting and the truth. But when 60 Minutes became the top-rated program on television, the light went on. The corporate honchos said, "Wait a minute, you mean if we entertain with the news, we can make money?" It was the realization that, if packaged the correct way, the news could make you big bucks. No longer was it a matter of scooping somebody else on a story, but whether 20/20's ratings this week were better than Dateline's. I'm not knocking 60 Minutes. It was tremendously well done and hugely successful, but in the long run it could end up being a detriment to society.
Source: The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
“By the way, there's a place on Hollywood Boulevard where you can get a _____ for twenty bucks.”
citation needed
The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (2005–2014), "By the way…" variations
Knox College Commencement Address (4 June 2005)
2005
“It's easy to make a buck. It's a lot tougher to make a difference.”
“There is no way in which one can buck the market.”
Prime Ministers' Questions (10 March 1988) https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1988/mar/10/engagements#S6CV0129P0_19880310_HOC_156
Third term as Prime Minister
Source: The Heritage Universe, Resurgence (2002), Chapter 8, “Theories, Theories, Theories” (p. 84)
“This is what makes packaged opinion so attractive.”
"There Is Simply Too Much to Think About" (1992), pp. 173-174
It All Adds Up (1994)
Context: There is simply too much to think about. It is hopeless — too many kinds of special preparation are required. In electronics, in economics, in social analysis, in history, in psychology, in international politics, most of us are, given the oceanic proliferating complexity of things, paralyzed by the very suggestion that we assume responsibility for so much. This is what makes packaged opinion so attractive.
sometimes naïve. Understand, or not?
Leader of China Angrily Chastises Hong Kong Media http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/29/world/leader-of-china-angrily-chastises-hong-kong-media.html (October 2000). Also quoted as All over the world, wherever you go to, you always run faster than western journalists. But the questions you keep asking are too simple, sometimes naïve.
2000s
Interview http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2003/leggett-interview.html 2003 Nobel Laureates in Physics, 9 December 2003 (8:02).