“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived and dishonest — but the myth — persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.”
Commencement address, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut (11 June 1962) http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/3370
1962
Context: The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived and dishonest — but the myth — persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
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John F. Kennedy 469
35th president of the United States of America 1917–1963Related quotes
The Camelot Project interview (1996)
Context: There are certain myths that have persisted throughout the ages, and this one has remained very potent in modern culture. The Arthurian cycle involves numerous kinds of relationships, not only between men but also between men and women. In our rather less structured society nowadays defining these relationships can sometimes be difficult.
“A composite is a euphemism for a lie. It's disorderly. It's dishonest and it's not journalism.”
Commenting on New Yorker staff writer Alastair Reid's use of composite characters.
p. 65, The interplay of influence: mass media and their publics in news, advertising, politics, Wadsworth series in mass communication, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, Edition 2, Wadsworth, 1988.
Source: Hainish Cycle, City of Illusions (1967), Chapter 7
“A lie told often enough becomes the truth.”
Source: A Scanner Darkly (1977), Chapter 11 (pp. 185-186)
"McCarthyism: The Rosetta Stone of Liberal Lies" (8 November 2007) http://townhall.com/columnists/anncoulter/2007/11/08/mccarthyism_the_rosetta_stone_of_liberal_lies/page/full/.
2007
Context: Ironically, for all of their love of conspiracy theories — the rigging of the 2000 election, vote suppression in Ohio in 2004, 9/11 being an inside job, oil companies covering up miracle technology that would allow cars to run on dirt, Britney Spears' career, etc., etc. — when presented with an actual conspiracy of Soviet spies infiltrating the U. S. government, they laughed it off like world-weary skeptics and dedicated themselves to slandering Joe McCarthy.
Then as now, liberals protect themselves from detection with wild calumnies against anybody who opposes them. They have no interest in — or aptitude for — persuasion. Their goal is to anathematize their enemies.
Source: Clans of the Alphane Moon (1964), Chapter 5 (pp. 69-70)
Source: Personal Destinies: A Philosophy of Ethical Individualism (1976), p. 9