Quotes about newspaper
A collection of quotes on the topic of newspaper, people, doing, reading.
Quotes about newspaper

No known source in Twain's works.
The earliest known source is a Usenet post from November 2000 https://groups.google.com/forum/message/raw?msg=israel.francophones/j_b0peHVcJw/YN5cG6Pdk6QJ.
Disputed

Collected Works, Vol. 32, pp. 504–9.
Collected Works
Source: Revolution!: Sayings of Vladimir Lenin

In den Zeitungen wird gehetzt und geschimpft. Diese verantwortungslosen Schmieranten!
Das Volk ist auf der Straße, randaliert und demonstriert. Die Herren sitzen am grünen Tisch und spielen seelenruhig ihre Partie zu Ende.
Die alte Europa geht in die Binsen.
Ja, es ist eine tolle Welt! Wirtschaft, Horatio!
Man wird wie von einer geheimnisvollen Macht auf die Straße gezogen. Die Gedanken sind draußen, wo sich ein Stück Weltgeschichte abspielt -- kein erhebendes zwar, aber ein Stück. Der ernsthafte Zuschauer hat viel dabei nachzudenken.
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)
Speech at Queen's College, City University of New York (March 12, 1975). "The Sexual Politics of Fear and Courage", ch. 5, published in Our Blood (1976).

Attributed in “The Conflict Between Church And State In The Third Reich”, by S. Parkes Cadman, La Crosse Tribune and Leader-Press (28 October 1934), viewable online on p. 9 of the issue here http://newspaperarchive.com/us/wisconsin/la-crosse/la-crosse-tribune-and-leader-press/1934/10-28/ (double-click the page to zoom). The quote is preceded by “In this connection it is worth quoting in free translation a statement made by Professor Einstein last year to one of my colleagues who has been prominently identified with the Protestant church in its contacts with Germany.” [Emphasis added.] While based on something that Einstein said, Einstein himself stated that the quote was not an accurate record of his words or opinion. After the quote appeared in Time magazine (23 December 1940), p. 38 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,765103,00.html, a minister in Harbor Springs, Michigan wrote to Einstein to check if the quote was real. Einstein wrote back “It is true that I made a statement which corresponds approximately with the text you quoted. I made this statement during the first years of the Nazi-Regime — much earlier than 1940 — and my expressions were a little more moderate.” (March 1943) http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/archive/200706A19.html
In a later letter to Rev. Cornelius Greenway of Brooklyn, who asked if Einstein would write out the statement in his own hand, Einstein was more vehement in his repudiation of the statement (14 November 1950) http://books.google.com/books?id=T5R7JsRRtoIC&pg=PA94: <blockquote><p>The wording of the statement you have quoted is not my own. Shortly after Hitler came to power in Germany I had an oral conversation with a newspaper man about these matters. Since then my remarks have been elaborated and exaggerated nearly beyond recognition. I cannot in good conscience write down the statement you sent me as my own.</p><p> The matter is all the more embarrassing to me because I, like yourself, I am predominantly critical concerning the activities, and especially the political activities, through history of the official clergy. Thus, my former statement, even if reduced to my actual words (which I do not remember in detail) gives a wrong impression of my general attitude.</p></blockquote>
: In his original statement Einstein was probably referring to the actions of the Emergency Covenant of Pastors organized by Martin Niemöller, and the Confessing Church which he and other prominent churchmen such as Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer established in opposition to Nazi policies.
: Einstein also made some scathingly negative comments about the behavior of the Church under the Nazi regime (and its behavior towards Jews throughout history) in a 1943 conversation with William Hermanns recorded in Hermanns' book Einstein and the Poet (1983). On p. 63 http://books.google.com/books?id=QXCyjj6T5ZUC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA63#v=onepage&q&f=false Hermanns records him saying "Never in history has violence been so widespread as in Nazi Germany. The concentration camps make the actions of Ghengis Khan look like child's play. But what makes me shudder is that the Church is silent. One doesn't need to be a prophet to say, 'The Catholic Church will pay for this silence.' Dr. Hermanns, you will live to see that there is moral law in the universe. . . .There are cosmic laws, Dr. Hermanns. They cannot be bribed by prayers or incense. What an insult to the principles of creation. But remember, that for God a thousand years is a day. This power maneuver of the Church, these Concordats through the centuries with worldly powers . . . the Church has to pay for it. We live now in a scientific age and in a psychological age. You are a sociologist, aren't you? You know what the Herdenmenschen (men of herd mentality) can do when they are organized and have a leader, especially if he is a spokesmen for the Church. I do not say that the unspeakable crimes of the Church for 2000 years had always the blessings of the Vatican, but it vaccinated its believers with the idea: We have the true God, and the Jews have crucified Him. The Church sowed hate instead of love, though the Ten Commandments state: Thou shalt not kill." And then on p. 64 http://books.google.com/books?id=QXCyjj6T5ZUC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA64#v=onepage&q&f=false: "I'm not a Communist but I can well understand why they destroyed the Church in Russia. All the wrongs come home, as the proverb says. The Church will pay for its dealings with Hitler, and Germany, too." And on p. 65 http://books.google.com/books?id=QXCyjj6T5ZUC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA65#v=onepage&q&f=false: "I don't like to implant in youth the Church's doctrine of a personal God, because that Church has behaved so inhumanely in the past 2000 years. The fear of punishment makes the people march. Consider the hate the Church manifested against the Jews and then against the Muslims, the Crusades with their crimes, the burning stakes of the Inquisition, the tacit consent of Hitler's actions while the Jews and the Poles dug their own graves and were slaughtered. And Hitler is said to have been an alter boy! The truly religious man has no fear of life and no fear of death—and certainly no blind faith; his faith must be in his conscience. . . . I am therefore against all organized religion. Too often in history, men have followed the cry of battle rather than the cry of truth." When Hermanns asked him "Isn't it only human to move along the line of least resistance?", Einstein responded "Yes. It is indeed human, as proved by Cardinal Pacelli, who was behind the Concordat with Hitler. Since when can one make a pact with Christ and Satan at the same time? And he is now the Pope! The moment I hear the word 'religion', my hair stands on end. The Church has always sold itself to those in power, and agreed to any bargain in return for immunity. It would have been fine if the spirit of religion had guided the Church; instead, the Church determined the spirit of religion. Churchmen through the ages have fought political and institutional corruption very little, so long as their own sanctity and church property were preserved."
Misattributed

"As I Please," Tribune (26 January 1945)<sup> http://alexpeak.com/twr/orwell/quotes/</sup>
"As I Please" (1943–1947)

Review of The Civilization of France by Ernst Robert Curtius; translated by Olive Wyon, in The Adelphi (May 1932)

Sukirti on rumours and success http://www.bollywoodlife.com/news-gossip/sukirti-kandpal-i-dont-care-a-damn-what-people-think/

[Mark, Tran, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/12/iceland-haven-freedom-speech-wikileaks?KeepThis=true&TB_iframe=true&height=600&width=990, Iceland plans future as global haven for freedom of speech, The Guardian, February 12, 2010, 2010-06-17]

"The Lion and the Unicorn" (1941)
Context: Is the English press honest or dishonest? At normal times it is deeply dishonest. All the papers that matter live off their advertisements, and the advertisers exercise an indirect censorship over news. Yet I do not suppose there is one paper in England that can be straightforwardly bribed with hard cash. In the France of the Third Republic all but a very few of the newspapers could notoriously be bought over the counter like so many pounds of cheese.

§ 4
"Looking Back on the Spanish War" (1943)
Context: Early in life I have noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper, but in Spain, for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie. I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as the heroes of imaginary victories; and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that had never happened. I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various ‘party lines’.

"As I Please," Tribune (13 December 1946)
"As I Please" (1943–1947)
Context: While the game of deadlocks and bottle-necks goes on, another more serious game is also being played. It is governed by two axioms. One is that there can be no peace without a general surrender of sovereignty: the other is that no country capable of defending its sovereignty ever surrenders it. If one keeps these axioms in mind one can generally see the relevant facts in international affairs through the smoke-screen with which the newspapers surround them.

“A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.”
As quoted in The Observer [London] (26 November 1961)

1945 Source: [Kaufman, Charlie, Inspirational Writing Advice From Charlie Kaufman - On Writing, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRfXcWT_oFs, YouTube, BAFTA Guru, 2017-01-06, 2020-03-09] (at 7:08 of 41:08)
Lords of the Press (1938)
Incorporates the famous observation of Joseph de Maistre that "every nation gets the government it deserves."

Yonder Mark (ed.), The Quotable Gordimer, 2014.

Jean Anouilh as cited in: Stuart Allan (2010) News Culture. p. 1

“Guardian is the most insufferable newspaper on planet Earth.”
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/sep/07/tesla-chief-elon-musk-smokes-marijuana-on-live-web-show e-mail to Guardian


Source: 1930s, Education and the Social Order (1932), p. 133

"Man – and Woman" in Vermont Freeman (Mid-February 1972) http://www.motherjones.com/files/Man_and_Woman_0.jpg; partially quoted, out of context in "Bernie Sanders: Woman 'fantasizes being raped'" http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/bernie-sanders-woman-fantasizes-being-raped/article/2565191 by Ariel Cohen, Washington Examiner (28 May 2015)
1970s

As quoted at Penn State University Libraries http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/wlolita.htm.
On a Book Entitled Lolita (1956)

The New York Times (30 June 1985)

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 3 (2015), p. 14, of his daughter's, Clara's, incipient career as a concert vocalist

Speech at Bloomington (29 May 1856)
1850s

Retirement speech, April 10, 1907, as reported in the St. Louis [Missouri] Post-Dispatch (April 11, 1907).

Ibid., p. 267
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Por enquanto, visto que vivemos em sociedade, o único dver dos superiores é reduzirem ao mínimo a sua participação na vida da tribo. Não ler jornais, ou lê-los só para saber o que de pouco importante ou curioso se passa.
[...] O supremo estado honroso para um homem superior é não saber quem é o chefe de Estado do seu país, ou se vive sob monarquia ou sob república.
Toda a sua atitude deve ser colocar-se a alma de modo que a passagem das coisas, dos acontecimentos não o incomode. Se o não fizer terá que se interessar pelos outros, para cuidar de si próprio.

You see, even when Herr Hitler wants to speak of peace he cannot avoid uttering threats. This is symptomatic.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1936/03/01.htmInterview Between J. Stalin and Roy Howard; March 1, 1936
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

Traveling With Mikoyan Quote By Quote (1959)

Source: Dean of the Plasma Dissidents (1988), p. 196.

1950s, What Desires Are Politically Important? (1950)

Mal sabendo ainda soletrar, já lia, sem perceber que estava lendo. Identificar na escrita do jornal uma palavra que eu conhecesse era como encontrar um marco na estrada a dizer-me que ia bem, que seguia na boa direcção. E foi assim, desta maneira algo invulgar, Diário após Diário, mês após mês, fazendo de conta que não ouvia as piadas dos adultos da casa, que se divertiam por estar eu a olhar para o jornal como se fosse um muro, que a minha hora de os deixar sem fala chegou, quando, um dia, de um fôlego, li em voz alta, sem titubear, nervoso mas triunfante, umas quantas linhas seguidas.
Source: Small Memories (2006), pp. 87–88

Obama speaking about his grandmother Madelyn Dunham at a campaign rally in Charlotte, North Carolina (3 November 2008)
2008

The Problem of Peace (1954)
Context: We have learned to tolerate the facts of war: that men are killed en masse — some twenty million in the Second World War — that whole cities and their inhabitants are annihilated by the atomic bomb, that men are turned into living torches by incendiary bombs. We learn of these things from the radio or newspapers and we judge them according to whether they signify success for the group of peoples to which we belong, or for our enemies. When we do admit to ourselves that such acts are the results of inhuman conduct, our admission is accompanied by the thought that the very fact of war itself leaves us no option but to accept them. In resigning ourselves to our fate without a struggle, we are guilty of inhumanity.

“A Don Juan isn't in the newspaper and doesn't have disciples and doesn't proselytize.”
Playboy interview (1980)
Context: It takes time to get rid of all this garbage that I've been carrying around that was influencing the way I thought and the way I lived. It had a lot to do with Yoko, showing me that I was still possessed. I left physically when I fell in love with Yoko, but mentally it took the last ten years of struggling. I learned everything from her. … It is a teacher-pupil relationship. That's what people don't understand. She's the teacher and I'm the pupil. I'm the famous one, the one who's supposed to know everything, but she's my teacher. She's taught me everything I fucking know. She's my Don Juan … a Don Juan doesn't have a following. A Don Juan isn't in the newspaper and doesn't have disciples and doesn't proselytize.

“The newspapers said,
"Say, what you're doing in bed?"”
I said "We're only trying to get us some peace."
"Ballad of John and Yoko" (1969), referring to his "bed-in" honeymoon of March 1969.
Lyrics

“I became a journalist because I did not want to rely on newspapers for information.”
[Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays, 2004, 1560255803, 2005298401, 56991027, 24964445M]
2000s, 2004
Source: The Cripple and His Talismans
Source: The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book

“Don't do anything that you wouldn't feel comfortable reading about in the newspaper the next day.”
Source: Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential

“A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier.”
1940s–present, A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)

“One reason that cats are happier than people is that they have no newspapers.”
Source: In the Mecca

“Half the American people never read a newspaper. Half never vote for President — the same half?”
Sometimes quoted as: Half of the American people never read a newspaper. Half never voted for president. One hopes it is the same half.
[Bill, Maxwell, http://www.sptimes.com/2002/07/07/Columns/In_gloomy_times__let_.shtml, In gloomy times, let's try to find a sense of humor, St. Petersberg Times, 2002-07-07, 2008-10-04]
Variant: Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half.
Source: 1990s, Screening History (1992), Ch. 1: The Prince and the Pauper, p. 5

“… the newspapers of Utopia, he had long ago decided, would be terribly dull.”
Source: 2001: A Space Odyssey

“The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.”
Source: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

“Take your Bible and take your newspaper, and read both. But interpret newspapers from your Bible.”
Into the Buzzsaw: Leading Journalists Expose the Myth of a Free Press.

Non-Fiction, English Literature: A Survey for Students (1958, revised 1974)

"Newspaper Publicity" in Observations by Mr. Dooley (1902) https://books.google.com/books?id=97c_AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA240&dq=%22newspaper+does+ivrything%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwioqKzz5MvPAhUJrD4KHROmCdsQ6AEIIDAA#v=onepage&q=%22newspaper%20does%20ivrything%22&f=false; part of this has sometimes been paraphrased (ignoring its original satiric meaning): The job of the newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

The future of newspaper https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyiowqNu23s, LaStampa, 21-06-17
Interview with Martin Gayford, " 'Photography is crumbling,' " http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2004/05/18/bahock18.xml The Telegraph, (18 May 2004)
2000s

June 1, 1926
India's Rebirth

Quote in 'The Dali News', Dimanche 27 November 1960, Salvador Dali; as cited in Dali and Me, Catherine Millet, - translation Trista Selous -, Scheidegger & Spiess AG, 8001 Zurich Switzerland, pp. 163-164
Quotes of Salvador Dali, 1951 - 1960
L. E. Dickson, during a discussion period that followed the presentation of a paper at a meeting of the American Mathematical Society, where he criticized the choice of the paper’s topic. Fifteen minutes later he presented a paper of his own outlining a proof that every sufficiently large integer can be written as a sum of, not 1140 tenth powers (the best previous result), but 1046 tenth powers.
Source: Howard Eves in Return to Mathematical Circles http://primes.utm.edu/glossary/page.php?sort=Strobogrammatic

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 148

Brown : The Last Discovery of America (2003)

Source: “The Religious Spirit, Modernism, and Metaphysics” (1913), p. 23

Der Massenmensch hat wenig Zeit, lebt kein Leben aus einem Ganzen, will nicht mehr die Vorbereitung und Anstrengung ohne den konkreten Zweck, der sie in Nutzen umsetzt; er will nicht warten und reifen lassen; alles muß sogleich gegenwärtige Befriedigung sein; Geistiges ist zu den jeweils augenblicklichen Vergnügungen geworden. Daher ist der Essay die geeignete Literaturform für alles, tritt die Zeitung an die Stelle des Buches... Man liest schnell.
Man in the Modern Age (1933)

2 August 2006 article http://www.foxnews.com/story/2006/08/02/mel-gibson-holocaust-numbers-gamersquo.html
In a letter of resignation http://web.archive.org/web/20180726214951/https://www.facebook.com/haim.watzman/posts/10160660063290022?notif_id=1532534669809157¬if_t=feedback_reaction_generic from The Jerusalem Report, on the dismissal of Avi Katz.