Quotes about press
page 9

Alexis De Tocqueville photo

“In order to enjoy the inestimable benefits that the liberty of the press ensures, it is necessary to submit to the inevitable evils it creates”

Pour recueillir les biens inestimables qu'assure la liberté de la presse, il faut savoir se soumettre aux maux inévitables qu'elle fait naître.
Source: Democracy in America, Volume I (1835), Chapter X-XIV, Chapter XI.

David Brin photo
Adolf Hitler photo

“To put it quite clearly: we have an economic programme. Point No. 13 in that programme demands the nationalisation of all public companies, in other words socialisation, or what is known here as socialism. … the basic principle of my Party’s economic programme should be made perfectly clear and that is the principle of authority… the good of the community takes priority over that of the individual. But the State should retain control; every owner should feel himself to be an agent of the State; it is his duty not to misuse his possessions to the detriment of the State or the interests of his fellow countrymen. That is the overriding point. The Third Reich will always retain the right to control property owners. If you say that the bourgeoisie is tearing its hair over the question of private property, that does not affect me in the least. Does the bourgeoisie expect some consideration from me?… Today’s bourgeoisie is rotten to the core; it has no ideals any more; all it wants to do is earn money and so it does me what damage it can. The bourgeois press does me damage too and would like to consign me and my movement to the devil.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

Hitler's interview with Richard Breiting, 1931, published in Edouard Calic, ed., “First Interview with Hitler, 4 May 1931,” Secret Conversations with Hitler: The Two Newly-Discovered 1931 Interviews, New York: John Day Co., 1971, pp. 31-33. Also published under the title Unmasked: Two Confidential Interviews with Hitler in 1931, published by Chatto & Windus in 1971
1930s

Julia Stiles photo
Brian Viglione photo
Dana Gioia photo
River Phoenix photo
Ann Coulter photo

“Press passes can't be that hard to come by if the White House allows that old Arab Helen Thomas to sit within yards of the president.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

Original version of "Republicans, Bloggers And Gays, Oh My!" (23 February 2005) http://www.anncoulter.com/cgi-local/printer_friendly.cgi?article=43; Universal Press Syndicate edited http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=6680 this line for distribution, changing the phrase "that old Arab Helen Thomas" to "that dyspeptic, old Helen Thomas."
2005

Gottfried Feder photo

“Suppression of all harmful influences in literature and the press, stage, art and cinema.”

Gottfried Feder (1883–1941) German economist and politician

Source: The German State on a National and Socialist Foundation (1923), p. 56

George S. Patton photo
George W. Bush photo
Pat Paulsen photo
Bill Maher photo
Sarojini Naidu photo

“Caprice
You held a wild flower in your finger -tips,
Idly you pressed it to indifferent lips,
Idly you tore its crimson leaves apart…
Alas! It was my heart You held wine-cup in your finger-tips,
Lightly you raised it to indifferent lips,
Lightly you drank and flung away the bowl…,
Alas! It was my soul. Page 153”

Sarojini Naidu (1879–1949) Indian politician, governor of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh from 1947 to 1949

Her poem in [Gokak, Vinayak Krishna, The Golden Treasury of Indo-Anglian Poetry, 1828-1965, http://books.google.com/books?id=WLE8GVsAfEMC, 1970, Sahitya Akademi, 978-81-260-1196-4, 153]
Poetry

L. Ron Hubbard photo
Alfred Tarski photo
Margaret Thatcher photo
Walter Dill Scott photo
Fetty Wap photo

“I'm sipping on you like some fine wine, though
And when it's over, I press rewind, though”

Fetty Wap (1991) American rapper and singer from New Jersey

"679" (feat. Monty)

Charlie Brooker photo

“You can't press a button to make Phil Mitchell jump over a turtle and land on a cloud (unless you've recently ingested a load of military-grade hallucinogens, in which case you can also make him climb inside his own face and start whistling colours).”

Charlie Brooker (1971) journalist, broadcaster and writer from England

The Guardian, 20 November 2006, Reality bytes back http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1952430,00.html
On video games
Guardian columns

Glenn Beck photo

“Free Press is a Marxist organization, and it— the FCC is now riddled with Free Press people. The White House, riddled with people that are taking phone calls from Free Press.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

The Glenn Beck Program
Premiere Radio Networks
2010-08-13
Beck still demonizing Tides Foundation -- "made specifically to launder the money"
2010-08-13
Media Matters for America
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201008130010
2010s, 2010

Aurangzeb photo
Herman Kahn photo
Ian McCulloch photo
Hunter S. Thompson photo
Alfred P. Sloan photo

“What has taken place is a shift of business from one manufacturer to another, and the announcements in the press as well as the general publicity of those manufacturers who have succeeded in increasing their business give, I think, the impression that this is true of the whole industry. If we could assume, for the sake of argument, that we will reach the point at which twenty-five million cars and trucks will be registered in the United States an assumption that from what we have accomplished so far is certainly perfectly reasonable then I think we could safely say that the replacement demand, plus the export demand which will increase for many years yet, plus the normal growth, would amount to something like four to four and one half million vehicles a year and would require the manufacture of a number of cars equal to or greater than has yet been produced in any year in the history of the industry…
I am sure that I do not need to elaborate what the automotive industry consists of, its influence on the prosperity of the United States, the influence that it has had in many other industries which contribute to its production necessities. General Motors is an important part of this great industry of ours and as my contribution to your visit with us I would like to tell you in a brief way something about General Motors; how we are thinking, what we are doing, and our ambitions for the future.”

Alfred P. Sloan (1875–1966) American businessman

Source: Alfred P. Sloan in The Turning Wheel, 1934, p. 332-3: Speech by President Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., 1927 (II)

Thomas D'Arcy McGee photo
Will Eisner photo
Paul Klee photo

“At the moment, an unpleasant feeling presses on my stomach, as though the new year of the unified, national Germany has assisted in the advent of an all too torch-parade-like sparkling wine bacchanal.”

Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter

Quote in a letter to his wife Lily Klee, 1 February 1933; as quoted in 'Klee & Kandinsky', 2015 exhibition text, Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau Munich, 2015-2016 https://www.zpk.org/en/exhibitions/review_0/2015/klee-kandinsky-969.html
in the same year Paul Klee was fired by the Nazi's; they closed the Bauhaus; the family Klee emigrated to Switzerland
1931 -1940

Lee Child photo
O. Henry photo
Noam Chomsky photo
Bertolt Brecht photo

“And when she was finished they laid her in earth
Flowers growing, butterflies juggling over her…
She, so light, barely pressed the earth down
How much pain it took to make her as light as that!”

Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German poet, playwright, theatre director

"To my mother" [Meiner Mutter] (May 1920), trans. John Willett in Poems, 1913-1956, p. 49
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)

H. D. Deve Gowda photo

“I don't want to make general remarks. I don't want to make sweeping remarks about the media. In my country the media can play its own role. Freedom of press is there. It is for them to take their own views about the leaders.”

H. D. Deve Gowda (1933) Indian politician

Source: R R Nair The Rediff Election Interview/H D Deve Gowda http://www.rediff.com/news/1998/feb/02gowd.htm, rediff.com, 2 February 1998

Upton Sinclair photo
Ai Weiwei photo
Arthur Schopenhauer photo
George D. Herron photo
Sung-Yoon Lee photo

“En route to Tokyo in 1945 to embark on the occupation of Japan, U. S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur laid out his goals for Japan to his aide, Maj. Gen. Courtney Whitney: "First destroy the military power, then build up representative government, enfranchise women, free political prisoners, liberate farmers, establish free labor, destroy monopolies, abolish police repression, liberate the press, liberalize education, and decentralize political power."”

Sung-Yoon Lee Korea and East Asia scholar, professor

The transformation of North Korea will require nothing less.
https://foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/02/16/life_after_kim
Life After Kim
February 16, 2010
Foreign Policy
March 1, 2013
https://www.webcitation.org/6EyqdXfyA?url=http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/02/16/life_after_kim?page=full
March 9, 2013
no

Donald J. Trump photo
Amitabh Bachchan photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“Despite the constant negative press covfefe”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2017, May
Source: Tweet posted to the @realDonaldTrump Twitter account http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/05/31/530861002/trump-asks-who-can-figure-out-covfefe-and-the-internets-hands-shoot-up which has since been deleted (30 May 2017)

Harry V. Jaffa photo
Ron Paul photo
Francis Bacon photo
Henry Adams photo
Eugene Jarvis photo
Newton Lee photo
Kathleen Hanna photo
Raymond Chandler photo
H.L. Mencken photo

“Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

A. J. Liebling, in "Do you belong in journalism?", The New Yorker (14 May 1960); sometimes paraphrased : Freedom of press is limited to those who own one.
Misattributed

Huldrych Zwingli photo
Václav Havel photo
Dave Barry photo
Heather Brooke photo
Clement Attlee photo
Joseph Massad photo
Walter Winchell photo
Jack McDevitt photo
Tom Clancy photo
Ingrid Newkirk photo
Samuel Taylor Coleridge photo
Angela Davis photo
Helen Keller photo

“The country is governed for the richest, for the corporations, the bankers, the land speculators, and for the exploiters of labour. Surely we must free men and women together before we can free women. The majority of mankind are working people. So long as their fair demands -- the ownership and control of their lives and livelihood -- are set at naught, we can have neither men's rights nor women's rights. The majority of mankind are ground down by industrial oppression in order that the small remnant may live in ease. How can women hope to help themselves while we and our brothers are helpless against the powerful organizations which modern parties represent and which contrive to rule the people? They rule the people because they own the means of physical life, land, and tools, and the nourishers of intellectual life, the press, the church, and the school. You say that the conduct of the woman suffragists is being disgracefully misrepresented by the British press. Here in America the leading newspapers misrepresent in every possible way the struggles of toiling men and women who seek relief. News that reflects ill upon the employers is skillfully concealed -- news of dreadful conditions under which labourers are forced to produce, news of thousands of men maimed in mills and mines and left without compensation, news of famines and strikes, news of thousands of women driven to a life of shame, news of little children compelled to labour before their hands are ready to drop their toys. Only here and there in a small and as yet uninfluential paper is the truth told about the workman and the fearful burdens under which he staggers.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

Out of the Dark (1913), To a Woman-Suffragist

Gloria Allred photo

“The lawyer Gloria Allred, a longtime master of the press conference.”

Gloria Allred (1941) American civil rights lawyer

December 6, 2014, The Very Private Jill Kelley, New Republic, Jeffrey Rosen, January 27, 2013 http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112206/jill-kelley-interview-david-petraeus-pen-pal-crusader,
About

Mohammed VI of Morocco photo

“In Morocco, I am perfectly known. Moroccans know my character and my ideas, they know absolutely everything of me. This notion of mystery is entertained by some press: to sell, a label must be assigned. I was assigned this label of mystery, just because I decided that, before speaking, I will wait to better know.”

Mohammed VI of Morocco (1963) King of Morocco

Original French: Au Maroc, on me connaît parfaitement. Les Marocains connaissent mon caractère et mes idées, ils savent absolument tout de moi. Cette notion de mystère est entretenue par une certaine presse : pour vendre, il faut mettre une étiquette. On m’a donc collé une étiquette, celle du mystère, simplement parce que j’ai décidé que, avant de parler, j’attendrais de mieux savoir.
Interview with Le Figaro–September 2001 http://www.maroc.ma/fr/discours-royaux/interview-accord%C3%A9e-par-sa-majest%C3%A9-le-roi-mohammed-vi-au-quotidien-fran%C3%A7ais-%C2%AB-le

Philip Schaff photo

“Progress of his Version. Luther was gradually prepared for this work. He found for the first time a complete copy of the Latin Bible in the University Library at Erfurt, to his great delight, and made it his chief study. He derived from it his theology and spiritual nourishment; he lectured and preached on it as professor at Wittenberg day after day. He acquired the knowledge of the original languages for the purpose of its better understanding. He liked to call himself a "Doctor of the Sacred Scriptures."
He made his first attempt as translator with the seven Penitential Psalms, which he published in March, 1517, six months before the outbreak of the Reformation. Then followed several other sections of the Old and New Testaments,—the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, the Prayer of King Manasseh, the Magnificat of the Virgin Mary, etc., with popular comments. He was urged by his friends, especially by Melanchthon, as well as by his own sense of duty, to translate the whole Bible.
He began with the New Testament in November or December, 1521, and completed it in the following March, before he left the Wartburg. He thoroughly revised it on his return to Wittenberg, with the effectual help of Melanchthon, who was a much better Greek scholar. Sturz at Erfurt was consulted about coins and measures; Spalatin furnished from the Electoral treasury names for the precious stones of the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21). The translation was then hurried through three presses, and appeared already Sept. 21, 1522, but without his name.
In December a second edition was required, which contained many corrections and improvements.
He at once proceeded to the more difficult task of translating the Old Testament, and published it in parts as they were ready. The Pentateuch appeared in 1523; the Psalter, 1524.”

Philip Schaff (1819–1893) American Calvinist theologian

Luther's competence as a Bible translator

Paul Kurtz photo
Nikolai Gogol photo
Clay Shirky photo

“Gutenberg’s press flooded the market. In the early 1500s John Tetzel, the head pardoner for German territories, would sweep into a town with a collection of already printed indulgences, hawking them with a phrase usually translated as “When a coin a coffer rings / A soul for heaven springs.” The nakedly commercial aspects of indulgences, among other things, enraged Martin Luther, who in 1517 launched an attack on the Church in the form of his famous Ninety-five Theses. He first nailed the theses to a church door in Wittenberg, but copies were soon printed up and disseminated widely. Luther’s critique, along with the spread of Bibles translated into local languages, drove the Protestant Reformation, plunging the Church (and Europe) into crisis. The tool that looked like it would strengthen the social structure of the age instead upended it. From the vantage point of 1450, the new technology seemed to do nothing more than offer the existing society a faster and cheaper way to do what it was already doing. By 1550 it had become apparent that the volume of indulgences had debauched their value, creating “indulgence inflation”—further evidence that abundance can be harder for a society to deal with than scarcity. Similarly, the spread of Bibles wasn’t a case of more of the same, but rather of more is different—the number of Bibles produced increased the range of Bibles produced, with cheap Bibles translated into local languages undermining the interpretative monopoly of the clergy, since churchgoers could now hear what the Bible said in their own language, and literate citizens could read it for themselves, with no priest anywhere near. By the middle of the century, Luther’s Protestant Reformation had taken hold, and the Church’s role as the pan-European economic, cultural, intellectual, and religious force was ending.”

Clay Shirky (1964) American technology writer

Cognitive Surplus : Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age (2010)

Yoshida Kenkō photo
Eugene V. Debs photo
Benito Mussolini photo

“My Autobiography, New York, C. Scribner's Sons, 1928. Reprinted in Benito Mussolini, My Rise And Fall, Volumes 1-2 Da Capo Press, 1998 (p.40).”

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequen…
Thomas Jefferson photo

“No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to George Washington (9 September 1792)
1790s

“Georgie Pringle: The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying, Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother: And they committed whoredoms in Egypt; they committed whoredoms in their youth: there were their breasts pressed, and there they bruised the teats of their virginity.”

Dennis Potter (1935–1994) English television dramatist, screenwriter and journalist

Pringle, "the class comic", has been asked to choose the bible reading for a secondary school class. He has a reputation for knowing "all the dirty bits in the bible off by heart," according to Nigel Barton's narration. The quote is from Ezekiel, chapter 23, verses 1-3.
Stand up, Nigel Barton (1965)

Edwin Abbott Abbott photo
Kristen Hersh photo

“For years I gave the press really ugly pictures of myself which would make me cringe…And I didn't exist!…They can't market you, so you don't appear to the public, so you don't have a voice.”

Kristen Hersh (1966) American rock singer

quoted in Evans, Liz (1994). Women, Sex and Rock 'n' Roll: In Their Own Words, p. 217. London, Pandora.

Scott McClellan photo
Frederic G. Kenyon photo

“The publication of the Revised New Testament by the two University Presses on May 17, 1881, was the most sensational in the annals of publishing.”

Frederic G. Kenyon (1863–1952) British palaeographer and biblical and classical scholar

Source: The Story Of The Bible, Chapter VIII, The Age Of Discoveries, p. 87

Gore Vidal photo
Kellyanne Conway photo

“You're saying it's a falsehood. And they're giving -- Sean Spicer, our press secretary -- gave alternative facts.”

Kellyanne Conway (1967) American strategist and pollster

Conway: Trump White House offered 'alternative facts' on crowd size http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/22/politics/kellyanne-conway-alternative-facts/index.html (January 22, 2017)

Herman Kahn photo
Rudolph Rummel photo
Friedrich Hayek photo

“The reasons why the adoption of a system of central planning necessarily produces a totalitarian system are fairly simple. Whoever controls the means must decide which ends they are to serve. As under modern conditions control of economic activity means control of the material means for practically all our ends, it means control over nearly all our activities. The nature of the detailed scale of values which must guide the planning makes it impossible that it should be determined by anything like democratic means. The director of the planned system would have to impose his scale of values, his hierarchy of ends, which, if it is to be sufficient to determine the plan, must include a definite order of rank in which the status of each person is laid down. If the plan is to succeed or the planner to appear successful, the people must be made to believe that the objectives chosen are the right ones. Every criticism of the plan or the ideology underlying it must be treated as sabotage. There can be no freedom of thought, no freedom of the Press, where it is necessary that everything should be governed by a single system of thought. In theory Socialism may wish to enhance freedom, but in practice every kind of collectivism consistently carried thought must produce the characteristic features which Fascism, Nazism, and Communism have in common. Totalitarianism is nothing but consistent collectivism, the ruthless execution of the principle that 'the whole comes before the individual' and the direction of all members of society by a single will supposed to represent the 'whole.”

Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) Austrian and British economist and Nobel Prize for Economics laureate

" Planning, Science and Freedom http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v148/n3759/abs/148580a0.html", Nature 148 (15 November 1941), also available as " Planning, Science, and Freedom https://mises.org/library/planning-science-and-freedom," Mises Daily (Auburn, AL: The Ludwig von Mises Institute, 27 September 2010)
1940s–1950s