There is a principle which is
a bar against all information, which is proof against
all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in
everlasting ignorance – that principle is contempt
prior to investigation.
–
Herbert Spencer
The theory of a free press is
that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that
it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any
one account.
– Walter
Lippman
The foundation of all mental
illness is the unwillingness to experience legitimate
suffering.– Carl
Jung
The ultimate result of
shielding man from the effects of folly is to people
the world with fools. –
Herbert Spencer
The Republican form of
government is the highest form of government: but
because of this it requires the highest type of human
nature, a type nowhere at present existing.– Herbert Spencer
The biggest part of reporting
the truth is the news agenda itself. What we choose to
put on the air, what we think is a page one story,
what our priorities are. I would not be fooled by the
old myth that reporting is about objectivity. Deciding
what is news is the most subjective of acts and it is
probably the most important thing that we do.
– Carl Bernstein
There is no such thing, at
this date of the world’s history, in America, as an
independent press. You know it and I know it… The
business of the Journalist is to destroy truth; To lie
outright; To pervert; To vilify; To fawn at the feet
of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for
his daily bread. You know it and I know it and what
folly is this toasting an independent press? We are
the tools and vassals for rich men behind the scenes.
We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we
dance. Our talents, our possibilities and or lives are
all the property of other men. We are intellectual
prostitutes.
– John
Swinton, former Chief of Staff, The New York Times,
circa 1880
To do evil a human being must
first of all believe that what he's doing is good...
Ideology - that is what gives devildoing its
long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the
necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the
social theory which helps to make his acts seem good
instead of bad in his own and others' eyes, so that he
won't hear reproaches and curses but will receive
praise and honors. – Alexander
Solzhenitsyn
That there are men in all
countries who get their living by war, and by keeping
up the quarrels of nations, is as shocking as it is
true; but when those who are concerned in the
government of a country, make it their study to sow
discord, and cultivate prejudices between nations, it
becomes the more unpardonable. – Thomas Paine, "The Rights of Man",
circa 1792
Beware the leader who bangs
the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a
patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a
double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just
as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have
reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate
and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need
in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the
citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by
patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the
leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what
I have done. And I am Caesar.
– Anonymous, circa
?
There is nothing more
difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more
dangerous to manage than the creation of a new system.
For the initiator has the enmity of all who would
profit by the preservation of the old system and
merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by
the new one. –
Machiavelli – 1513
Now I understood for the first
time that all these problems are caused by a race
asleep and thrashing about in its panicked nightmares.
There will be wars and holocausts and genocides as
long as God is portrayed and thought of as a
tight-minded legislator, a feudal lord, an offended
King, a hypersensitive Artisan – even if church
managers condescendingly tack onto that ridiculous
list the not-very-convincing footnote that He is also
loving. As long as people dream that they are insecure
and needy in some sort of eternal jeopardy, there will
be atrocities. But as the human race grows up
spiritually, and as individuals gain a personal
experience of the God they have been worshipping in
fear, they will recognize that much of their theology
and philosophy is built on nightmares. That will be
the day of peace. I suddenly found myself unwilling to
sit it out in the mountains of Utah. I wanted to play
an active role in the process of the world’s
awakening. – George Fowler,
"Dance of a Fallen Monk"