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.
– Julius Caesar
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"
