Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quote Share via Email Print this Page [241-260] of 288 Press quotesPress QuotesPress Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes The reduction of political discourse to sound bites is one of the worst things that’s happened in American political life.~ John Silber As Hitler showed us, a press suppressed does not make a recovery. As Lenin indicated, a press controlled does not revert to a critic’s role. As history reminds us, free speech surrendered is rarely recovered.~ William J. Small The idea that political speech had to be protected at any cost dates to Colonial days, during which the press and the public were not allowed to express themselves freely on matters of public concern. The King and his government often used restrictive measures, such as licensing of printing presses and the doctrine of seditious libel, to silence unfavorable public comment.~ Craig R. Smith Hastiness and superficiality are the psychic diseases of the twentieth century, and more than anywhere else this disease is reflected in the press.~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Woe to that nation whose literature is cut short by the intrusion of force. This is not merely interference with freedom of the press but the sealing up of a nation’s heart, the excision of its memory.~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Woe to that nation whose literature is disturbed by the intervention of power. Because that is not just a violation against "freedom of print", it is the closing down of the heart of the nation, a slashing to pieces of its memory. The nation ceases to be mindful of itself, it is deprived of its spiritual unity, and despite a supposedly common language, compatriots suddenly cease to understand one another.~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Freedom has cost too much blood and agony to be relinquished at the cheap price of rhetoric.~ Thomas Sowell Journalists cannot serve two masters. To the extent that they take on the task of suppressing information or biting their tongue for the sake of some political agenda, they are betraying the trust of the public and corrupting their own profession.~ Thomas Sowell The Internet…has become the voice of the people in the first genuine experiment in democracy yet conducted in America. It stands ready to serve every facet, every faction.~ Gerry Spence Laws which prescribe what everyone must believe, and forbid men to say or write anything against this or that opinion, are often passed to gratify, or rather to appease the anger of those who cannot abide independent minds.~ Baruch Spinoza The press must grow day in and day out — it is our Party's sharpest and most powerful weapon.~ Josef Stalin So, what the cultural elites are doing is what plenty of other authoritarian and totalitarian societies have done in the past. They are making the cost of telling the truth high enough that a general mass of people will be afraid to declare it publicly or even privately. ~ Jarrett Stepman Just as the right to speak and the right to refrain from speaking are complementary components of a broader concept of individual freedom, so also the individual’s freedom to choose his own creed is the counterpart of his right to refrain from accepting the creed established by the majority.~ Justice John Paul Stevens Newspaper editors separate the wheat from the chaff -- and print the chaff.~ Adlai E. Stevenson II [A] function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve it’s high purpose when it indices a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with things as they are, or even stirs people to anger. Speech is often provocative and challenging. It may strike at prejudices and preconceptions and have profound unsettling effects as it presses for understanding.~ Justice Potter Stewart The right to enjoy property without unlawful deprivation, no less that the right to speak out or the right to travel is, in truth, a “personal” right.~ Justice Potter Stewart Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime.~ Justice Potter Stewart Private opinion is weak, but public opinion is almost omnipotent.~ Harriet Beecher Stowe Freedom of the press, or, to be more precise, the benefit of freedom of the press, belongs to everyone – to the citizen as well as the publisher… The crux is not the publisher’s ‘freedom to print’; it is, rather, the citizen’s ‘right to know.’~ Arthur Hays Sulzberger Do the people of this land…desire to preserve those [liberties] protected by the First Amendment… If so, let them withstand all beginnings of encroachment. For the saddest epitaph which can be carved in memory of a vanquished liberty is that it was lost because its possessors failed to stretch for a saving hand while yet there was time.~ George Sutherland Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print