Quotes / Themes / Media, Speech & Public Opinion
Theme · 161 quotes
161 sourced quotes on press, free speech, propaganda and public opinion, each with a use case for GS4, Essay and interviews. Thinkers include George Orwell, Edmund Burke, Winston Churchill, Alexis de Tocqueville, Voltaire, Thomas Jefferson.
✓ Sourced and attributed · 72 for GS4 · 137 for Essay
Be sincere, be brief, be seated.
One always speaks badly when one has nothing to say.
Malice delights to blacken the characters of prominent men.
Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.
No one ever made a decision because of a number. They need a story.
The power of the periodical press is second only to that of the people.
A very great part of the mischiefs that vex the world arises from words.
When we hear news, we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation.
A good symbol is the best argument and is a missionary to persuade thousands.
A speech comes alive only if it rises from the heart, not if it floats on the lips.
Broadly speaking, short words are best, and the old words, when short, are best of all.
Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking.
No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.
The stupendous Fourth Estate, whose wide world-embracing influences what eye can take in?
We must not always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation.
He that uses his words loosely and unsteadily will either not be minded or not understood.
Opinions have caused more ills than the plague or earthquakes on this little globe of ours.
Secrecy, censorship, dishonesty, and blocking of communication threaten all the basic needs.
If we don't believe in free expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.
Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.
Speech is human, silence is divine, yet also brutish and dead: therefore we must learn both arts.
It is important to distinguish between the amount of information and the quality of that information.
Worship of society and popular opinion is idolatry. The soul has no sex, no country, no place, no time.
The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.
Writers, especially when they act in a body and with one direction, have great influence on the public mind.
Do not wonder, if the common people speak more truly than those of high rank; for they speak with more safety.
When one side only of a story is heard and often repeated, the human mind becomes impressed with it insensibly.
The public use of a man's reason must be free at all times, and this alone can bring enlightenment among men...
It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions makes it impossible to earn a living.
To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.
As you listen to the present controversy about pesticides, I recommend that you ask yourself-Who speaks? And Why?
We must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend.
What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books.
So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand.
It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the publick to be the most anxious for its welfare.
You deal in the raw material of opinion, and, if my convictions have any validity, opinion ultimately governs the world.
A free Press is the unsleeping guardian of every other right that freemen prize; it is the most dangerous foe of tyranny.
The Press is great power and it can do good as well as harm. If rightly conducted, it can guide and instruct public opinion.
The more that TV pundits reduce serious debates into silly arguments, and big issues into sound bites, our citizens turn away.
What is needed is the right to print what one believes to be true, without having to fear bullying or blackmail from any side.
I am inclined to believe that few attacks either of ridicule or invective make much noise, but by the help of those they provoke.
In times like the present, men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and in eternity.
Every war, when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defence against a homicidal maniac.
If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.
The essential job is to get people to recognise war propaganda when they see it, especially when it is disguised as peace propaganda.
A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth.
Everyone believes in the atrocities of the enemy and disbelieves in those of his own side, without ever bothering to examine the evidence.
The art of persuasion consists as much in that of pleasing as in that of convincing, so much more are men governed by caprice than by reason!
Always remember that it is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood: there will always be some who misunderstand you.
Dear sisters and brothers, we realise the importance of light when we see darkness. We realise the importance of our voice when we are silenced.
It also happens, rather often, that politicians do not actually talk to each other but only to one another's shadows as they appear in the media.
Newspapers are the second hand of history. This hand, however, is usually not only of inferior metal to the other hands, it also seldom works properly.
Translation: 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.
I know not whether more is to be dreaded from streets filled with soldiers accustomed to plunder, or from garrets filled with scribblers accustomed to lies.
How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have, they demand those they do not have. They have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech.
The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion and politics, but it is not the path to knowledge; it has no place in the endeavor of science.
I really do inhabit a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than ten military divisions.
The tongue is like a sharp knife, it kills without drawing blood; words in the hands of someone skilled can do more damage than a weapon in the hands of a warrior.
The responsibility of the writer as a moral agent is to try to bring the truth about matters of human significance to an audience that can do something about them.
While, legally and constitutionally, speech may be free, the space in which that freedom can be exercised has been snatched from us and auctioned to the highest bidders.
In a free society, a government has no business using the power of the law or the taxpayer's money to propagandize for some views and to prevent the transmission of others.
We value virtue but do not discuss it. The honest bookkeeper, the faithful wife, the earnest scholar get little of our attention compared to the embezzler, the tramp, the cheat.
The picture of the world that's presented to the public has only the remotest relation to reality. The truth of the matter is buried under edifice after edifice of lies upon lies.
A journalist is a grumbler, a censurer, a giver of advice, a regent of sovereigns, a tutor of nations. Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than an hundred thousand bayonets.
If one has no affection for a person or a system, one should feel free to give the fullest expression to his disaffection so long as he does not contemplate, promote, or incite violence.
People can tell you to keep your mouth shut, but it doesn't stop you having your own opinions. Even if people are still very young, they shouldn't be prevented from saying what they think.
There are those who blame the Press, but in this I think they are mistaken. The Press is such as the public demands, and the public demands bad newspapers because it has been badly educated.
England has done one thing; it has invented and established Public Opinion, which is an attempt to organize the ignorance of the community, and to elevate it to the dignity of physical force.
In the United States, the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own.
The fact is, that the public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesmanlike habits, supplies their demands
Media people should have long noses like an elephant to smell out politicians, mayors, prime ministers and businessmen. We need to know the reality, the good and the bad, not just the appearance.
There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus and upset the convictions and debauch the emotions of an audience not practised in the tricks and delusions of oratory.
We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking. And out of it we get an aggregation which we consider a boon. Its name is public opinion. It is held in reverence. Some think it the voice of God.
Ion is... a parrhesiastes, i.e., the sort... so valuable to democracy or monarchy since he is courageous enough to explain either to the demos or to the king just what the short-comings of their life really are.
Everyone is in favour of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage
One of the objects of a newspaper is to understand popular feeling and to give expression to it; another is to arouse among the people certain desirable sentiments; and the third is fearlessly to expose popular defects.
Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it.
Better than a thousand hollow words Is one word that brings peace. Better than a thousand hollow verses Is one verse that brings peace.Better than a hundred hollow lines Is one line of the law, bringing peace. (Verse 100)
The so-called Facebook and Twitter revolutions in the Arab world started in hopeful online communities, but once they emerged into the messy offline world, they were commandeered by religious fanatics and military juntas.
The flying Rumours gather'd as they roll'd, Scarce any Tale was sooner heard than told; And all who told it, added something new, And all who heard it, made Enlargements too, In ev'ry Ear it spread, on ev'ry Tongue it grew.
I do not say this, that I think there should be no difference of opinions in conversation, nor opposition in men's discourses... 'Tis not the owning one's dissent from another, that I speak against, but the manner of doing it.
Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
Even in ordinary times there are very few of us who do not see the problems of life as through a glass, darkly; and when the glass is clouded by the murk of furious popular passion, the vision of the best and the bravest is dimmed.
If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.
I am far from denying that newspapers in democratic countries lead citizens to do very ill-considered things in common; but without newspapers there would be hardly any common action at all. So they mend many more ills than they cause.
And it taught a lesson: State propaganda, when supported by the educated classes and when no deviation is permitted from it, can have a big effect. It was a lesson learned by Hitler and many others, and it has been pursued to this day.
Opinion is like a pendulum and obeys the same law. If it goes past the centre of gravity on one side, it must go a like distance on the other; and it is only after a certain time that it finds the true point at which it can remain at rest.
The President of a great democracy such as ours, and the editors of great newspapers such as yours, owe a common obligation to the people: an obligation to present the facts, to present them with candor, and to present them in perspective.
For certainly it is excellent discipline for an author to feel that he must say all he has to say in the fewest possible words, or his reader is sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words, or his reader will certainly misunderstand them.
With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed. Consequently he who moulds public sentiment, goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. He makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to be executed.
It is never my custom to use words lightly. If twenty-seven years in prison have done anything to us, it was to use the silence of solitude to make us understand how precious words are and how real speech is in its impact on the way people live and die.
The Assembly has witnessed over the last weeks how historical truth is established; once an allegation has been repeated a few times, it is no longer an allegation, it is an established fact, even if no evidence has been brought out in order to support it.
Part of what happened is that whole ecosystem moved onto social media. And once it's on social media and it's on an algorithm, and everybody's just getting their news selected, essentially to suit their biases. Penetrating that is real tough. It is very hard.
Rhetoric, it seems, is a producer of persuasion for belief, not for instruction in the matter of right and wrong … And so the rhetorician's business is not to instruct a law court or a public meeting in matters of right and wrong, but only to make them believe.
Don't join the book burners. Don't think you are going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book, as long as that document does not offend our own ideas of decency. That should be the only censorship.
A typical vice of American politics — the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues, and the announcement of radical policies with much sound and fury, and at the same time with a cautious accompaniment of weasel phrases each of which sucks the meat out of the preceding statement.
The lesson is clear: estimates of causes of death are warped by media coverage. [...] The world in our heads is not a precise replica of reality; our expectations about the frequency of events are distorted by the prevalence and emotional intensity of the messages to which we are exposed.
Men with the muckrake are often indispensable to the well-being of society, but only if they know when to stop raking the muck, and to look upward to the celestial crown above them. ... If they gradually grow to feel that the whole world is nothing but muck their power of usefulness is gone.
As to Macarthur, I don't feel in a position to have clear opinions about anyone I know only from newspapers. You see, whenever they deal with anyone (or anything) I know myself, I find they're always a mass of lies & misunderstandings: so I conclude they're no better in the places where I don't know.
Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins. Republics and limited monarchies derive their strength and vigor from a popular examination into the action of the magistrates.
The shifty language of politics,... that strange language full of Maya and falsities of self-illusion and deliberate delusion of others, which almost immediately turns all true and vivid phrases into a jargon, so that men may fight in a cloud of words without any clear sense of the thing they are battling for....
There is an almost universal tendency, perhaps an inborn tendency, to suspect the good faith of a man who holds opinions that differ from our own opinions. ... It obviously endangers the freedom and the objectivity of our discussion if we attack a person instead of attacking an opinion or, more precisely, a theory.
A witty saying proves nothing.
Falsehood has a perennial spring.
Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth.
Hatred, as well as love, renders its votaries credulous.
May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.
The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.
To speak of atrocious crime in mild language is treason to virtue.
It takes two to speak the truth, — one to speak, and another to hear.
There is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it.
Control your tongue, for from it flow the greatest evils of human life.
We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.
An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.
To be outspoken is easy when you do not wait to speak the complete truth.
We always question the bonafides of the man who tells us unpleasant facts.
There is no greater evil one can suffer than to hate reasonable discourse.
For such Truth as opposeth no man's profit nor pleasure is to all men welcome.
No amount of propaganda can make right something that the world knows is wrong.
The last characteristic of parrhesia... telling the truth is regarded as a duty.
There is no act, however virtuous, for which ingenuity may not find some bad motive.
This Treasury paper, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read.
To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the utmost importance to the citizens of a democracy.
If you show people the problems and you show people the solutions they will be moved to act.
One does not decide the truth of a thought according to whether it is right-wing or left-wing.
All registers which, it is acknowledged, ought to be kept secret, ought certainly never to exist.
Madness is something rare in individuals — but in groups, parties, peoples, epochs it is the rule.
If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.
To use bitter words, when kind words are at hand, Is like picking unripe fruit when the ripe fruit is there.
The things people say of a man do not alter a man. He is what he is. Public opinion is of no value whatsoever.
In order that all men may be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.
Great wisdom is generous; petty wisdom is contentious. Great speech is impassioned, small speech cantankerous.
Democracies die not only when people are not free to talk but also when people are not willing or able to listen.
It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentional lying, that there is so much falsehood in the world.
To convince someone of the truth, it is not enough to state it, but rather one must find the path from error to truth.
I sometimes think that general and popular treatises are almost as important for the progress of science as original work
Change happens by listening and then starting a dialogue with the people who are doing something you don't believe is right.
Unless we... construct institutions that invest in truth, we'll be flooded by fiction.., illusion.., delusion and junk information.
Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.
Too often the strong, silent man is silent only because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent.
I think that it's important for scientists to explain their work, particularly in cosmology. This now answers many questions once asked of religion.
The well-meaning contention that all ideas have equal merit seems to me little different from the disastrous contention that no ideas have any merit.
The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—'tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.
The man of perfect virtue is cautious and slow in his speech. When a man feels the difficulty of doing, can he be other than cautious and slow in speaking?
One of the most horrible features of war is that all the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.
Clichés, stock phrases, adherence to conventional, standardized codes of expression and conduct have the socially recognized function of protecting us against reality.
In America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion; within these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them.
An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it. Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self sustained.
Threats to freedom of speech, writing and action, though often trivial in isolation, are cumulative in their effect and, unless checked, lead to a general disrespect for the rights of the citizen.
Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.
So civil society is the conscience of our countries. It’s the catalyst of change. It’s why strong nations don’t fear active citizens. Strong nations embrace and support and empower active citizens.
It asks a little of us here. It asks of us a certain height. So when at times the mob is swayed To carry praise or blame too far, We may take something like a star To stay our minds on and be staid.
I believe it is an established maxim in morals that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false, is guilty of falsehood; and the accidental truth of the assertion, does not justify or excuse him.
If there are certain pages of Mr Bertrand Russell's book, Power, which seem rather empty, that is merely to say that we have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.
Information is the oxygen of the modern age. It seeps through the walls topped by barbed wire, it wafts across the electrified borders. ... The Goliath of totalitarianism will be brought down by the David of the microchip.
In a free nation, it matters not whether individuals reason well or ill; it is sufficient that they do reason. Truth arises from the collision and from hence springs liberty, which is a security from the effects of reasoning.
Sometimes I wonder if we shall ever grow up in our politics and say definite things which mean something, or whether we shall always go on using generalities to which everyone can subscribe, and which mean very little. (1 July 1940)
This is your government. It is quite different from its predecessors. Therefore, appreciate when a good thing is done. Certainly criticize fearlessly, when a wrong thing is done. I welcome criticism, but it must be honest and constructive.
One of the best ways of enslaving a people is to keep them from education... The second way of enslaving a people is to suppress the sources of information, not only by burning books but by controlling all the other ways in which ideas are transmitted. (11 May 1943)
Freedom of thought and of expression are not mere rights to be claimed. They have their roots deep in the existence of individuals as developing careers in time. Their denial and abrogation is an abdication of individuality and a virtual rejection of time as opportunity.
Without disarmament there can be no lasting peace. On the contrary, the continuation of military armaments in their present extent will with certainty lead to new catastrophies...For the creation of this public opinion in favor of disarmament every person living shares the responsibility, through ever deed and every word.