Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Related Quotes

Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield

The press is not only free; it is powerful. That power is ours. It is the proudest that man can enjoy. It was not granted by monarchs, it was not gained for us by aristocracies; but it sprang from the people, and, with an immortal instinct, it has always worked for people.

Instinct | Man | People | Power |

Daniel Boorstin, fully Daniel Joseph Boorstin

Two centuries ago when a great man appeared, people looked for God’s purpose in him. Today we look for his press agent.

God | Man | People | Purpose | Purpose |

Daniel Boorstin, fully Daniel Joseph Boorstin

Formerly, a public man needed a private secretary for a barrier between himself and the public. Nowadays he has a press secretary, to keep him properly in the public eye.

Man | Public |

Francis Bacon

Bashfulness is a great hindrance to a man, both in uttering his sentiments and in understanding what is proposed to him; it is therefore good to press forward with discretion, both in discourse and company of the better sort.

Better | Discretion | Good | Man | Understanding |

Franklin D. Roosevelt, fully Franklin Delano Roosevelt, aka FDR

Freedom of conscience, of education, of speech, of assembly are among the very fundamentals of democracy and all of them would be nullified should freedom of the press ever be successfully challenged.

Conscience | Democracy | Education | Freedom of conscience | Freedom | Speech |

Henry Steele Commager

Who are the really disloyal? Those who inflame racial hatreds, who sow religious and class dissensions. those who subvert the Constitution by violating the freedom of the ballot box. Those who make a mockery of majority rule by the use of the filibuster. Those who impair democracy by denying equal educational facilities. Those who frustrate justice by lynch law or by making a farce of jury trials. Those who deny freedom of speech and of the press and of assembly. Those who demand special favors against the interest of the commonwealth. Those who regard public office as a source of private gain. Those who exalt the military over the civil. Those who for selfish and private purposes stir up national antagonisms and expose the world to the ruin of war.

Democracy | Freedom of speech | Freedom | Justice | Law | Majority | Mockery | Office | Public | Regard | Rule | Speech | Trials | War | World |

John Adams

Mankind [is] naturally divided into three sorts; one third of them are animated at the first appearance of danger, and will press forward to meet and examine it; another third are alarmed by it, but will neither advance nor retreat, till they know the nature of it, but stand to meet it. The remaining third will run or fly upon the first thought of it.

Appearance | Danger | Mankind | Nature | Thought | Will | Thought |

Latin Proverbs

Thrift is misery with a good press agent.

Good | Thrift |

Maltbie Babcock, fully Maltbie Davenport Babcock

Is not this steadfastness to mark, to make, the character of our lives? Is it not God’s will that we should press steadily on to our goal in obedience to Him, in channels of His choosing, whether in sunshine or shadow, in the cheer of spring or in the chill of winter, neither detained by pleasure nor deterred by pain?

Character | God | Obedience | Pain | Pleasure | Will |

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

If each of us can believe that he is working so that the Universe may be raised, in him and through him, to a higher level, then a new spring of energy will well forth in the heart of Earth's workers. The whole organism, overcoming a momentary hesitation, will draw its breath and press on with strength renewed.

Earth | Energy | Heart | Strength | Universe | Will |

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The pulpit and the press have many commonplaces denouncing the thirst for wealth, but if men should takes these moralists at their word, and leave off aiming to be rich, the moralists would rush to rekindle at all hazards this love or power in the people, lest civilization should be undone.

Civilization | Love | Men | People | Power | Wealth |

Richard Brooks

An honest, fearless press is the public’s first protection against gangsterism, local or international.

Public |

Walter Raleigh, fully Sir Walter Raleigh

If any friend desire thee to be his surety, give him a part of what thou hast to spare; if he press thee further, he is not thy friend at all, for friendship rather chooseth harm to find itself than offereth it. If thou be bound for a stranger, thou art a fool; if for a merchant, thou puttest thy estate to learn to swim.

Art | Desire | Friend | Harm | Friendship | Art | Learn |

George Marshall, fully George Catlett Marshall, Jr.

I need not tell you that the world situation is very serious. That must be apparent to all intelligent people. I think one difficulty is that the problem is one of such enormous complexity that the very mass of facts presented to the public by press and radio make it exceedingly difficult for the man in the street to reach a clear appraisement of the situation. Furthermore, the people of this country are distant from the troubled areas of the earth and it is hard for them to comprehend the plight and consequent reactions of the long-suffering peoples, and the effect of those reactions on their governments in connection with our efforts to promote peace in the world.

Difficulty | Earth | Man | Need | Peace | People | Public | World | Think |

Henry Adams, aka Henry Brooks Adams

The press is the hired agent of a monied system, and set up for no other purpose than to tell lies where their interests are involved. One can trust nobody and nothing.

Purpose | Purpose | Trust |

Irving Robert Kaufman

The judge is forced for the most part to reach his audience through the medium of the press whose reporting of judicial decisions is all too often inaccurate and superficial.

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

The press is seldom intelligent, save in the arts of the mob-master. It is never courageously honest. Held harshly to a rigid correctness of opinion by the plutocracy that controls it with less and less attempt to disguise, and menaced on all sides by censorships that dare not flout, it sinks rapidly into formalism and feebleness. Its yellow section is perhaps its most respectable section for there the only vestige of the old free journalism survives.

Correctness | Opinion | Old |

Howard Zinn

If those in charge of our society — politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television — can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves.

Control | Need | Society | Television | Will | Society |