Below is a list of all quotes that rotate through the left side of this Web site. If you have a favorite quote about politics or journalism, please send it to me. Be sure to properly attribute the quote. Thanks.
A good newspaper should “‘bestir the people into an awareness of their own condition, provide inspiration for their thoughts and rouse them to pursue their true interests.” — Jack Knight
“Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage.”— Dwight D. Eisenhower
“Politics in America is the binding secular religion.” — Theodore H. White
“We mean by ‘politics’ the people’s business — the most important business there is.” — Adlai Stevenson
“Journalism’s first loyalty is to citizens.” — Elements of Journalism
“I happen to think that American politics is one of the noblest arts of mankind; and I cannot do anything else but write about it.” — Theodore H. White
“Ideas are great arrows, but there has to be a bow. And politics is the bow of idealism.” — Bill Moyers
“Although he’s regularly asked to do so, God does not take sides in American politics.” — George J. Mitchell
“Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.” — Thomas Jefferson
“The ballot box is the surest arbiter of disputes among free men.” — James Buchanan
“You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.” — Mario Cuomo
“I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to be flexible at all times.” — Everett Dirksen
“Winning may not be everything, but losing has little to recommend it.” — Dianne Feinstein
“The essence of journalism is a discipline of verification.” — Elements of Journalism
“More things in politics happen by accident or exhaustion than happen by conspiracy.” — Jeff Greenfield
“Everybody’s for democracy in principle. It’s only in practice that the thing gives rise to stiff objections.” — Meg Greenfield
“Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.” — Thomas Jefferson
“The First Lady is, and always has been, an unpaid public servant elected by her husband.” — Lady Bird Johnson
“We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.” — John F. Kennedy
“We should realize that the average family in America spends five minutes a week on politics.” — Celinda Lake
“Politics is an act of faith; you have to show some kind of confidence in the intellectual and moral capacity of the public.” — George McGovern
“Turn on to politics, or politics will turn on you.” — Ralph Nader
“The purpose of journalism is to provide people with the information they need to be free and self-governing.” — Elements of Journalism
“Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote.” — George Jean Nathan
“All politics is local.” — Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill
“Let me tell you, sisters, seeing dried egg on a plate in the morning is a lot dirtier than anything I’ve had to deal with in politics.” — Ann Richards
“Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference has never tried to fall asleep with a mosquito in the room.” — Christie Todd Whitman
“Our country, right or wrong. When right, to be kept right. When wrong, to be put right.” — Carl Schurz
“The citizen can bring our political and governmental institutions back to life, make them responsive and accountable, and keep them honest. No one else can.” — John Gardner
“People who don’t vote have no line of credit with people who are elected and thus pose no threat to those who act against our interests.” — Marian Wright Edelman
“Politics is not a picture on a wall or a television sitcom that you can decide you don’t much care for.” — Molly Ivins
“Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.” — Hugo Black
“It’s all storytelling, you know. That’s what journalism is all about.” — Tom Brokaw
“Journalism’s first obligation is to the truth.” — Elements of Journalism
“If the newspapers of a country are filled with good news, the jails of that country will be filled with good people.” — Daniel Patrick Moynihan
“A press that is hostage to its investors is no more a free press than one that is hostage to government.” — William F. Woo
“Politics is who gets what, when and how.” — Harold Laswell
“There can be no higher law in journalism than to tell the truth and shame the devil.” — Walter Lippmann
“Now, the great dreaded thing every reporter lives with is what you don’t know. The source you didn’t go to. The phone call you didn’t return. The back of the document you didn’t look at. The eternal pursuit.” — Bob Woodward
“When a reporter sits down at the typewriter, he’s nobody’s friend.” — Theodore H. White
“No famine has ever occurred in a democratic country with a free press and regular elections.” — Amartya Sen
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” — Margaret Mead
“If your mother says she loves you, check it out.” — Chicago City News Bureau
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” — The First Amendment
“That the freedom of the press is one of the greatest bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotick governments.” — George Mason
“Let the people know the facts, and the country will be safe.” — Abraham Lincoln
“The theory of a free press is that the truth will emerge from free reporting and free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account.” — Walter Lippmann
“A cantankerous press, an obstinate press, a ubiquitous press must be suffered by those in authority in order to preserve the even greater values of freedom of expression and the right of the people to know.” — Judge Murray Gurfein
“As a conservative who believes in limited government, I believe the only check on government in real time is the freedom of the press.” — U.S. Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.)
“Young political reporters are always told there are three ways to judge a politician. The first is to look at the record. The second is to look at the record. And third, look at the record.” — Molly Ivins & Lou Dubose
“No government ought to be without censors: and where the press is free, no one ever will.” — Thomas Jefferson
“I don’t know what a city does without a newspaper….Just when Claremont has pulled itself up from our bootstraps, who’s going to tell our story now?” — Mayor Deborah Cutts
on the closing of the Eagle Times in Claremont, N.H, on July 10, 2009
“Who will act as the watchdogs of police abuse and corruption if it takes weeks and months to uncover it? Or child welfare policy gone wrong? Or an overcrowded juvenile hall? Who will find kids living in squalor under a bridge near Neiman Marcus? How will anyone care if no one knows?” — Candy Cooper, in June-July 2009 American Journalism Review
“Reporting is reporting is reporting. It’s just seeing things, being curious and when something doesn’t hit you in the gut right, to ask a question about it.” — Anne V. Hull in the Alligator, U of Florida, Jan. 29, 2008
“When you look at history, the first thing dictators do is shut down the press.”– Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) 2017
“And it’s kind of hard to, you know, tell others to have an independent, free press when we’re not willing to have one ourselves.” — President George W. Bush, in Politico on Feb. 27, 2017
