ours are the only farmers who can read Homer

You know well that government always kept a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, invented and put into the papers whatever might serve the [government] ministers. This suffices with the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper.

To take a single step beyond the text would be to take possession of a boundless field of power.

Governments constantly choose between telling lies and fighting wars, with the end result always being the same. One will always lead to the other.

Nothing can now be believed that is seen in a newspaper.

I have not observed mens honesty to increase with their riches.

A little revolution is a good thing.