For in the absence of debate unrestricted utterance leads to the degradation of opinion. By a kind of Greshams law the more rational is overcome by the less rational, and the opinions that will prevail will be those which are held most ardently by those with the most passionate will. For that reason the freedom to speak can never be maintained merely by objecting to interference with the liberty of the press, of printing, of broadcasting, of the screen. It can be maintained only by promoting debate.

The press does not tell us what to think, it tells us what to think about.

A man cannot sleep in his cradle: whatever is useful must in the nature of life become useless.

Genius sees the dynamic purpose first, find reasons afterward.

We are all captives of the picture in our head - our belief that the world we have experienced is the world that really exists.

Many a time I have wanted to stop talking and find out what I really believed.

The news of the days it reaches the newspaper office is an incredible medley of fact, propaganda, rumor, suspicion, clues, hopes, and fears, and the task of selecting and ordering that news is one of the truly sacred and priestly offices in a democracy. For the newspaper is in all literalness the bible of democracy, the book out of which a people determines its conduct.