Press Quotes

If I were to give liberty to the press, my power could not last three days.

If in other lands the press and books and literature of all kinds are censored, we must redouble our efforts here to keep them free.

This being a free country with freedom of expression - especially with freedom of the press - there will be a lot of mean blows struck between now and Election Day.

Freedom of the press is essential to the preservation of a democracy; but there is a difference between freedom and license. Editorialists who tell downright lies in order to advance their own agendas do more to discredit the press than all the censors in the world.

A critical, independent and investigative press is the lifeblood of any democracy. The press must be free from state interference. It must have the economic strength to stand up to the blandishments of government officials. It must have sufficient independence from vested interests to be bold and inquiring without fear or favour. It must enjoy the protection of the constitution, so that it can protect our rights as citizens.

Every revolutionary movement has its peaks of united activity and its valleys of debate and internal confusion. This debate might well have been little more than a healthy internal difference of opinion, but the press loves the sensational and it could not allow the issue to remain within the private domain of the movement. In every drama there has to be an antagonist and a protagonist, and if the antagonist is not there the press will find and build one.

Man is a means to that end. Man has no inalienable rights. His only rights are derived from, and conferred by, the state. Under such a system, the fountain of freedom runs dry. Restricted are man's liberties of press and assembly, his freedom to vote, and his freedom to listen and to read. Art, religion, education, music, and science come under the gripping yoke of government control. Man must be a dutiful servant to the omnipotent state.

There is something strangely inconsistent about a nation and a press that would praise you when you say, "Be nonviolent toward Jim Clark," but will curse and damn you when you say, "Be nonviolent toward little brown Vietnamese children." There is something wrong with that press.

A free Press is the unsleeping guardian of every other right that freemen prize; it is the most dangerous foe of tyranny.

These gentlemen of the press were listening carefully to every word you said-all eagerly anxious for a tiny morsel of cheese which they could publish. And you go and give them a whole ruddy Stilton!

We were disliked by the press in the early days because they couldn't put their finger on us, and that was the case with Zeppelin as well.

I was never too keen on the British music press. They've called us a supermarket hype, and they used to suggest that we didn't write our own songs.

I can't deal with the press; I hate all those Beatles questions.

Most of the press were vultures descending on the scene for curious America aplomb. Cameras inside the coffin interviewing worms.

The press is just not your friend when it comes to a marriage. That's why we didn't sell the pictures of our wedding, and we got offered millions of dollars for them, millions.

I just like the company of beautiful women. I have a weakness in that department. And I suppose because I am fairly well off and a famous musician, I'm up for grabs. And that makes me an eligible bachelor in the press.

I think my image gets distorted in the public's mind. They don't get a clear or full picture of what I'm like, despite the press coverage I mentioned early. Mistruths are printed as fact, in some cases, and frequently only half of a story will be told. The part that doesn't get printed is often the part that would make the printed part less sensational by shedding light on the facts.

America has changed [...] The gigantic scale of industrial institutions, of press, television, and commercial advertising has completely divorced me from the American way of life. I want the other side of the coin, a simpler personal sense of living.

There are laws to protect the freedom of the press's speech, but none that are worth anything to protect the people from the press.

It is the press, above all, which wages a positively fanatical and slanderous struggle, tearing down everything which can be regarded as a support of national independence, cultural elevation, and the economic independence of the nation.