12 I. F. Stone Quotes

I. F. Stone quotes

1. There must be renewed recognition that societies are kept stable and healthy by reform, not by thought police; this means there must be free play for so-called subversive ideas - every idea subverts the old to make way for the new. To shut off subversion is to shut off peaceful progress and to invite revolution and war.

2. Every time we are confronted with a new revolution we take to the opium pipes of our own propaganda.

3. I sought in political reporting what Galsworthy in another context had called 'the significant trifle'- the bit of dialogue, the overlooked fact, the buried observation which illuminated the realities of the situation.

4. The fault I find with most American newspapers is not the absence of dissent. it is the absence of news. With a dozen or so honorable exceptions, most American newspapers carry very little news. Their main concern is advertising.

5. A certain moral imbecility marks all ethnocentric movements.

6. All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out.

7. Lifelong dissent has more than acclimated me cheerfully to defeat. It has made me suspicious of victory. I feel uneasy at the very idea of a Movement. I see every insight degenerating into a dogma, and fresh thoughts freezing into lifeless party line.

8. I thought I might teach philosophy but the atmosphere of a college faculty repelled me; the few islands of greatness seemed to be washed by seas of pettiness and mediocrity.

9. Every government is run by liars and nothing they say should be believed.

10. If you think you know what the answer is, you haven't asked a big enough question.

11. The only thing God didn't do to Job was give him a computer.

12. You may just think I am a red Jew son-of-a-bitch, but I'm keeping Thomas Jefferson alive.