"As for modern Journalism, its not my business to defend it. It justifies its own existence by the great Darwinian principle of the survival of the vulgarest."

"You cannot hope to bribe or twist, thank God! the British journalist. But, seeing what the man will do unbribed, there's no occasion to."

"If somebody came from Mars to America and went around for months or years, and then you asked them who has the best jobs, they would say the journalists, because the journalists get to make momentary entries into people's lives when they are interesting, and get out when they cease to be interesting."

"I hate journalists. There is nothing in them but tittering jeering emptiness... The shallowest people on the ridge of the earth."

"A Statesman is an easy man, He tells his lies by rote; A Journalist makes up his lies, And takes you by the throat."

"Journalism today is for the most part gentlemanly and decorous, in so far as the relations among newspapers in the big cities are concerned. But in that day the New York dailies openly assailed one another's actions and motives with all the contempt that lily-white citizens might express toward horse-thieves and road agents. Dana of the Sun and Pulitzer of the World fought a long feud, widely talked about, and the World and Herald frequently snarled at each other."

"I would * * * earnestly advise them for their good to order this paper to be punctually served up, and to be looked upon as a part of the tea equipage."

"They consume a considerable quantity of our paper manufacture, employ our artisans in printing, and find business for great numbers of indigent persons."

"Advertisements are of great use to the vulgar. First of all, as they are instruments of ambition. A man that is by no means big enough for the Gazette, may easily creep into the advertisements; by which means we often see an apothecary in the same paper of news with a plenipotentiary, or a running footman with an ambassador."

"The great art in writing advertisements is the finding out a proper method to catch the reader's eye; without which a good thing may pass over unobserved, or be lost among commissions of bankrupt."

"Ask how to live? Write, write, write, anything; The world's a fine believing world, write news."

"[The opposition Press] which is in the hands of malecontents who have failed in their career."

"Hear, land o' cakes, and brither Scots, Frae Maidenkirk to Johnny Groat's; If there's a hole in a' your coats, * I rede you tent it: A chiel's amang you taking notes, * And, faith, he'll prent it."

"The editor sat in his sanctum, his countenance furrowed with care, His mind at the bottom of business, his feet at the top of a chair, His chair-arm an elbow supporting, his right hand upholding his head, His eyes on his dusty old table, with different documents spread."

"Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporter's gallery yonder, there sat a fourth estate more important far than they all."

"A parliament speaking through reporters to Buncombe and the Twenty-seven millions, mostly fools."

"Get your facts first, and then you can distort 'em as much as you please."

"Only a newspaper! Quick read, quick lost, Who sums the treasure that it carries hence? Torn, trampled under feet, who counts thy cost, Star-eyed intelligence?"

"To serve thy generation, this thy fate: "Written in water," swiftly fades thy name; But he who loves his kind does, first and late, A work too great for fame."

"I believe it has been said that one copy of the Times contains more useful information than the whole of the historical works of Thucydides."

"Did Charity prevail, the press would prove A vehicle of virtue, truth, and love."

"How shall I speak thee, or thy power address, Thou God of our idolatry, the Press. * * * * * Like Eden's dead probationary tree, Knowledge of good and evil is from thee."

"He comes, the herald of a noisy world, With spatter'd boots, strapp'd waist, and frozen locks; News from all nations lumbering at his back."

"When found, make a note of."

"None of our political writers … take notice of any more than three estates, namely, Kings, Lords and Commons … passing by in silence that very large and powerful body which form the fourth estate in the community … the Mob."

"Caused by a dearth of scandal should the vapors Distress our fair ones—let them read the papers."

"The liberty of the press is the palladium of all the civil, political, and religious rights of an Englishman."

"The highest reach of a news-writer is an empty Reasoning on Policy, and vain Conjectures on the public Management."

"The News-writer lies down at Night in great Tranquillity, upon a piece of News which corrupts before Morning, and which he is obliged to throw away as soon as he awakes."

"Tout faiseur de journaux doit tribut au Malin."

"Behold the whole huge earth sent to me hebdomadally in a brown paper wrapper."

"I fear three newspapers more than a hundred thousand bayonets."

"The penny-papers of New York do more to govern this country than the White House at Washington."

"We live under a government of men and morning newspapers."

"The press is like the air, a chartered libertine."

"The mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease."

"Cela est escrit. Il est vray."

"Can it be maintained that a person of any education can learn anything worth knowing from a penny paper? It may be said that people may learn what is said in Parliament. Well, will that contribute to their education?"

"The newspapers! Sir, they are the most villanous—licentious—abominable—infernal—not that I ever read them—no—I make it a rule never to look into a newspaper."

"Trade hardly deems the busy day begun Till his keen eye along the sheet has run; The blooming daughter throws her needle by, And reads her schoolmate's marriage with a sigh; While the grave mother puts her glasses on, And gives a tear to some old crony gone. The preacher, too, his Sunday theme lays down To know what last new folly fills the town; Lively or sad, life's meanest, mightiest things, The fate of fighting cocks, or fighting kings."

"Here shall the Press the People's right maintain, Unawed by influence and unbribed by gain; Here Patriot Truth her glorious precepts draw, Pledged to Religion, Liberty, and Law."

"The thorn in the cushion of the editorial chair."

"Knoll's Law of Media Accuracy: Everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely true — except for the rare story of which you happen to have firsthand knowledge."

"In America the president reigns for four years, and journalism governs forever and ever."

"When a dog bites a man, that is not news, because it happens so often. But if a man bites a dog, that is news."

"I do not care for the big 'ideas' of novelists. Novels are wonderful, of course, but I prefer newspapers."

"Journalism is the first rough draft of history."

"Your staff will seldom come to your office to tell you of impending bad news. Only when the bough breaks do you learn the awful truth. To stay ahead, it's best to make walking the grounds a part of every day. This allows you to meet those lower on the lab's totem pole and acknowledge their existence with a smile or word of praise. Equally important is to pop in on labs in the evenings or on weekends. Those populated only during weekday daylight hours are likely going nowhere, while scientists at their benches on Saturday afternoons are seldom there killing time."

"People want the truth. Even if they can't handle it, they want it. They may want to look at it as a story or music so they can distance themselves from it, but they want it. That's why people watch the news every night. There's nothing good on the news. They'll throw in a little "good news" near the end, like something about a cat being saved from a tree. But before you hear about that cat, you're going to learn that someone got shot and killed, an earthquake killed a couple of hundred people, and that whatever war is going on at the time is still going on and going hard. And you still watch. Why? Because you want the truth. You'll complain, but you'll watch. Every night. The news always gets good ratings."