Hillary Clinton Quotes

The Internet has done a wonderful thing for us. But democracy doesn't work unless people are well informed, and I don't know that we are. People just don't have the time.

I think more and more people are starting to understand that you can't believe half of everything you read or what you see. There are so many information outlets that are available that it's almost too much, there is so much misinformation out there.

In a democracy you cannot stop public access to that art that will most misinform the people. You cannot stop people from being misinformed. But what you can do is to educate the people to the point that they will throw the rascals out.

In our country we must trust the people to hear and see both the good and the bad and to choose the good.

An essential part of any successful action on the part of the United States is an understanding on the part of the people of America of the character of the problem and the remedies to be applied. ... It is virtually impossible at this distance merely by reading, or listening, or even seeing photographs or motion pictures, to grasp at all the real significance of the situation. And yet the whole world of the future hangs on a proper judgment.

I feel quite sure that what the American people lack is knowledge.

If we are not serious about facts and what's true and what's not. And particularly in an age of social media where so many people are getting their information in sound bites and snippets off their phones, if we can't discriminate between serious arguments and propaganda, then we have problems.

To become informed and hold government accountable, the general public needs to obtain news that is comprehensive yet interesting and understandable, that conveys facts and outcomes, not cosmetic images and airy promises. But that is not what the public demands.

The purpose of a good education is to show you that there are three sides to a two-sided story.

Faith is the lack of evidence, and it shouldn't be that difficult to convince people that the right reason to believe something is that there is evidence for it. People do not innately go for this view, but nevertheless it is not that difficult to teach.

The people who are the worst at news, who kind of engage in what I call the World Wrestling of news, have kind of set the bar for where news is.

Speed as a drug disorganizes the personality; speed as the goal of information dissemination commits a subtler crime. People are mainlining our words. We rarely read of the rational alternatives, only of the commands that all must change or else. This is a prescription for public panic.

Democracy doesn't work unless people are well informed, and I don't know that we are. People just don't have the time. Most people's daily lives are just about surviving. Most people don't have time to really study [crucial] issues.

Be skeptical, but not as a social position, not claiming to be so intelligent that you cannot believe what other people say. It's not about being right and making everybody else wrong. No, you are skeptical because you know without a doubt that everybody lives in their own story, and in their story they have their own truth. But it's only truth in their mind, just as your truth is only truth in your mind, and nobody else's.

What we seek to advance, what we seek to develop in all of our colleges and universities, are educated men and women who can bear the burdens of responsible citizenship, who can make judgments about life as it is, and as it must be, and encourage the people to make those decisions which can bring not only prosperity and security, but happiness to the people of the United Sates and those who depend upon it.

Our whole educational and cultural system is not designed to provide those intellectual tools, so people are often lost and the internet often becomes kind of a cult generator.

As a citizen, you have a duty to ask what is true and what is false.

In the Internet age, with the screaming on the radio, etc., it is hard to know what to believe and who is informed and who is not.

You have to tease enough misinformation and lack of information to hopefully make people want more.

Confidence comes from seeing so many sides, angles, views, and tangents. Because when you do select an approach or direction, you are doing so with better/ more complete information.

The 'well-informed citizenry is in danger of becoming the 'well-amused audience'.

Hitler and Joseph Goebbels understood that if you say something loud and long enough many people will believe it. A good journalist's first priority should be to separate propaganda from fact - but sometimes its very hard to do that.

The public read newspapers, see television, they watch, they don't know if it's true or false because they're not involved.

This is what I would ask of the American people, and that is, and the media does not do this terribly often - put things in contact.

I would advise people occasionally to take the media on, but only when you know it's a manufactured product and not a news interview.