Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes

To get the inestimable good that freedom of the press assures one must know how to submit to the inevitable evil it gives rise to.

In order to enjoy the inestimable benefits that the liberty of the press ensures, it is necessary to submit to the inevitable evils it creates

That this liberty [of the press] is often carried to excess; that it has sometimes degenerated into licentiousness, is seen and lamented, but the remedy has not yet been discovered. Perhaps it is an evil inseparable from the good with which it is allied; perhaps it is a shoot which cannot be stripped from the stalk without wounding vitally the plant from which it is torn. However desirable those measures might be which might correct without enslaving the press, they have never yet been devised in America.

We do not want to interfere with the freedom of press.

I have great respect for the news and great respect for freedom of the press and all of that.

America is the only country ever founded on the printed word.

We have more freedom of the press than any other country in a similar position. Even way back in the frightened '50s, Communists, for example, could publish their magazine. The KKK published their own books. But face it, the mass media is controlled by money.

Everybody has a wicked side, whether they are six or sixty, and yet so often storytelling draws a sharp line between good and evil.

Humanity is not perfect in any fashion; no more in the case of evil than in that of good. The criminal has his virtues, just as the honest man has his weaknesses.

The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable.

We are what we are. Nothing more, nothing less. There is good and evil among every kind of people. It's the evil among us who rule now.

Freedom of the press is the staff of life, for any vital democracy.

I don't want to impede free press, by the way. The last thing I would want to do is that.

I have absolutely no problem with the press criticising policies and the things that we do, the things that we say.

Absolute freedom of the press to discuss public questions is a foundation stone of American liberty.

Freedom of the press is to the machinery of the state what the safety valve is to the steam engine.

Narrow souls I cannot abide; There's almost no good or evil inside

All the wrong people have the power of suggestion and the freedom of the press is meaningless if nobody asks a question.

When I see big movies that are only about good versus evil, and the good guy wins, I only can think we're in a far more complicated world than that. I frankly think that this binary philosophy is actually a dangerous way to look at the world.

I’ve been an investigative reporter for a long time, and almost always, the government says that [‘you can’t publish that because of the national security risk’] when you write a story. And then they can never back it up. They say that about everything. And it’s like the boy who cried wolf. It’s getting old.

You may never understand How the stranger is inspired For he is not always evil, And he is not always wrong.

Once the government can demand of a publisher the names of the purchasers of his publication, the free press as we know it disappears. Then the spectre of a government agent will look over the shoulder of everyone who reads. ... Fear of criticism goes with every person into the bookstall. The subtle, imponderable pressures of the orthodox lay hold. Some will fear to read what is unpopular, what the powers-that-be dislike. ... fear will take the place of freedom in the libraries, book stores, and homes in the land.

Our liberty depends on freedom of the press.

The devil's aversion to holy water is a light matter compared with a despots dread of a newspaper that laughs.

I think people respond to villains because people in general are more villainous than heroic.