Thich Nhat Hanh Quotes

I suppose I'm qualified to some degree to speak about the nature of contemporary media, as that's where I currently work. People, I think have been beyond trained - coded to not anticipate change; to think that change is implausible. Almost weaned off. It had to be a revolution bred out of us.

I think that people get outraged over things. I think what we really need is a kind of borderline extinction level event to get people back to caring about what really matters.

The media can be an instrument of change. It can maintain the status quo and reflect the views of the society or it can, hopefully, awaken people and change minds. I think it depends on who’s piloting the plane.

The people themselves must think, because the people alone can act.

I think my role is as a writer, especially, and then also as a speaker, an organizer, and an entre- preneur of social change. My role isn't to make choices for people-each individual or group needs to do that on their own. But as a writer and a speaker, you can describe possibilities that perhaps haven't been visible before, and aren't in other public dialogues or in the rest of the media. So I suppose I think of myself mainly as an organizer and as someone who describes possibilities.

The media is something that affects a lot of people, so you're constantly trying to strike a balance between respecting something and not caring about it.

All of us who professionally use the mass media are the shapers of society. We can vulgarise that society. We can brutalise it. Or we can help lift it onto a higher level.

The great irony is that people who live in remote areas, who are illiterate and don't own TVs, are in some ways more free because they are beyond the reach of indoctrination by the modern mass media.

We live in an age of rapid mass media, television, Internet. They determine our tempo, not books.

My job is to lay it out clearly, not to give my policy prescriptions.Very little journalism is world changing. But if change is to happen, it will be because people with power have a better sense of what’s happening to people who have none.

Of course the media loves stuff like that so they find this one Rockette. It's like you can have 10,000 people at a rally for [Donald] Trump and 200 people outside, and the 200 people outside make the news.

I belive power can be used for good, I don't think every form of power is absolute evil. I wish I would have stepped in, and I really regret it. And that's why I really encourage young people who are organizing to speak up.

Every revolution begins as consciousness because some group of people has to imagine change. You have to have the idea of change or at least have a hope before you can proceed. And that stage goes very quickly because a contagion of consciousness is within your control. But when you get to the stage of institutional change, it becomes a much slower process.

I think what we journalists too often do is we assume the status quo is unchangeable. I think all sorts of issues of political reform, electoral reform need more discussion than they get.

Newspapers are the schoolmasters of the common people.

If my goal is to change Colombia, which it is because I really think Columbia has to change in many, many ways - I think it has to be a very profound, nearly spiritual maturing process in the Colombian society because I think you have to first be aware of what's happening and it's not easy because many people don't want to see what's happening.

I think it's pretty common for people to get excited when they meet somebody that they know from the media.

This is a very proud moment for journalism. I think The New York Times and The Washington Post are genuine champions in this moment. The role that they are playing in democracy is the role that you hear about journalism playing in civics classes. Other people are doing great work, but the Times and the Post have really been leaders. The public is watching, and they are hungry. They know something is wrong, there's a lot of anxiety out there. There's a real sense that the mission of journalism is very clear.

There are certain people in our popular culture that just capture people's imaginations. And in death, they become even larger. Now, I have to admit that it's also fed by a 24/7 media that is insatiable.

I don't think Mike Tyson's a bad guy. I think the people, the media, makes him out to be a bad guy.

If people would just wake up to what's real, there would be no misery in the world. I guess chanting's a pretty good place to start.

When you do a computerized poll, where people are comfortable, Donald Trump vote goes up very dramatically. And I think people don't realize the effort by the elite media, the totally dishonest effort to submerge him, has had an effect.

We need to take on the new media, and in terms of power and public pedagogy, we need to organize a whole range of people outside of the academy.

I think if people raise their consciousness and find a purpose, everybody will be helped.

I think that all money can do is to get your message out. Unfortunately, we live in a world where you have to use mass media to communicate with the people, and it just costs an awful lot of money.