David Grann Quotes

Dispassionate objectivity is itself a passion, for the real and for the truth.

The stronger the facts are there, you should achieve justice. You don't need to make sensationalized statements.

A lot of journalism wants to have what they call objectivity without them having a commitment to pursuing the truth, but that doesn't work. Objectivity requires belief in and a commitment toward pursuing the truth - having an object outside of our personal point of view.

You must accept the truth from whatever source it comes.

If we bring not the good courage of minds covetous of truth, and truth only, prepared to hear all things, and decide upon all things, according to evidence, we should do more wisely to sit down contented in ignorance, than to bestir ourselves only to reap disappointment.

Everyone wishes to have truth on his side, but not everyone wishes to be on the side of truth.

One of the things I believe strongly in is developing institutions - legal, press, bureaucracies, academies - that are rooted in the pursuit of impartial truth. That aren't simply just bent to partisan ends or are corrupted for the powerful or for other ulterior motives.

The only passion that guides me is for the truth... I look at everything from this point of view.

We must correct what we find objectively wrong.

Objectivity is the purpose of documentary filmmakers.

You approach the cases, not thinking that you have some obligation to win but that you actually have to evaluate the facts and make sure that you're doing the right thing.

Morally, a philosopher who uses his professional competence for anything except a disinterested search for truth is guilty of a kind of treachery.

I keep a conscience uncorrupted by religion, a judgment undimmed by politics and patriotism, a heart untainted by friendships and sentiments unsoured by animosities.

Do you love truth for truth's sake, and will you endeavor impartially to find and receive it yourself, and communicate it to others?

We may fondly imagine that we are impartial seekers after truth, but with a few exceptions, to which I know that I do not belong, we are influenced-and sometimes strongly-by our personal bias; and we give our best thoughts to those ideas which we have to defend.

Science is a willingness to accept facts even when they are opposed to wishes.

I think that whoever is the attorney general, you don't want them to be as a yes person for any particular constituency.

I confess . . . that I am not myself very much concerned with the question of influence, or with those publicists who have impressed their names upon the public by catching the morning tide and rowing very vast in the direction in which the current was flowing; but rather that there should always be a few writers preoccupied in penetrating to the core of the matter, in trying to arrive at the truth and to set it forth, without too much hope, without ambition to alter the immediate course of affairs, and without being downcast or defeated when nothing appears to ensue.

Imagine a world in which we are all enlightened by objective truths rather than offended by them.

Investigate what is, and not what pleases.

You must be asking which door is the true one; not which pleases you best

Performance of one's duties should be independent of public opinion.

Justice lacking passion fails, betrays.

I think the reality is important anyway.

Maybe the social value of truth is as a destination - so long as we do not assume we have arrived there.