Printing Presses Quotes

The printing of books is forbidden.

In the North, neither greenbacks, taxes, nor war bonds were enough to finance the war. So a national banking system was created to convert government bonds into fiat money, and the people lost over half of their monetary assets to the hidden tax of inflation. In the South, printing presses accomplished the same effect, and the monetary loss was total.

Would the Protestant Reformation have happened without the printing press? Would the American Revolution have happened without pamphlets? Probably not. But neither printing presses nor pamphlets were the heroes of reform and revolution.

Doing research for 'Penumbra,' I read quite a bit about the early history of printing, and the more I did, the more it sounded like... the Internet today. There was crazy competition and upheaval; there were constant arguments about new techniques, new materials, new machines; and, of course, there were fortunes to be made.

I knew I was going to be a journalist when I was eight years old and I saw the printing presses rolling at the Sydney newspaper where my dad worked as a proofreader.

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

No presses should be set up or used except those in London and one in the University at Cambridge and one at the University in Oxford. That every printer should within 10 days render an inventory of his implements; upon pain to the delinquent of having the same utterly demolished, and of being imprisoned twelve months … no press should be set up in any obscure place; upon pain to the offender of imprisonment for one year, and also of being disabled forever from using his trade ..:. No new presses should be set up, and that none set up within the six months last past should be used, until their excessive number should have been so reduced as might seem good to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London ; upon pain to the offender of the destruction of his implements, and of imprisonment for a year : That no one should print any book against the meaning of any law of the realm or injunction of her Majesty, nor should any one print any book at all unless the same be first read by the- Archbishop of Canterbury or by, the Bishop of London ; under pain to the printer in either case of being disabled from any practice of printing and of being imprisoned six months: That sellers or binders of any such books should be imprisoned three months: And that the wardens of the Company of Stationers might search for all such books wherever they should have reasonable cause of suspicion, and destroy all presses and other instruments set up or used contrary to the meaning of this decree.

The only method of advertising known to the ancients was the word of mouth. The merchant who had wares to offer brought them to the gate of a city and there cried aloud, making the worth of his goods known to those who were entering the city, and who might be induced to turn aside and purchase them…. As soon as printed symbols were invented the advertising man made use of them to give publicity to his merchandise. We find advertisements engraved on walls and tombs, written on parchment and papyrus, and printed by the first printing presses. …. Postells, painted signs, street-car placards, booklets, calendars, almanacs, handbills, magazine and newspaper advertising have now become forms of advertising so well established that we look upon them as a necessity, and are surprised to learn that most of them are modern innovations…. The first advertisement printed in English appeared in the Imperial Intelligencer in March, 1648. Advertising in magazines was not begun until comparatively recent times. For instance, the first advertisement appeared in Harper's Magazine in 1864.

Break up the printing presses and you break up rebellion.

Before the widespread rise of the Internet and easy publishing tools, influence was largely in the hands of those who could reach the widest audience, the people with printing presses or access to a wide audience on television or radio, all one-way mediums that concentrated power in the hands of the few.