I heard that after you throw away a 'New York Times,' it takes over a hundred years for the lies to biodegrade.
The newspaperman has become a walking plague. He spreads the contagion of lies and calumnies.
While I worry about an erosion of truth, I don’t think people want to live in a world where you can only say things that tech companies decide are 100 percent true.
The easiest rationalization for the refusal to seek the truth is the denial that truth exists.
It used to be, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. But that's not the case anymore. Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything.
Every word wants to be taken literally, else it decays into a lie. But one mustn't take any word literally, else the world becomes a madhouse.
In a world that daily disconnects further from truth, more and more people accept the virtual in place of the real, and all things virtual are also malleable.
We live in an age where truth really doesn't matter anymore.
The whole Twitter phenomenon is really indicative of what's happening in this country. And I say this in condemnation of myself as much as anyone else - we are growing into a nation that has no time, desire or capacity for truth. All we can handle is 140 characters of knowledge.
Every emancipation has in it the seeds of a new slavery, and every truth easily becomes a lie.
The most critical threat to our freedom is a failure to appreciate the power of truth.
Today, despite free speech and the mass media, the prevailing social vision is dangerously close to sealing itself off from any discordant feedback from reality.
Where there is a lull in truth an institution springs up.
For me, the most serious problem is how America became so vulnerable to the assertion of blatant falsehoods that drive policy and are not corrected by the so-called immune system of democracy, a free press and a free democratic discourse.
It may be fine for an artist to be indifferent to the reaction of the viewer to a work of art. A vigorous debate on issues is also beneficial. But the dark vision of a world without truth cannot be our future.
No longer are there immutable standards by which to judge ourselves. Image has overtaken reality.
The language doesn't mean anything anymore, folks. Truth doesn't mean anything anymore.
History is idle gossip about a happening whose truth is lost the instant it has taken place.
I soon discovered, after I became chairman of the NEH, that, for a number of academics, the truth was not merely irrelevant - it no longer existed.
What is truth today may be a damn lie next week.
If history is any indication, all truths will eventually turn out to be false.
Right and wrong implies some standard... some truth... something non-negotiable. And this is a negotiable world. Everything is up for debate today. There's your truth and her truth and my truth. And what's true for me today might not be true for me tomorrow. Before we know it, we are so far down the road that where we are in no way resembles where we were not so long ago.
What is history after all? History is facts which become lies in the end; legends are lies which become history in the end.
I like to point out that people very often confuse the idea that truth is subjective with the fact that truth is perishable.
When regard for truth has been broken down or even slightly weakened, all things will remain doubtful.
