JOURNALISM QOUTES
Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press
Presidential quotes
Thomas Jefferson, 1786
Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.
James Madison, 1798
The Sedition Act was unconstitutional. ... The First Amendment was intended to supersede the
common-law on speech and press. Freedom guaranteed by the amendment was absolute as far
as the federal government was concerned because it could not be abridged by any United States
Authority.
Ulysses S. Grant, 1875
Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported
entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and the state forever separate.
Theodore Roosevelt, 1918
Free speech, exercised both individually and through a free press, is a necessity in any country
where people are themselves free.
Calvin Coolidge, 1925
It is the ferment of ideas, the clash of disagreeing judgments, the privilege of the individual to
develop his own thought and shape his own character which makes progress possible.
Herbert Hoover, 1929
Absolute freedom of the press to discuss public questions is a foundation stone of American
liberty.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1938
If the fires of freedom and civil liberties burn low in other lands, they must be made brighter in
our own. If in other lands the press and books and literature of all kinds are censored, we must
redouble our efforts here to keep them free. If in other lands the eternal truths of the past are
threatened by intolerance, we must provide a safe place for their perpetuation.
Harry S Truman, 1950
There is no more fundamental axiom of American freedom than the familiar statement: In a free
country we punish men for crimes they commit but never for the opinions they have.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953
Don't join the burners. Don't be afraid to go to your library and read every book, as long as any
document does not offend your own ideas of decency; that should be your only censorship.
John F. Kennedy, 1962
We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien
philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth
and falsehood in an open market is afraid of its people.
Lyndon B. Johnson, 1966
Opinion and protest are the life breath of democracy - even when it blows heavy.
Richard Nixon, 1973
It was the system that brought to light the facts [about Watergate] and that will bring those
guilty to justice - a system that in this case included a determined grand jury, a courageous
judge and a vigorous free press.
Jimmy Carter, 1981
America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense, human rights invented America.
Ronald Reagan, 1985
There can be no greater good than the quest for peace, and no finer purpose than the
preservation of freedom.
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes quotes
But the character of every act depends upon the circumstance in which it is done. The most
stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre
and causing a panic. It does not even protect a man from an injunction against uttering words
that may have all the effect of force. The question in every case is whether the words used are
used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that
they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. It is a question
of proximity and degree.
_ opinion in Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919)
But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe
even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good
desired is better reached by free trade in ideas - the best test of truth is the power of the thought
to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon
which their wishes safely can be carried out. That at any rate is the theory of our Constitution. It
is an experiment, as all life is an experiment. Every year if not every day we have to wager our
salvation upon some prophecy based upon imperfect knowledge. While the experiment is part
of our system I think that we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the
expression of opinions that we loathe and believe to be fraught with death, unless they so
imminently threaten immediate interference with the lawful and pressing purposes of the law
that an immediate check is required to save the country. I wholly disagree with the argument of
the Government that the First Amendment left the common law as to seditious libel in force.
History seems to me against the notion. I had conceived that the United States through many
years had shown its repentance for the Sedition Act of 1798, by repaying fines that it imposed.
Only the emergency that makes it immediately dangerous to leave the correction of evil
counsels to time warrants making any exception to the sweeping command, "Congress shall
make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech."
_ dissent in Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616 (1919)
Every idea is an incitement. It offers itself to belief and if believed is acted upon unless some
other belief outweighs it or some failure of energy stifles the movement at its birth. The only
difference between the expression of an opinion and an incitement in the narrowest sense is the
speaker's enthusiasm for the result; eloquence may set fire to reason. But whatever may be
thought of the redundant discourse before us it had no chance of starting a present
conflagration. If in the long run the beliefs expressed in proletarian dictatorship are destined to
be accepted by the dominant forces of the community, the only meaning of free speech is that
they should be given their chance and have their way.
_ dissent in Gitlow v. State of New York, 268 U.S. 652 (1925)
Some of her answers might excite popular prejudice, but if there is any principle of the
Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free
[279 U.S. 644, 655] thought-not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the
thought that we hate.
_ dissent in United States v. Schwimmer, 279 U.S. 644 (1929)
Justice Louis D. Brandeis quotes
Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the state was to make men free
to develop their faculties, and that in its government the deliberative forces should prevail over
the arbitrary. They valued liberty both as an end and as a means. They believed the secret of
happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty. They believed the freedom to think as you will
and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political
truth; that without free speech and assembly discussion would be futile; that with them,
discussion affords ordinarily adequate protection against dissemination of noxious doctrine;
that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty;
and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government. They recognized
the risks to which all human institutions are subject. But they knew that order cannot be
secured merely through fear of punishment for its infraction; that it is hazardous to discourage
thought, hope and imagination; that fear breeds repression; that repression breeds hate; that
hate menaces stable government; that the path of safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely
supposed grievances and proposed remedies; and that the fitting remedy for evil counsels is
good ones. Believing in the power of reason as applied through public discussion, they
eschewed silence coerced by law-the argument of force in its worst form. Recognizing the
occasional tyrannies of governing majorities, they amended the Constitution so that free speech
and assembly should be guaranteed.
Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared
witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of
irrational fears. To justify suppression of free speech there must be reasonable ground to fear
that serious evil will result if free speech is practiced. There must be reasonable ground to
believe that the danger apprehended is imminent. There must be reasonable ground to believe
that the evil to be prevented is a serious one.
_ concurrance in Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927)
Justice Abe Fortas quotes
In our system, state-operated schools may not be enclaves of totalitarianism. School officials do
not possess absolute authority over their students. Students in school as well as out of school
are "persons" under our Constitution. They are possessed of fundamental rights which the State
must respect, just as they themselves must respect their obligations to the State. In our system,
students may not be regarded as closed-circuit recipents of only that which the State chooses to
communicate. They may not be confined to the expression of those sentiments that are officially
approved. In the absence of a specific showing of constitutionally valid reasons to regulate their
speech, students are entitled to freedom of expression of their views.
_ majority opinion in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S.
503 (1969)
Justice John Paul Stevens
But community standards also serve as a shield to protect audience members, by allowing
people to self-sort based on their preferences. Those who abhor and those who tolerate sexually
explicit speech can seek out like-minded people and settle in communities that share their views
on what is acceptable for themselves and their children. This sorting mechanism, however, does
not exist in cyberspace; the audience cannot self-segregate. As a result, in the context of the
Internet this shield also becomes a sword, because the community that wishes to live without
certain material not only rids itself, but the entire Internet of the offending speech.
_dissent in Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union, 00-1293 (2002)
Above selection by Charles Levendosky and from a compilation by Louis E. Ingelhart
Religious Liberty
There is not a shadow of right in the general government to intermeddle with religion. Its least
interference with it, would be a most flagrant usurpation. __ James Madison, an excerpt from
his Journal, June 12, 1788
The number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, & the devotion of the people have
been manifestly increased by the total separation of the Church from the State. __ James
Madision, from a letter to Robert Walsh, March 2, 1819
We are teaching the world the great truth the Govts. do better without Kings & Nobles than
with them. The merit will be doubled by the other lesson that Religion flourishes in greater
purity, without than with the aid of Govt. __ James Madison, from a letter to Edward
Livingston, July 10, 1822
[O]ur rulers can have authority over such natural rights, only as we have submitted to them.
The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. __ Thomas Jefferson, from 3
Writings of Thomas Jefferson 263
[T]hat to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which
he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical ... __ Thomas Jefferson, from Preamble to the Virginia
Statute for Establishing Religious Freedom (1786)
If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no offiical, high or petty, can
prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or
force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. __ Justice Robert Jackson, in the
opinion for the court, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943)
The "establishment of religion" clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a
state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one
religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another., Neither can force nor influence a
person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or
disbelief in any religion. No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious
beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or nonattendance. No tax in any amount, large or
small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be
called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion. Neither a state nor the
Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious
organizations or groups or vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment
of religion by law was intended to erect "a wall of separation between church and state." __
Justice Hugo Black, in the opinion for the court, Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947)
The petitioners contend among other things that the [New York] state laws requiring or
permitting use of the Regents' prayer must be struck down as a violation of the Establishment
Clause because that prayer was composed by government officials as part of a governmental
program to further religious beliefs For this reason, petitioners argue, the State's use of the
Regents' prayer in its public school system breaches the constitutional wall of separation
between Church and State. We agree with that contention since we think that the constitutional
prohibition against laws respecting an establishment of religion must at least mean that in this
country it is no part of the business of government to compose official prayers for any group of
the American people to recite as a part of a religious program carried on by government.
It is a matter of history that this very practice of establishing governmentally composed prayers
for religious services was one of the reasons which caused many of our early colonists to leave
England and seek religious freedom in America. __ Justice Hugo Black, in the opinion for the
court, Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962)
I am convinced that no liberty is more essential to the continued vitality of the free society
which our Constitution guarantees than is the religious liberty protected by the Free Exercise
Clause explicit in the First Amendment and imbedded in the Fourteenth. __ Justice Potter
Stewart, in concurrance, Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398 (1963)
On prohibiting prayer at a public school graduation: A state created orthodoxy puts at grave
risk that freedom of belief and consience which are the sole assurance that religious faith is real,
not imposed. __ Justice Anthony Kennedy, in the opinion for the court, Lee v. Weisman, 112 S.
Ct. 2649 (1992)
Nearly half a century of review and refinement of Establishment Clause jurisprudence has
distilled one clear understanding: Government may neither promote nor affiliate itself with any
religious doctrine or organization, nor may it obtrude itself in the internal affairs of any
religious institution. __Justice Harry Blackmun, concurring opinion, Lee v. Weisman, 112 S. Ct.
2649 (1992)
• • •
I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.
~Thomas Jefferson
Character is what emerges from all the little things you were too busy to do yesterday, but did
anyway. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966
I've got a theory that if you give 100 percent all of the time, somehow things will work out in
the end. ~Larry Bird
When I was young, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. So I did ten times
more work. ~George Bernard Shaw
Put your heart, mind, intellect and soul even to your smallest acts. This is the secret of success.
~Swami Sivananda
There's nothing like biting off more than you can chew, and then chewing anyway. ~Mark
Burnett
If a man is called a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or
Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that
all the hosts of heaven and Earth will pause to say, Here lived a great streetsweeper who did his
job well. ~Martin Luther King, Jr.
The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work. ~Emile Zola
There are no easy methods of learning difficult things; the method is to close your door, give
out that you are not at home, and work. ~Joseph de Maistre
Many people think they want things, but they don't really have the strength, the discipline.
They are weak. I believe that you get what you want if you want it badly enough. ~Sophia
Loren
Hard work certainly goes a long way. These days a lot of people work hard, so you have to
make sure you work even harder and really dedicate yourself to what you are doing and setting
out to achieve. ~Lakshmi Mittal
Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts. And never hope more than you work.
~Rita Mae Brown
Hard work is painful when life is devoid of purpose. But when you live for something greater
than yourself and the gratification of your own ego, then hard work becomes a labor of love.
~Steve Pavlina
You have to put in many, many, many tiny efforts that nobody sees or appreciates before you
achieve anything worthwhile.
~ Brian Tracy
You do not lead by hitting people over the head - that's assault, not leadership.
~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
What you always do before you make a decision is consult. The best public policy is made when
you are listening to people who are going to be impacted. Then, once policy is determined, you
call on them to help you sell it.
~Elizabeth Dole
I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to be flexible at all times.
~Everett Dirksen
A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.
~Henrik Ibsen
I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure: which is:
Try to please everybody.
~Herbert B. Swope
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a
leader.
~John Quincy Adams
The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.
~Kenneth Blachard
I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.
~Mohandas Gandhi
When leaders take back power, when they act as heroes and saviors, they end up exhausted,
overwhelmed, and deeply stressed.
~Margaret J. Wheatley
The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say "I." And that's not because
they have trained themselves not to say "I." They don't think "I." They think "we"; they think
"team." They understand their job to be to make the team function. They accept responsibility
and don't sidestep it, but "we" gets the credit. This is what creates trust, what enables you to get
the task done.
~Peter Drucker
Humans are ambitious and rational and proud. And we don't fall in line with people who don't
respect us and who we don't believe have our best interests at heart. We are willing to follow
leaders, but only to the extent that we believe they call on our best, not our worst.
~Rachel Maddow
I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more
followers.
~Ralph Nader
Keep your fears to yourself, but share your inspiration with others.
~Robert Louis Stevenson
Leaders are more powerful role models when they learn than when they teach.
~Rosabeth Moss Kantor
A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don't
necessarily want to go but ought to be.
Rosalyn Carter
You who are journalists, writers, citizens, you have the right and duty to say to those you have
elected that they must practice mindfulness, calm and deep listening, and loving speech. This is
universal thing, taught by all religions.
~Thich Nhat Hanh
Leaders aren't born they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard
work. And that's the price we'll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal.
~Vince Lombard
The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born -- that there is a genetic factor to
leadership. This myth asserts that people simply either have certain charismatic qualities or not.
That's nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born.
~Warren G Bennis
"One of the true tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an
emergency." ~Arnold Glasow
"Developing excellent communication skills is absolutely essential to effective leadership. The
leader must be able to share knowledge and ideas to transmit a sense of urgency and
enthusiasm to others. If a leader can't get a message across clearly and motivate others to act on
it, then having a message doesn't even matter." ~Gilbert Amelio
"Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon them and to let them
know that you trust them." ~Booker T. Washington~
"Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them to become what they are
capable of being." ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe~
"When a gifted team dedicates itself to unselfish trust and combines instinct with boldness and
effort--it is ready to climb."
-- Pat Riley
"The challenge of every team is to build a feeling of oneness, of dependence on one another
because the question is usually not how well each person performs, but how well they work
together."
-- Vince Lombardi
"One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team."
-- Kareem
Abdul-Jabbar
"The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of
individual stars in the world, but if they don't play together, the club won't be worth a dime."
-Babe Ruth
"Many of us are more capable than some of us... but none of us is as capable as all of us!"
-- Tom
Wilson
For me, writing is exploration; and most of the time, I'm surprised where the journey takes me.
~Jack Dann
Forget all the rules. Forget about being published. Write for yourself and celebrate writing.
~Melinda Haynes
Writing wasn’t easy to start. After I finally did it, I realized it was the most direct contact
possible with the part of myself I thought I had lost, and which I constantly find new things
from. Writing also includes the possibility of living many lives as well as living in any time or
world possible. I can satisfy my enthusiasm for research, but jump like a calf outside the strict
boundaries of science. I can speak about things that are important to me and somebody listens.
It’s wonderful!
~Virpi Hämeen-Anttila
Are we, who want to create, in some way specially talented people? Or has everybody else
simply given up, either by preassures of modesty or laziness, and closed their ears from their
inner need to create, until that need has died, forgotten and abandoned? When you look at
children, you start to think the latter. I still haven't met a child who doesn't love - or who at least
hasn't loved - drawing, writing or some other creative activity. ~Natalia Laurila
Reading usually precedes writing and the impulse to write is almost always fired by reading.
Reading, the love of reading, is what makes you dream of becoming a writer. ~Susan Sontag
Writing is the hardest work in the world. I have been a bricklayer and a truck driver, and I tell
you – as if you haven't been told a million times already – that writing is harder. Lonelier. And
nobler and more enriching. ~Harlan Ellison
The work never matches the dream of perfection the artist has to start with.
~
William Faulkner
It's tougher than Himalayan yak jerky on january. But, as any creative person will tell you, there
are days when there's absolutely nothing sweeter than creating something from nothing. ~Richard Krzemien
Writing is not a genteel profession. It's quite nasty and tough and kind of dirty.
~
Rosemary Mahoney
If writing seems hard, it’s because it is hard. It’s one of the hardest things people do.
~William Zinsser
Quantity produces quality. If you only write a few things, you're doomed. ~Ray Bradbury
I don't think it is possible to give tips for finding one's voice; it's one of those things for which
there aren't really any tricks or shortcuts, or even any advice that necessarily translates from
writer to writer. All I can tell you is to write as much as possible. ~Poppy Z. Brite
I believe that in a good collaboration, the authors bring their strengths to the story; one author's
strength cancels the other author's weakness, and back and forth it goes. ~Jack Dann
You can't say, I won't write today because that excuse will extend into several days, then several
months, then… you are not a writer anymore, just someone who dreams about being a writer. ~Dorothy C. Fontana
Through joy and through sorrow, I wrote. Through hunger and through thirst, I wrote.
Through good report and through ill report, I wrote. Through sunshine and through
moonshine, I wrote. What I wrote it is unnecessary to say. ~Edgar A. Poe
There's no such thing as writer's block. That was invented by people in California who couldn't
write.
~Terry Pratchett
Writing energy is like anything else. The more you put in, the more you get out.
~Richard Reeves
Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character
sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles
seize up.
~Jane Yolen
Being a good writer is 3% talent, 97% not being distracted by the Internet.
~
Anonymous
Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. T. S.
~Eliot
Detail makes the difference between boring and terrific writing. It’s the difference between a
pencil sketch and a lush oil painting. As a writer, words are your paint. Use all the colors.
~Rhys Alexander
Zest. Gusto. How rarely one hears these words used. How rarely do we see people living, or for
that matter, creating by them. Yet if I were asked to name the most important items in a writer’s
make-up, the things that shape his material and rush him along the road to where he wants to
go, I could only warn him to look to his zest, see to his gusto.
~Ray Bradbury
If you have other things in your life - family, friends, good productive day work - these can
interact with your writing and the sum will be all the richer.
~David Brin
Young writers shouldn't be afraid of striving to emulate their favorites. It's a good way to learn,
as long as you move on from it and don't publish too many of the results.
~
Poppy Z. Brite
If you find yourself imitating another writer, that doesn't have to be a bad thing, especially if
you are a young or a new writer. However, you should be conscious of exactly how you are
imitating him - word choice, sentence structure, motifs? - and think about why you're doing it.
~
Poppy Z. Brite
Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it is raining, but the
feeling of being rained upon.
~E.L. Doctorow
If you start with a bang, you won't end with a whimper. ~T. S. Eliot
The ideal view for daily writing, hour for hour, is the blank brick wall of a cold-storage
warehouse. Failing this, a stretch of sky will do, cloudless if possible.
Edna Ferbe
Write your story as it needs to be written. Write it honestly, and tell it as best you can. I'm not
sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.
~Neil Gaiman
You can take for granted that people know more or less what a street, a shop, a beach, a sky, an
oak tree look like. Tell them what makes this one different.
~Neil Gaiman
It's hard for me to believe that people who read very little - or not at all in some cases - should
presume to write and expect people to like what they have written. Can I be blunt on this
subject? If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time - or the tools - to write. Simple
as that.
~Stephen King
One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking
for long words because you're maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones.
~Stephen King
My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: when you write, try to leave out
all the parts readers skip. ~Elmore Leonard
Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say 'infinitely' when you mean 'very'. Otherwise
you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.
~C. S. Lewis
For anyone who is: just keep writing. Keep reading. If you are meant to be a writer, a storyteller,
it’ll work itself out. You just keep feeding it your energy, and giving it that crucial chance to
work itself out. By reading and writing.
~Robin McKinley
Make it new. ~Ezra Pound
Resist the temptation to try to use dazzling style to conceal weakness of substance.
~Stanley
Schmidt
If you don't know it, don't write it. ~
Darrell Schweitzer
Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see
five or six of them. Most people don't see any.
~Orson Scott Card
There is no idea so brilliant or original that a sufficiently-untalented writer can't screw it up.
~Raymond Feist
If you’re going to be a writer, the first essential is just to write. Do not wait for an idea. Start
writing something and the ideas will come. You have to turn the faucet on before the water
starts to flow. ~
Louis L’Amour
There are no dull subjects. There are only dull writers. ~H.L. Mencken
Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask
why not.
~George Bernard Shaw
There is no idea so stupid or hackneyed that a sufficiently-talented writer can't get a good story
out of it. ~Lawrence Watt-Evans
If you can't annoy somebody, there's little point in writing. ~Kingsley Amis
No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. ~Robert Frost
We read five words on the first page of a really good novel and we begin to forget that we are
reading printed words on a page; we begin to see images. ~
John Gardner
If you would write emotionally, be first unemotional. If you would move your readers to tears,
do not let them see you cry. ~James J. Kilpatrick
Write what you want to read. The person you know best in this world is you. Listen to yourself.
If you are excited by what you are writing, you have a much better chance of putting that
excitement over to a reader.
~Robin McKinley
Tell the readers a story! Because without a story, you are merely using words to prove you can
string them together in logical sentences. ~
Anne McCaffrey
It is a cardinal sin to bore the reader.
~Larry Niven
Remember: when people tell you something's wrong or doesn't work, they are almost always
right. When they tell you exactly what's wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.
~
Neil Gaiman
Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a
stranger.
~Franklin Jones
It is perfectly okay to write garbage – as long as you edit brilliantly. ~C. J. Cherryh
Books aren't written, they're rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to
accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn't quite done it. ~
Michael Crichton
I have never thought of myself as a good writer. Anyone who wants reassurance of that should
read one of my first drafts. But I'm one of the world's great rewriters. ~
James A. Michener
It is better to write a bad first draft than to write no first draft at all.
~Will Shetterly
Teamwork - Whatever our role, working together achieves results.
“You're never done. You're just out of time.” -Gary Lundgren
"I love deadlines. I especially like the whooshing sound they make as they go flying by." Douglas Adams
"It's not our abilities that show what we truly are, it's our choices" -Dumbledore (J.K. Rowling)
“If it is not in the yearbook, then four years from now it didn’t happen.” -anonymous
“It’s all storytelling, you know. That’s what journalism is all about.” -Tom Brokaw
“Journalism is literature in a hurry.” -Matthew Arnold
“The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.”
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. —Albert Einstein
"Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when his neck is out." -Anonymous
"Journalism is a public responsibility and a public trust," Horace Greeley
"News is history in its first and best form, its vivid and most fascinating form," Mark Twain
"Our republic and its press will rise or fall together," Joseph Pulitzer
The man at the top didn’t fall there.
My students use this quote when they teach writing for yearbook…
The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. "Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?" he
asked.
"Begin at the beginning," the King said gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then
stop."
From Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined.” ~Thoreau
“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, made to
be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a
commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like
spiders across the stars…” – Jack Kerouac
“The heart has its reasons that reason doesn’t know.” ~Blaise Pascal
"“Who publishes doubt and calls it knowledge; whose science is despair…” ~William Blake
"We are here to prepare you for the real world, not the one you currently own."
Your companions are your mirrors and show you yourself
~fortune cookie
“Energy rightly applied and directed can accomplish anything.” ~Nellie Bly (First woman
journalist)
Life is a journey, not a guided tour.
~Jan Kohls
Life is more than a journey; it's an expedition
"Your friends are like elevator buttons. They will take you up or take you down."
“Life is a stage, perform your very best!”
"For a ship without a destination, no wind is favorable." Socrates
“Put yourself in a position to be lucky.” – Frank LaMonte
"I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and
because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something that I can do." ~Edward
Everett Hale
"Fatigue is the price of leadership. Mediocrity is the price of never getting tired." ~J. Oswald
Sanders
Teamwork - Whatever our role, working together achieves results.
The football team in Smith Center, Kansas, has won sixty-seven games in a row, the nation’s
longest high-school winning streak. They have done so by embracing a philosophy of life
taught by their legendary coach, Roger Barta: “Respect each other, then learn to love each other
and together we are champions.”
~Joe Dape “Our Boys: A Perfect Season on the Plains with the Smith Center Redmen"
“Who publishes doubt and calls it knowledge; whose science is despair…” William Blake
“People said I had a chip on my shoulder—they still do—and I suppose that’s right, but what is
cockiness, arrogance, whatever you want to call it, but a kind of preemptive strike against your
own weaknesses? And without such a strike, what chance is there of succeeding? I felt a
power. I wrote. I read everything.” TC Boyle
Freedom is poetry, taking liberties with words, breaking the rules of normal speech, violating
common sense.” Norman O Brown
“Life is hard and dear and it is the hardness that makes it dear.” ~Darby
“The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.” Paul Valery
“Winners forget they’re in a race, they just love to run.”
• • •
“Let us be true: This is the highest maxim of art and of life, the secret of eloquence and of virtue,
and of all moral authority.”
–Henri Frédéric Amiel
The best student publication advisers don’t offend the First Amendment just because they
sometimes apply the brakes on a story. It is their job teaching young journalists that just because
they may have a right of way doesn’t mean
Where there is diversity, there is also conflict.
“Have more than thou showest,
Speak less than though knowest.”
–William Shakespeare
The most stringest protection of free speech would not protect a man from falsely shouting fire
in a theater and causing a panic.
–Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Schenck v. U.S.
A free press can, of course, be good or bad, but most certainly without freedom, the press will
never be anything but bad.
–Albert Camus
Our liberty depends on freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.
–Thomas Jefferson
Kids don’t learn choosing mechanism if you take away the mechanism to choose.
–David Reed
Look up definitions of moralize, empathize, maximize.
David Berninghausen wrote in Arrogance of the Censor in 1982: “In order to get the truth,
conflicting arguments and expressions must be allowed. There can be no freedom without
choice, no sound choice without knowledge.”
“We admire truth, provided it agrees with our views.”
It does not come natural to humans to support those who disagree.
Corlas davis right and respon 630-942-3872.
“To furnish the means of acquiring knowledge is … the greatest benefit that can be conferred
upon mankind. It prolongs life itself and enlarges the spere of existence.”
–John Quincy Adams.
“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.”
–Edmund Burke
“Government is a trust, and the officers of government are trustees; and both the trust and the
trustees are created for the benefit of the people.”
–Henry Clay
Every generation has a nickname. Those born between 1946 and 1964 are “Baby Boomers,”
those between 1965 and 1978 are “Generation X,” those between 1979 and 1994 are “Generation
Y” and those after 1994 are “Generation I.”
“It is better to debate an important matter
without settling it
than to settle it without debating it.”
–Anonymous
“Much misconstruction and bitterness are spared to him ho things naturally upon what he owes
to other, rather than on what he ought to expect from them.”
–Elizabeth de Meulan Gulzot
“Nor is the people’s judgment always true: The most may err as grossly as the few.”
–John Dryden
• • •
Teamwork Quotes and Proverbs
It is amazing how much you can accomplish when it doesn't matter who gets the credit.
There is no "I" in "TEAMWORK".
Teamwork: Simply stated, it is less me and more we.
TEAM = Together Everyone Achieves More
Teamwork is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.
Andrew Carnegie
Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct
individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common
people to attain uncommon results.
The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
Teamwork is working together — even when apart.
A job worth doing is worth doing together.
Coming together, sharing together, working together, succeeding together.
A successful team beats with one heart.
Teamwork divides the task and doubles the success.
Teamwork doesn't tolerate the inconvenience of distance.
Ken Blanchard
None of us is as smart as all of us.
Vince Lombardi, football coach for the NFL (1913-1970)
People who work together will win, whether it be against complex football defenses, or the
problems of modern society."
Henry Ford
Coming together is a beginning.
Keeping together is progress.
Working together is success.
Bruce Coslet, Coach, Bengals
The era of the rugged individual is giving way to the era of the team player.
Everyone is needed, but no one is necessary.
Vince Lombardi, football coach for the NFL (1913-1970)
Teamwork is what the Green Bay Packers were all about. They didn't do it for individual glory.
They did it because they loved one another…
Susan Gerke, IBM, Leadership Development
Conflict is inevitable in a team ... in fact, to achieve synergistic solutions, a variety of ideas and
approaches are needed. These are the ingredients for conflict.
Coach Dean Smith to Michael Jordan in his freshman year at UNC
Michael, if you can't pass, you can't play.
Benjamin Franklin
We must all hang together,
or assuredly, we shall all hang separately.
Thomas Edison, when asked why he had a team of twenty-one assistants
If I could solve all the problems myself, I would.
Lewis B. Ergen
The ratio of We's to I's is the best indicator of the development of a team.
Stephen Covey
Synergy is the highest activity of life; it creates new untapped alternatives; it values and exploits
the mental, emotional, and psychological differences between people.
Max DePree
The key elements in the art of working together are how to deal with change, how to deal with
conflict, and how to reach our potential...the needs of the team are best met when we meet the
needs of individuals persons.
R. Meredith Belbin
Do you want a collection of brilliant minds or a brilliant collection of minds?
Baltasar Gracion, Spanish Priest
The path to greatness is along with others.
Doug Smith
Teams share the burden and divide the grief.
Tom Bouchard
Teams are successful when they are focused, have a short cycle time, and are supported by the
executives.
Coach Phil Jackson Chicago Bulls
The strength of the team is each individual member...the strength of each member is the team.
Norman Shidle
A group becomes a team when each member is sure enough of himself and his contribution to
praise the skills of the others.
Robert F. Bales
Effective teamwork will not take the place of knowing how to do the job or how to manage the
work. Poor teamwork, however, can prevent effective final performance. And it can also
prevent team members from gaining satisfaction in being a member of a team and the
organization.
Dennis Kinlaw
Teamplayer: One who unites others toward a shared destiny through sharing information and
ideas, empowering others and developing trust.
Buchholz and Roth
Wearing the same shirts doesn't make you a team
Jason Kidd upon being drafted to the Dallas Mavericks
We're going to turn this team around 360 degrees.
Buchholz and Roth
Synergism is the simultaneous actions of separate entities which together have greater total
effect than the sum of their individual effects.
Casey Stengel
Gettin' good players is easy. Gettin' 'em to play together is the hard part.
Katzenbach & Smith
A demanding performance challenge tends to create a team.
Marvin Weisbord
Teamwork is the quintessential contradiction of a society grounded in individual achievement.
Will Schutz
Team members who feel threatened but who are not aware of it become rigid — and that stops
teamwork.
Barbara Glacel & Emile Robert Jr.
A team is more than a collection of people. It is a process of give and take.
Mark Twain
Synergy — the bonus that is achieved when things work together harmoniously.
Ned Lautenbach
Teamwork is the lynchpin in our long term success.
Michael Jordan
Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.
Joe Paterno
When a team outgrows individual performance and learns team confidence, excellence becomes
a reality.
Rosabeth Moss Kanter
A self-reinforcing upward spiral: performance stimulating pride stimulating performance.
Max DePree
Without forgiveness, there can be no real freedom to act within a group.
Katzenbach & Smith
The same dynamics that promote performance also support learning and behavioral change.
Dennis Kinlaw
Work and self-worth are the two factors in pride that interact with each other and that tend to
increase the strong sense of pride found in superior work teams. When people do something of
obvious worth, they feel a strong sense of personal worth.
Dr. Rob Gilbert
Working together works.
H.E. Luccock
No one can whistle a symphony. It takes an orchestra to play it.
Richard Wellins, William Byham, Jeanne Wilson
Teams are not ends in themselves; they are a means by which to achieve other organizational
goals.
Sandra Richardson, OD Consultant
Effective teamwork is all about making a good, well-balanced salad not whipping individuals
into a single batch of V8.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Men have never been individually self-sufficient.
Douglas McGregor
Most teams aren't teams at all but merely collections of individual relationships with the boss.
Each individual vying with the others for power, prestige and position.
Katzenbach & Smith
Overcoming barriers to performance is how groups become teams.
Paul McCartney
I love to hear a choir. I love the humanity... to see the faces of real people devoting themselves
to a piece of music. I like the teamwork. It makes me feel optimistic about the human race when
I see them cooperating like that.
Benjamin Franklin
We must indeed all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.
Lou Holtz, former Notre Dame football coach
All winning teams are goal-oriented. Teams like these win consistently because everyone
connected with them concentrates on specific objectives. They go about their business with
blinders on; nothing will distract them from achieving their aims.
Paul Bear Bryant
In order to have a winner, the team must have a feeling of unity; every player must put the
team first-ahead of personal glory.
Bud Wilkinson, football coach (1916 )
If a team is to reach its potential, each player must be willing to subordinate his personal goals
to the good of the team.
Vince Lombardi, football coach for the NFL (1913-1970)
Individual commitment to a group effort — that is what makes a team work a company work, a
society work, a civilization work.
Katzenbach & Smith
Teamwork represents a set of values that encourage behaviors such as listening and
constructively responding to points of view expressed by others, giving others the benefit of the
doubt, providing support to those who need it, and recognizing the interests and achievements
of others.
Vince Lombardi, football coach for the NFL (1913-1970)
The achievements of an organization are the results of the combined effort of each individual.
Robert Yates
It is amazing what can be accomplished when nobody cares about who gets the credit.
Margaret Carty
The nice thing about teamwork is that you always have others on your side.
A Harvey Block
The ideas that come out of most brainstorming sessions are usually superficial, trivial, and not
very original. They are rarely useful. The process, however, seems to make uncreative people
feel that they are making innovative contributions and that others are listening to them.
Katzenbach & Smith
Fun is only real and sustainable if it feeds off the team's purpose and performance aspirations.
Vince Lombardi, football coach for the NFL (1913-1970)
Individual commitment to a group effort-that is what makes a team work, a company work, a
society work, a civilization work.
Robert Crandall
You put together the best team that you can with the players you've got, and replace those who
aren't good enough.
B. Dodge
No problem is insurmountable. With a little courage, teamwork and determination a person can
overcome anything.
Dr. Allan Fromme
People have been known to achieve more as a result of working with others than against them.
Debra Mancuso
Win together, lose together, play together, stay together.
Katzenbach & Smith
Real teams don't emerge unless individuals on them take risks involving conflict, trust,
interdependence and hard work.
Vince Lombardi, football coach for the NFL (1913-1970)
Teams do not go physically flat, they go mentally stale.