It only serves to show what sort of person a man must be who can't even get testimonials. No, no; if a man brings references, it proves nothing; but if he can't, it proves a great deal.
Joseph PulitzerRead
Publicity, publicity, PUBLICITY is the greatest moral factor and force in our public life.
Interpretation
Publicity plays a crucial role in shaping public perceptions and moral values.
In this quote, Joseph Pulitzer emphasizes the immense power of publicity in influencing society. He suggests that it is not just about gaining attention but highlights the ethical implications of how information is presented and consumed in the public sphere. Publicity can shape public opinion, increase awareness of important issues, and drive social and moral progress.
In practice
During a speech about social issues, one could cite this quote to highlight the importance of media in shaping public discourse.
It only serves to show what sort of person a man must be who can't even get testimonials. No, no; if a man brings references, it proves nothing; but if he can't, it proves a great deal.
What a newspaper needs in its news, in its headlines, and on its editorial page is terseness, humor, descriptive power, satire, originality, good literary style, clever condensation, and accuracy, accuracy, accuracy!
Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it and, above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light.
If you will give the matter a moment's thought, you'll see that memory is the highest faculty of the human mind.
An able, disinterested, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it, can preserve that public virtue without which popular government is a sham and a mockery
The American people want something terse, forcible, picturesque, striking - something that will arrest their attention, enlist their sympathy, arouse their indignation, stimulate their imagination, convince their reason, awaken their conscience.
When asked, "How do you write?" I invariably answer, "One word at a time," and the answer is invariably dismissed. But that is all it is. It sounds too simple to be true, but consider the Great Wall of China, if you will: one stone at a time, man. That's all. One stone at a time. But I've read you can see that motherfucker from space without a telescope.
The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards.
Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education.
For me, literacy means freedom. For the individual and for society.
Each book, intuitively sensed and, in the case of fiction, intuitively worked out, stands on what has gone before, and grows out of it.
Here was one place where I could find out who I was and what I was going to become. And that was the public library.
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