If you want to know about governments, all you need to know is two words: Governments lie. I. F. Stone More Quotes by I. F. Stone More Quotes From I. F. Stone The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you’re going to lose, because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins. I. F. Stone fighting winning believe All governments are run by liars and nothing they say should be believed. I. F. Stone freedom running life If you expect to see the final results of your work, you simply have not asked a big enough question. I. F. Stone finals results enough All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out. I. F. Stone government-lies country lying There must be renewed recognition that societies are kept stable and healthy by reform, not by thought police; this means there must be free play for so-called subversive ideas - every idea subverts the old to make way for the new. To shut off subversion is to shut off peaceful progress and to invite revolution and war. I. F. Stone play war mean The only social justice movements worth fighting for are the struggles for justice where you lose, you lose, you lose- until you win. I. F. Stone fighting struggle winning Rich people march on Washington every day. I. F. Stone march-on-washington rich people You've really got to wear a chastity belt in Washington to preserve your journalistic virginity. Once the secretary of state invites you to lunch I. F. Stone belts lunch opinion Every time we are confronted with a new revolution we take to the opium pipes of our own propaganda. I. F. Stone pipe propaganda revolution If God, as some now say, is dead, He no doubt died of trying to find an equitable solution to the Arab-Jewish problem. I. F. Stone idaho doubt trying When war comes, reason is regarded as treason. I. F. Stone treason reason war If you live long enough, you get accused of things you never did and praised for virtues you never had. I. F. Stone virtue memories long History is a tragedy, not a morality tale. I. F. Stone tales morality tragedy The fault I find with most American newspapers is not the absence of dissent. it is the absence of news. With a dozen or so honorable exceptions, most American newspapers carry very little news. Their main concern is advertising. I. F. Stone dozen news liberty The difference between burlesque and the newspapers is that the former never pretended to be performing a public service by exposure. I. F. Stone burlesque public-service differences Every emancipation has in it the seeds of a new slavery, and every truth easily becomes a lie. I. F. Stone slavery freedom lying The arms race is based on an optimistic view of technology and a pessimistic view of man. It assumes there is no limit to the ingenuity of science and no limit to the deviltry of human beings. I. F. Stone optimistic technology men Victor Serge died in exile and obscurity, apparently no more than a splinter of a splinter in the Marxist movement. But with the passage of the years, he looms up as one of the great moral figures of our time, an artist of such integrity and a revolutionary of such purity as to overshadow those who achieved fame and power. His failure was his success. I know of no participant in Russia's revolution and Spain's agonies who more deserves the attention of our concerned youth. I. F. Stone russia artist integrity Every man is his own Pygmalion, and spends his life fashioning himself. And in fashioning himself, for good or ill, he fashions the human race and its future. I. F. Stone fashion race men I sought in political reporting what Galsworthy in another context had called "the significant trifle" - the bit of dialogue, the overlooked fact, the buried observation which illuminated the realities of the situation. I. F. Stone political reality facts
