The power of the press in America is a primordial one. It sets the agenda of public discussion; and this sweeping political power is unrestrained by any law. It deter- mines what people will talk and think about-an authority that in other nations is reserved for tyrants, priests, parties and mandarins.

Theodore White

Categorized in : Thinking Party Tyrants

The flood of money that gushes into politics today is a pollution of democracy.

Theodore White

nerd democracy freedom

To go against the dominant thinking of your friends, of most of the people you see every day, is perhaps the most difficult act of heroism you can perform.

Theodore White

bullying courage friendship

He who is created by television can be destroyed by television.

Theodore White

destroyed style television

For those men who, sooner or later, are lucky enough to break away from the pack, the most intoxicating moment comes when they cease being bodies in other men's command and find that they control their own time, when they learn their own voice and authority.

Theodore White

break-up time men

Those 40 or 50 national correspondents who had followed Kennedy since the beginning of his electoral exertions into the November days had become more than a press corps - they had become his friends and, some of them, his most devoted admirers.

Theodore White

admirer november friends

If you make a living, if you earn your own money, you're free - however free one can be on this planet.

Theodore White

planets money business

Power in America today is control of the means of communication.

Theodore White

communication power mean

The gusto of one, the indignation of the other; the challenge of the one party, the response of the other; the eloquence and the comedy, the passion and the issues were ours-no other country can provide them.

Theodore White

passion party country

When the bus or the plane rolled or flew through the night, they sang songs of their own composition about Mr Nixon and the Republicans in chorus with the Kennedy staff and felt that they, too, were marching like soldiers of the Lord to the New Frontier.

Theodore White

soldier song night

Quality in a classical Greek sense is how to live with grace and intelligence, with bravery and mercy.

Theodore White

greek grace bravery

There is no excitement anywhere in the world, short of war, to match the excitement of the American presidential campaign.

Theodore White

presidential usa war

When a reporter sits down at the typewriter, he’s nobody’s friend.

Theodore White

reporters typewriters

A liberal is a person who believes that water can be made to run uphill. A conservative is someone who believes everybody should pay for his water. I'm somewhere in between: I believe water should be free, but that water flows downhill.

Theodore White

running water believe

If you go back through 2000 years, I guess luck, Marx, and God have made history, the three of them together.

Theodore White

luck history years

Every American election summons the individual voter to weigh the past against the future.

Theodore White

election voters past

Although Christianity has never been the guarantee of a democratic state anywhere in the world, no democracy has ever thrived successfully for any period of time outside of Christian influence.

Theodore White

democracies-have democracy christian

The President's decisions make the weather, and if he is great enough, change the climate, too.

Theodore White

decision president weather

I class myself as a manual laborer.

Theodore White

manuals laborers class

There are two kinds of editors, those who correct your copy and those who say it's wonderful.

Theodore White

editors kind two

The job of intellectuals is to come up with ideas, and all we've been producing is footnotes.

Theodore White

come-up jobs ideas