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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

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I. F. Stone
Age: 106 †
Born: 1907
Born: December 24
Died: 2014
Died: November 1
Classical Scholar
Journalist
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
Isidor Feinstein Stone
Izzy Stone
Another
Dialogue
Reporting
Reality
Significant
Overlooked
Bits
Trifles
Called
Realities
Situation
Sought
Fact
Context
Facts
Buried
Trifle
Political
Observation
Illuminated

More quotes by I. F. Stone

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A certain moral imbecility marks all ethnocentric movements.
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All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out.
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If you expect to see the final results of your work, you simply have not asked a big enough question.
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The difference between burlesque and the newspapers is that the former never pretended to be performing a public service by exposure.
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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.
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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 and asks your opinion, you're sunk.
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History is a tragedy, not a morality tale.
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Every emancipation has in it the seeds of a new slavery, and every truth easily becomes a lie.
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Every time we are confronted with a new revolution we take to the opium pipes of our own propaganda.
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The only thing God didn't do to Job was give him a computer.
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You have to take the long view. First, when Moses came down from Mt. Sinai, man has already progressed to the point where a commandment against cannibalism was no longer necessary. And, second, it's like pissing on a boulder. For the first few thousand years, you don't see any effect. But after that, you start to see a definite impact.
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If you live long enough, you get accused of things you never did and praised for virtues you never had.
I. F. Stone
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When you're young, you get blamed for crimes that you didn't commit. When you are old, you get credit for virtues that you never had. I guess it all evens out in the end.
I. F. Stone
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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
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Rich people march on Washington every day.
I. F. Stone
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When war comes, reason is regarded as treason.
I. F. Stone
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If God, as some now say, is dead, He no doubt died of trying to find an equitable solution to the Arab-Jewish problem.
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I thought I might teach philosophy but the atmosphere of a college faculty repelled me the few islands of greatness seemed to be washed by seas of pettiness and mediocrity.
I. F. Stone