Thursday, February 23, 2017

Quote of the day


Courtesy of a link at Joel's place, we find this letter from Thomas Jefferson in 1807 - two hundred and ten years ago.

Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle ... I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false.

There's more at the link.

I didn't know that Jefferson numbered prophecy among his many gifts!  His words apply just as well to the mainstream news media today as they did to the newspapers of 1807.

Peter

5 comments:

  1. Peter, Mr. Jefferson had no need for second sight: some things never change. A wiser man than I said, "History may not repeat itself--but it rhymes".
    --Tennessee Budd

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  2. He and Ben Franklin did not get along.

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  3. Jefferson and Franklin may not have gotten along, but Franklin had been dead for around 17 years at the time Jefferson wrote that.

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  4. 'Those who do not read the news are uninformed; those who do are misinformeed."

    --Mark Twain

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