I. F. Stone

Isador Feinstein Stone (1907-12-24 – 1989-06-18) was an iconoclastic American investigative journalist best known for his influential political newsletter, I.F. Stone's Weekly.

Sourced

• 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's Weekly (1954-03-15)

• Every time we are confronted with a new revolution we take to the opium pipes of our own propaganda.
  • I.F. Stone's Weekly (1963-01-21)

• 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.
  • The Haunted Fifties (1963)

• 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.
  • The Haunted Fifties (1963)

• A certain moral imbecility marks all ethnocentric movements.
  • I.F. Stone's Weekly (1967-08-03)

• All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out.
  • In a Time of Torment, 1961-1967 (1967), p. 317

• Lifelong dissent has more than acclimated me cheerfully to defeat. It has made me suspicious of victory. I feel uneasy at the very idea of a Movement. I see every insight degenerating into a dogma, and fresh thoughts freezing into lifeless party line.
  • I.F. Stone's Bi-Weekly (1969-05-19)

• 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's Bi-Weekly (1971-12-14)