A Quote by Susan Sontag

The unanimously applauded, self-congratulatory bromides of a Soviet Party Congress seemed contemptible. The unanimity of the sanctimonious, reality-concealing rhetoric spouted by American officials and media commentators in recent days seems, well, unworthy of a mature democracy.

Susan Sontag

Quote Topics

American Commentators Concealing Congress Contemptible Days Democracy Mature Media Officials Party Reality Recent Rhetoric Sanctimonious Seemed Seems Self Soviet Unanimity Unworthy Well

Quote Author

Susan Sontag
American - Author
January 16, 1933 - December 28, 2004

In the founding days of the Constitution, the purpose of the media was to make sure that powerful government officials were held accountable. It really was. I mean, it was founders who hated the media like everybody else hates the media, but they understood the role they played. This media long ago when it comes to Hillary Clinton/Bill Clinton and the Democrat Party? No, no, no, no. They're the Democrat Party now. There is no media.

Rush Limbaugh

My parents called themselves progressives. The agenda was a Soviet America...the slogan of the communist party in those days was peace, jobs, democracy. Sound familar? The communist party is the democratic Party.

David Horowitz

'Creative Commons' is the self-congratulatory name of a self-congratulatory movement. Somewhat like kibbutz on the Internet, the idea is to write programs - 'free ware' - and distribute them without charge.

Mark Helprin

It is this capacity for relentless self-criticism that should be - everywhere - the true measure of intellectual freedom and cosmopolitanism, not the entrenched cultural power and self-congratulatory moral rhetoric of some people in countries long accustomed to telling other societies what to do and how to behave.

Pankaj Mishra

There is no other industry that is more self-congratulatory and self-delusional than journalism. Well, maybe with the exception of Hollywood.

Michelle Malkin

The state must protect the media. In a democracy, the role of media is very important. In the absence of a credible opposition party, you can rely on the media.

Rodrigo Duterte

What Fox News has become in 2020 is a conclusion of decades of right wing media and rhetoric against the rest of the media. In the '90s it was about media bias. In the 2000s it was about media bias. Now, the rhetoric is so much more extreme. It's about enemies of the people.

Brian Stelter

I don't think the rhetoric toward President Trump from media sources or media commentators is any worse than what Franklin Roosevelt got from a conservative press in another era. And Roosevelt was, you know, not as blunt as Trump about the press, but, you know, there was an ideological press back then, when we had multiple newspapers in town.

Tom Rosenstiel

I have to be very clear and very honest. I'm not asking [ the American officials] to believe if they don't want to believe. This is reality, I'm telling you the reality from our country. We live here, we know what is happening, and they have to listen to people here. They cannot listen only to their media or to their research centers. They don't live here ; no one lives here but us.

Bashar al-Assad

American girls are as clever at concealing their parents as English women are at concealing their past.

Oscar Wilde

National Defense A strong USA defense brought down the Soviet Union. It was Ronald Reagan - first in a speech at Notre Dame University in May 1981, then his 'Evil Empire' speech of March 1983 - who most eloquently declared communism's imminent demise. Reagan was right. And even Soviet officials attribute Ronald Reagan's rhetoric and foreign policy to bringing down that 'evil empire.' By Christmas Day, 1990, the Soviet Union ceased to exist. Liberals wished it were other things.

Rush Limbaugh

It is ironic since whenever I have met with our elected officials they are invariably thoughtful, well-meaning people. And yet collectively 90% of their effort seems to be focused on how to stick it to the other party.

Sergey Brin

We need Democrats and Republicans in Congress to work together to fashion a very comprehensive pushback to Russia, not just the cyber-hacking, but their bribery of officials in Europe, their social media campaign, their overt media campaign.

Adam Schiff

Among all the complaints you hear these days about the crimes of the media, it seems to me the critics miss the big one. It is that especially TV, but also we of the print press, tend to reduce mess and complexity and ambiguity to a simple story line that doesn't reflect reality so much as it distorts it. ... What bothers me about the journalistic tendency to reduce unmanageable reality to self-contained, movielike little dramas is not just that we falsify when we do this. It is also that we really miss the good story.

Meg Greenfield

I am a mere filmmaker. I am not even aligned to any political party. I vote for the Congress party, and I root for the Congress ideology, but I am not subject to the Congress party.