Joseph Pulitzer

An able, disinterested, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it, can preserve that public virtue without which popular government is a sham and a mockery.

I am deeply interested in the progress and elevation of journalism, having spent my life in that profession, regarding it as a noble profession and one of unequaled importance for its influence upon the minds and morals of the people.

Newspapers should have no friends.

I desire to assist in attracting to this profession young men of character and ability, also to help those already engaged in the profession to acquire the highest moral and intellectual training.

I would rather have one article a day of this sort; and these ten or twenty lines might readily represent a whole day's hard work in the way of concentrated, intense thinking and revision, polish of style, weighing of words.

There is not a crime there is not a dodge there is not a trick there is not a swindle there is not a vice which does not live by secrecy.

A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will in time produce a people as base as itself.

Publicity, publicity, publicity is the greatest moral factor and force in our public life.

The power to mould the future of the Republic will be in the hands of the journalists of future generations.

Our Republic and its press will rise or fall together.

Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it and, above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light.