Claud Cockburn Quotes

• Believe nothing until it has been officially denied.

  Claud Cockburn

  Truth, Believe, Government

  Claud Cockburn (1981). “Cockburn Sums Up: An Autobiography”, Quartet Books (UK)

  46 Copy quote

• Never underestimate the effectiveness of a straight cash bribe.

  Claud Cockburn

  Effectiveness, Cash, Underestimate

  18 Copy quote

• A newspaper is always a weapon in somebody's hands.

  Claud Cockburn

  Hands, Weapons, Newspapers

  Claud Cockburn (1981). “Cockburn Sums Up: An Autobiography”, Quartet Books (UK)

  8 Copy quote

• Small earthquake in Chile. Not many dead.

  Claud Cockburn

  Funny, Humor, Earthquakes

  Claud Cockburn, A Discord of Trumpets (1956)

  6 Copy quote

• What arouses the indignation of the honest satirist is not, unless the man is a prig, the fact that people in positions of power or influence behave idiotically, or even that they behave wickedly. It is that they conspire successfully to impose upon the public a picture of themselves as so very sagacious, honest and well-intentioned.

  Claud Cockburn

  Men, Position Of Power, People

  Claud Cockburn (1961). “View from the West: Being the Third Volume of Autobiography”

  54 Copy quote

• The hired journalist, I thought, ought to realize that he is partly in the entertainment business and partly in the advertising business - advertising either goods, or a cause, or a government. He just has to make up his mind whom he wants to entertain, and what he wants to advertise.

  Claud Cockburn

  Government, Mind, Advertising Business

  Claud Cockburn (1967). “I, Claud ...: the autobiography of Claud Cockburn”

  5 Copy quote

• There is nothing quite so terrifying as a mad sheep.

  Claud Cockburn

  Sheep, Mad

  Claud Cockburn (1956). “A Discord of Trumpets: An Autobiography”

  5 Copy quote

• Evidently there are plenty of people in journalism who have neither got what they liked nor quite grown to like what they get. They write pieces they do not much enjoy writing, for papers they totally despise, and the sad process ends by ruining their style and disintegrating their personality, two developments which in a writer cannot be separate, since his personality and style must progress or deteriorate together, like a married couple in a country where death is the only permissible divorce.

  Claud Cockburn

  Country, Couple, Divorce

  Claud Cockburn (1967). “I, Claud ...: the autobiography of Claud Cockburn”

  7 Copy quote

• An autobiography should give the reader opportunity to point out the author's follies and misconceptions.

  Claud Cockburn

  Book, Opportunity, Giving

  Claud Cockburn (1960). “Crossing the Line: Being the Second Volume of Autobiography”, Macgibbon & Kee

  4 Copy quote

• A wartime Minister of Information is compelled, in the national interest, to such continuous acts of duplicity that even his natural hair must grow to resemble a wig.

  Claud Cockburn

  Hair, Duplicity, Wigs

  Claud Cockburn (1960). “Crossing the Line: Being the Second Volume of Autobiography”, Macgibbon & Kee

  60 Copy quote

• Nothing sets a person up more than having something turn out just the way it's supposed to be, like falling into a Swiss snowdrift and seeing a big dog come up with a little cask of brandy round its neck.

  Claud Cockburn

  Success, Dog, Fall

  Claud Cockburn (1981). “Cockburn Sums Up: An Autobiography”, Quartet Books (UK)

  4 Copy quote

• One good reason for the popularity of "reductionism" among the philosophical outposts of the Western Establishment is that it can be, and is, used as a device for trying to take the wind, so to speak, out of the sails of Marxism. . . . In essence reductionism is a kind of anti-Marxist caricature of Marxist determinism. It is what anti-Marxists pretend that Marxist determinism is.

  Claud Cockburn

  Philosophical, Speaks Out, Wind

  Claud Cockburn (1981). “Cockburn Sums Up: An Autobiography”, Quartet Books (UK)

  4 Copy quote

• If I wrote a book about England I should call it What About Wednesday Week? which is what English people say when they are making what they believe to be an urgent appointment.

  Claud Cockburn

  Believe, Book, People

  Claud Cockburn (1967). “I, Claud ...: the autobiography of Claud Cockburn”

  4 Copy quote

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