Voting, we might even say, is the next to last refuge of the politically impotent. The last refuge is, of course, giving your opinion to a pollster, who will get a version of it through a desiccated question, and then will submerge it in a Niagara of similar opinions, and convert them into--what else?--another piece of news. Thus we have here a great loop of impotence: The news elicits from you a variety of opinions about which you can do nothing except to offer them as more news, about which you can do nothing. Neil Postman
Some Similar Quotes
  1. Statistically speaking, there is a 65 percent chance that the love of your life is having an affair. Be very suspicious. - Scott Dikkers
  2. A recent survey or North American males found 42% were overweight, 34% were critically obese and 8% ate the survey. - Banksy
  3. I couldn't claim that I was smarter than sixty-five other guys--but the average of sixty-five other guys, certainly! - Richard Feynman
  4. All statistics have outliers. - Nenia Campbell
  5. There are three types of lies -- lies, damn lies, and statistics. - Benjamin Disraeli
More Quotes By Neil Postman
  1. The opposite of a correct statement is an incorrect statement. The opposite of a profound truth is another profound truth (Niels Bohr)." By this, he means that we require a larger reading of the human past, of our relations with each other, the universe and...
  2. Educators may bring upon themselves unnecessary travail by taking a tactless and unjustifiable position about the relation between scientific and religious narratives. We see this, of course, in the conflict concerning creation science. Some educators representing, as they think, the conscience of science act much...
  3. The scientific method, " Thomas Henry Huxley once wrote, "is nothing but the normal working of the human mind." That is to say, when the mind is working; that is to say further, when it is engaged in corrrecting its mistakes. Taking this point of...
  4. Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other. They do not exchange ideas, they exchange images. They do not argue with propositions; they argue with good looks, celebrities and commercials.
  5. In saying no one knew about the ideas implicit in the telegraph, I am not quite accurate. Thoreau knew. Or so one may surmise. It is alleged that upon being told that through the telegraph a man in Maine could instantly send a message to...
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