C.E.M. Joad Quotes & Sayings

The secret of successful journalism is to make your readers so angry they will write half your paper for you. — C.E.M. Joad

Conscience was the barmaid of the Victorian soul. Recognizing that human beings were fallible and that their failings, though regrettable, must be humored, conscience would permit, rather ungraciously perhaps, the indulgence of a number of carefully selected desires. — C.E.M. Joad

There are those who feel an imperative need to believe, for whom the values of a belief are proportionate not to its truth, but to its definiteness. Incapable of either admitting the existence of contrary judgments or of suspending their own, they supply the place of knowledge by turning other men's conjectures into dogmas. — C.E.M. Joad

In the most civilized and progressive countries freedom of discussion is recognized as a fundamental principle. — C.E.M. Joad

A good soul like a good body should be as unobtrusive as possible; in so far as it functions properly, it should not be noticed for good or for ill. — C.E.M. Joad

Automatic praise is a mere succession of noises. — C.E.M. Joad

There was never an age in which useless knowledge was more important than in our own. — C.E.M. Joad

My life is spent in perpetual alternation between two rhythms,
the rhythm of attracting people for fear I may be lonely
and the rhythm of trying to get rid of them
because I know that I am bored. — C.E.M. Joad

War provides an outlet for every evil element in man's nature. It enfranchises cupidity and greed gives a charter to petty tyranny, glorifies cruelty and places in positions of power the vulgar and base. — C.E.M. Joad

It all depends what you mean by ... — C.E.M. Joad

It has been left to our generation to discover that you can move heaven and earth to save five minutes and then not have the faintest idea what to do with them when you have saved them. — C.E.M. Joad