Ronald Steel Quotes & Sayings

Television has made places look alike, and it has transformed the way we see. A whole generation of Americans, maybe two, has grown up looking at the world through a lens. — Ronald Steel

Even though a part of Lippmann was tempted to retreat from the world, to build "walls against chaos," he fought that temptation. He challenged himself, grappled with his demons, and deliberately pursued a career that forced him into the political thick of battle, did not allow him to withdraw from a fight, and exposed him every day to his enemies. That took a special kind of courage for a man who shunned personal contention. — Ronald Steel

He spoke of what he called the "inner history of weakness, of what disappoints us in leaders, the timidity of thought, the hesitancy and the drift." In these cases imagination and will are often blinded by "constructed evils," he wrote. "We falter from childhood amidst shames and fears, we move in closed spaces where stale tradition enervates, we grow hysterical over success and failure, and so by surrounding instinct with terror, we prepare the soul for weakness. — Ronald Steel

There is a curious relationship between a candidate and the reporters who cover him. It can be affected by small things like a competent press staff, enough seats, sandwiches and briefings and the ability to understand deadlines. — Ronald Steel

Politics as battle has given way to politics as spectacle. — Ronald Steel

Children, for whom suburban life was supposed to make wholesome little Johns and Wendys, became the acid-dropping, classroom-burning hippies of the 1960s. — Ronald Steel

Discount air fares, a car in every parking space and the interstate highway system have made every place accessible - and every place alike. — Ronald Steel

Television has changed how we choose our leaders. It elected Ronald Reagan and a host of Kennedy-look-alike congressmen with blow-dried hair and gleaming teeth. It destroyed Senator Joe McCarthy by showing him in action and it created Jerry Falwell. — Ronald Steel

He has not yet become an elder statesman, though his foreign policy credentials are considerable, but he is certainly our ancient mariner, forever tugging at our sleeve to let him tell his tale of what really happened. — Ronald Steel

With a novelist's sense of drama and a historian's understanding of the social forces that shape our lives, Tom Gjelten has captured vividly
through the chronicle of a powerful family's fortunes
one of the great political dramas of our time. — Ronald Steel

Heroes come along when you need them. — Ronald Steel