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Katharine Graham Quotes

19 quotes from Katharine Graham — Publisher of The Washington Post during Watergate..

Read the full Katharine Graham playbook →

“Truth and news are not the same thing.”

Truth

“To love what you do and feel that it matters – how could anything be more fun?”

Passion

“News is what someone wants suppressed. Everything else is advertising.”

Media

“Some questions don't have answers, which is a terribly difficult lesson to learn.”

Wisdom

“A mistake is simply another way of doing things.”

Learning

“We live in a dirty and dangerous world. There are some things the general public does not need to know, and shouldn't. I believe democracy flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets and when the press can decide whether to print what it knows.”

Democracy

“The longer I live, the more I observe that carrying around anger is the most debilitating to the person who bears it.”

Emotions

“The only way I can describe the extent of my anxiety is to say that I felt as if I were pregnant with a rock.”

Anxiety

“Left alone, no matter at what age or under what circumstance, you have to remake your life.”

Resilience

“It took me a while to learn that certain people may have important skills that are not always blazingly apparent.”

Leadership

“The image of me as someone who likes or can deal with a fight is wrong.”

Self-Perception

“Once you have started down a path, then I think you have to move forward. You can't give up.”

Perseverance

“What I essentially did was to put one foot in front of the other, shut my eyes, and step off the edge. The surprise was that I landed on my feet.”

— Katharine Graham

“The image of me is this tough sort of decisive, combative person who's taken on all these fights. And I'd just like to say that I hate fights. And I am very courageous only when forced into a corner. And all the battles we got in were ones in which you had very little choice or no choice.”

— Katharine Graham

“I took a big gulp and said, "Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. Let's go. Let's publish.”

— Katharine Graham, Personal History

“I grew up in a society in which most women considered themselves unequal citizens and were considered unequal citizens. And so, if you start there, it was an agony.”

— Katharine Graham, Personal History

“I don't flinch at power the way I used to. If power is there to be used, it is used whether you abdicate it or whether you use it. You have to remember that you can do as much damage by abdicating it as by using it in the wisest way you know.”

— Katharine Graham, in a 1973 interview with W magazine

“It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to be silent.”

— Katharine Graham, Personal History

“She became responsible for the company's operations in 1963, painfully unsure of herself, but totally sure of her principles. She had been taught all her life — wrongly — that only men possessed a managerial gene. But she also understood completely — and correctly — that independent and first-class journalistic institutions are key to creating and preserving a great society.”

— Warren Buffett, on Katharine Graham's management career

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Katharine Graham

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Katharine Graham

Publisher of The Washington Post during Watergate.