"First Rough Draft of History"
In April 1963, Graham delivered a speech to the overseas correspondents of Newsweek in London:
- "So let us today drudge on about our inescapably impossible task of providing every week a first rough draft of history that will never really be completed about a world we can never really understand…"
The phrase " first rough draft of history" has entered the vernacular. While this quote may have been popularized by Graham in this speech, and the phrase is often credited to him in this speech, these words are not original with him, nor with this speech, the phrase having been used repeatedly in the Post in the 1940s, and by Graham in the 1950s, with the earliest citation being 20 years, by Alan Barth in 1943, writing "News is only the first rough draft of history," and earlier expressions of similar sentiments dating at least to the 1900s (decade) – see Wikiquote article for details.
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Famous quotes containing the words draft of history, rough, draft and/or history:
“News is the first rough draft of history.”
—Philip L. Graham (1915–1963)
“But this rough magic
I here abjure, and when I have required
Some heavenly music—which even now I do—
To work mine end upon their senses that
This airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And deeper than did ever plummet sound
I’ll drown my book.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. If it is wrong to be violent defending black women and black children and black babies and black men, then it is wrong for America to draft us, and make us violent abroad in defense of her. And if it is right for America to draft us, and teach us how to be violent in defense of her, then it is right for you and me to do whatever is necessary to defend our own people right here in this country.”
—Malcolm X (1925–1965)
“The history of men’s opposition to women’s emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)