The Fifth Estate – Quotes

 

Click here to read Shepherd Projects Fifth Estate  Movie Discussion.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

For better or worse, [Wikileaks] exposed some of the world’s biggest secrets.

The report we leaked shifted voting 10% in the recent election.

Julian Assange:  If we can find one moral man, one whistle blower, someone willing to expose secrets, that man could topple an entire organization.

Julian Assange:  What if we could eliminate the fear [of retribution] for whistleblowers?

Julian Assange:  Even I don’t know the identity of our whistleblowers.  Our whistleblowers have nothing to fear.
Daniel:  If no identity, is there any accountability?

Julian Assange:  As Oscar Wilde once said, give a man a mask and he will tell you the truth.

Daniel:  A shame turnout wasn’t better.
Julian Assange:  One convert at a time.

Julian Assange, after describing a horrible, traumatic childhood:  Why do you think my hair is white?

Julian Assange:  Remember, courage is contagious.

Daniel:  They’re threatening to shut our website down.
Julian Assange:  I thought Americans put free speech up there with mom and apple pie.

Julian Assange:  Having fun making history instead of reading about it?

Julian Assange:  To be honest, the court of the public has already voted in our favor.

Julian Assange:  Every startup exaggerates its size.

Julian Assange:  People are loyal until it seems opportune not to be.

Julian Assange:  The tyrants we’re up against have guns and weapons and money, and all I’ve got is a little website…and you.  Do I have you?

Julian Assange:  The only way you can control people is to lie to them.

Julian Assange to the Guardian journalist:  I just want you to do your job properly.  If you don’t, somebody else will.

Journalist:  Anyone can gather documents and throw them up on the web.  People are looking for something more discerning.

Julian Assange:  That’s the problem with giving money away for free, there’s no money in it.

You hacked the US defense department?

Julian Assange:  People with that much expertise tend to have a mind of their own.

Julian Assange:  Editing reflects bias.  People trust us because we don’t edit.

Anke to Daniel:  Why do you try so hard to be him?  You will never be him.

Daniel:  Are you wearing my jacket?
Julian Assange:  I’m about to write a press release on death squads.  I wanted to wear something to match the gravity of the occasion.

Julian Assange:  If we’d publicized the report better, then they would’ve been heroes.  The publicity would have been too great to murder them.

Daniel:  We have had more scoops in three years than the Washington post has had in thirty.

I grew up in Berlin.  If we wrote a letter about a broken sewer pipe, we’d have been interrogated.  If someone like you had been around, the wall would have come down sooner.

Guardian Exec:  We all want information to be free. But investigative journalism can be tricky and when things get squeezed it’s the first thing to go.

US Government:  Tell them the truth:  soldiers were following protocol.  This is computer geeks looking at the war through a pinhole.

Julian Assange:  It’s just, everyone focuses on how weird I am.  You know, slaughter and mass murder and my dirty socks would have gotten equal press.

Daniel:  This is reckless.  We’re putting people’s lives at risk.  I thought the point of [this] was to protect.

Julian Assange:  Wikileaks doesn’t edit.

Julian Assange:  You want to throw it away because some low-level US informant might come to harm?

Daniel:  I don’t remember you hiring me.  I don’t remember a salary…  There is no organization.  There is no organization—there’s just you and your ego and the lives you spend to get whatever…you want.

Sarah Shaw:  He’s bigger than the Times.  He can do whatever he wants.

Sarah Shaw:  This leak puts our lives and our allies’ lives at risk.

Julian Assange:  Are you still focused on yesterday’s news?

Guardian Exec.:  He’s not the source, he’s the head of a huge media empire with no accountability, and we put him there.

He can’t be trusted.  We need to shut him down.

Julian Assange:  It takes two things to change the world.  Good ideas aren’t that hard to fine.  Commitment, true commitment—it requires sacrifice.

Julian Assange:  Revolution is the struggle between the past and the future, and the future has just begun.

Sarah Shaw:   Five commissions, [all those years abroad,] all those years spent wondering if the slightest turn of phrase would send the world into a spin, and right now, I don’t know which one of us [her or Julian Assange] the world will judge more harshly.

Daniel:  The cult he was in, the family, they made the kids die their hair white.  I guess everyone has secrets, scars, wounds that shape them.  Some we can get past.  Some we can’t.

Daniel:  It was a moment where everything was possible.  We could change the world.

Daniel:  Julian made it all about him.  It always was.  Only someone so obsessed with hiding his own secrets could expose everybody else’s.

Julian Assange:  Tyrants of this world should beware.  We have the power now to demand the information that will wash them all away.

Julian Assange:  No one is going to tell you the truth.  They’ll only tell you their version.  You have to look for yourself.