Daily Inspiration Quote by Bob Woodward

Woodward’s line sounds diplomatic, but it carries the weary realism of someone who’s watched Washington turn “the press vs. power” into a permanent contact sport. “I don’t think there will ever be a permanent truce” is the tell: he’s not fantasizing about kumbaya access journalism. He’s acknowledging that antagonism is structural, almost healthy. The press is supposed to be a problem for presidents, agencies, and billionaires; institutions are supposed to push back. Conflict isn’t a glitch in the system. It is the system.

Then he pivots to discipline, and that’s the real message. “Count to 10” is deliberately plain, almost parental, a piece of newsroom folk wisdom aimed at an industry increasingly built for speed, performance, and instant moral clarity. It’s also a subtle rebuke to the incentives that now govern media: the hot take that outpaces verification, the push alert that substitutes adrenaline for judgment, the churn that treats “being first” as a proxy for being right.

Coming from Woodward, this isn’t abstract virtue-signaling about standards. His brand was built on method: documents, corroboration, patience, and sources who talk because they trust you won’t light a match near them. The subtext is that credibility is the only durable leverage the press has in its never-ending fight with power. If you rush, you don’t just risk a bad story; you hand your adversaries the propaganda they’re begging for: one error, inflated into proof that the whole enterprise is corrupt. Counting to 10 is not caution as timidity. It’s caution as strategy.