Daily Inspiration Quote by Arthur Hays Sulzberger

A publisher’s candor can be more revealing than any diplomatic communique, and Sulzberger’s line carries the cool shock of an American establishment realizing the map has changed underneath it. The first clause is almost brutally casual: Ottawa and Washington “didn’t think much” about Turkey or Iran, so their opinions “were not very important.” That’s not ignorance so much as an admission of hierarchy. Some countries get to be “important” because powerful capitals look at them; others remain peripheral until history drags them into view.

The turn on “but now” is where the intent sharpens. Sulzberger isn’t celebrating new curiosity; he’s warning about consequences. Once Turkey and Iran become strategically legible - as bridges, buffers, oil routes, Cold War pivot points - Western perception stops being a private prejudice and becomes an instrument. “What we think” matters “to ourselves,” because policy is downstream from imagination: stereotypes become strategies; assumptions become interventions. It also matters “to many other peoples,” a phrase that quietly acknowledges how U.S. and Canadian attitudes radiate outward, shaping alliances, sanctions, aid, coups, headlines.

As a newspaper publisher, Sulzberger is also implicating his own industry. If public opinion is suddenly “extremely important,” then the machinery that manufactures public opinion - editors, correspondents, framing - becomes part of statecraft. The subtext is accountability: in an interconnected era, provincial disinterest is no longer harmless, and attention, once switched on, can be as destabilizing as neglect.