Quotes from Edward R. Murrow

All I can hope to teach my son is to tell the truth and fear no man.

A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.

We cannot make good news out of bad practice.

We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.

Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts.

If you believe that this war will be decided on the home front, then you must believe that radio used as an instrument of war is one of the most powerful weapons a nation possesses.

If we were to do the Second Coming of Christ in color for a full hour, there would be a considerable number of stations which would decline to carry it on the grounds that a Western or a quiz show would be more profitable.

Learn your language well and command it well, and you will have the first component to life.

Just once in a while let us exalt the importance of ideas and information.

The newest computer can merely compound, at speed, the oldest problem in the relations between human beings, and in the end the communicator will be confronted with the old problem, of what to say and how to say it.

A satellite has no conscience.

We are to a large extent an imitative society.

Anyone who isn't confused really doesn't understand the situation.

I was greatly influenced by one of my teachers. She had a zeal not so much for perfection as for steady betterment-she demanded not excellence so much as integrity.

Everyone is a prisoner of his own experience. No one can eliminate prejudices--just recognize them.

We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty.

Unless we get off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.

Good night, and good luck.

I pray you to believe what I have said about Buchenwald. I have reported what I saw and heard, but only part of it. For most of it I have no words.

A reporter is always concerned with tomorrow. There's nothing tangible of yesterday. All I can say I've done is agitate the air ten or fifteen minutes and then boom -- it's gone.

After last night's debate, the reputation of Messieurs Lincoln and Douglas is secure.

I am entirely persuaded that the American public is more reasonable, restrained and mature than most of the broadcast industry's planners believe. Their fear of controversy is not warranted by the evidence.

Just once in a while let us exalt the importance of ideas and information.

The politician in my country seeks votes, affection and respect, in that order. ... With few notable exceptions, they are simply men who want to be loved.