Quotes from Edward R. Murrow

The politician is ... trained in the art of inexactitude. His words tend to be blunt or rounded, because if they have a cutting edge they may later return to wound him.

We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason if we ... remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes which were, for the moment, unpopular.

A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.

We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men – not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular

We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.

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

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

Our major obligation is not to mistake slogans for solutions.

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

A great many people think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices.

No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices.

The speed of communications is wondrous to behold. It is also true that speed can multiply the distribution of information that we know to be untrue.

We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up 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.

Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.

No one man can terrorize a whole nation unless we are all his accomplices.

Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts.

The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer.

Most truth's are so naked that people feel sorry for them and cover them up, at least a little bit.

Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you're any wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.

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.

To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be creditable; to be credible we must be truthful.

We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our own history and our doctrine and remember that we are not descended from fearful men. Not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular.... There is no way for a citizen of the Republic to abdicate his responsibility.

We are in the same tent as the clowns and the freaks-that's show business.

When the politicians complain that TV turns the proceedings into a circus, it should be made clear that the circus was already there, and that TV has merely demonstrated that not all the performers are well trained.