1.
A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.
Edward R. Murrow
2.
American traditions and the American ethic require us to be truthful, but the most important reason is that truth is the best propaganda and lies are the worst. To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful. It is as simple as that.
Edward R. Murrow
3.
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.
Edward R. Murrow
4.
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 ... We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.
Edward R. Murrow
5.
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.
Edward R. Murrow
The velocity of communication is astonishing to observe. It is equally true that swiftness can augment the dispersal of misinformation.
6.
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.
Edward R. Murrow
7.
I simply cannot accept that there are on every story two equal and logical sides to an argument.
Edward R. Murrow
I find it impossible to concede that every dispute has two equally valid perspectives.
8.
No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices.
Edward R. Murrow
No individual can instill fear in an entire population, unless we all are his abettors.
9.
We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.
Edward R. Murrow
10.
We hardly need to be reminded that we are living in an age of confusion - a lot of us have traded in our beliefs for bitterness and cynicism or for a heavy package of despair, or even a quivering portion of hysteria. Opinions can be picked up cheap in the market place while such commodities as courage and fortitude and faith are in alarmingly short supply.
Edward R. Murrow
11.
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.
Edward R. Murrow
12.
To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be truthful.
Edward R. Murrow
13.
We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty.
Edward R. Murrow
14.
Good night, and good luck.
Edward R. Murrow
15.
One of the basic troubles with radio and television news is that both instruments have grown up as an incompatible combination of show business, advertising and news. Each of the three is a rather bizarre and demanding profession. And when you get all three under one roof, the dust never settles.
Edward R. Murrow
16.
Our history will be what we make of it. If we go on as we are, then history will take its revenge and retribution will not limp in catching up with us. So, just once in a while let us exhault the importance of ideas and information.
Edward R. Murrow
17.
If none of us ever read a book that was "dangerous," had a friend who was "different," or joined an organization that advocated "change," we would all be the kind of people Joe McCarthy wants.
Edward R. Murrow
18.
Our major obligation is not to mistake slogans for solutions.
Edward R. Murrow
19.
Your voice, amplified to the degree where it reaches from one end of the country to the other, does not confer upon you greater wisdom than when your voice reached only from one end of the bar to the other.
Edward R. Murrow
20.
If radio news is to be regarded as a commodity, only acceptable when saleable, then I don't care what you call it - I say it isn't news.
Edward R. Murrow
21.
We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason.
Edward R. Murrow
22.
This instrument [radio] can teach. It can illuminate, yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it's nothing but wires and lights in a box.
Edward R. Murrow
23.
I have always been on the side of the heretics, against those who burned them, because the heretics so often turned out to be right....Dead, but right.
Edward R. Murrow
24.
We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.
Edward R. Murrow
25.
The only thing that counts is the right to know, to speak, to think - that, and the sanctity of the courts. Otherwise it's not America.
Edward R. Murrow
26.
I am seized with an abiding fear regarding what these two instruments are doing to our society, our culture and our heritage. Our history will be what we make it. And if there are any historians about fifty or a hundred years from now, and there should be preserved the kinescopes for one week of all three networks, they will there find recorded in black and white, or color, evidence of decadence, escapism and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live.
Edward R. Murrow
27.
Learn your language well and command it well, and you will have the first component to life.
Edward R. Murrow
28.
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.
Edward R. Murrow
29.
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.
Edward R. Murrow
30.
To be credible we must be truthful.
Edward R. Murrow
31.
A satellite has no conscience.
Edward R. Murrow
32.
We cannot make good news out of bad practice.
Edward R. Murrow
33.
Just once in a while, let us exalt the importance of ideas and information.
Edward R. Murrow
34.
The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer.
Edward R. Murrow
35.
Most truths are so naked that people feel sorry for them and cover them up, at least a little bit.
Edward R. Murrow
36.
I have no feud, either with my employers, any sponsors, or with the professional critics of radio and television. But I am seized with an abiding fear regarding what these two instruments are doing to our society, our culture and our heritage.
Edward R. Murrow
37.
The Wright brothers' first flight was not reported in a single newspaper because every rookie reporter knew what could and couldn't be done.
Edward R. Murrow
38.
Anyone who isn't confused really doesn't understand the situation.
Edward R. Murrow
39.
Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices - just recognize them.
Edward R. Murrow
40.
Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts.
Edward R. Murrow
41.
We are in the same tent as the clowns and the freaks - that's show business.
Edward R. Murrow
42.
People say conversation is a lost art; how often I have wished it were.
Edward R. Murrow
43.
It is well to remember that freedom through the press is the thing that comes first. Most of us probably feel we couldn't be free without newspapers, and that is the real reason we want the newspapers to be free.
Edward R. Murrow
44.
The real crucial link in the international exchange is the last three feet, which is bridged by personal contact, one person talking to another.
Edward R. Murrow
45.
The best speakers know enough to be scared…the only difference between the pros and the novices is that the pros have trained the butterflies to fly in formation.
Edward R. Murrow
46.
Seldom, if ever, has a war ended leaving the victors with such a sense of uncertainty and fear, with such a realization that the future is obscure and that survival is not assured.
Edward R. Murrow
47.
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.
Edward R. Murrow
48.
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.
Edward R. Murrow
49.
Most of them [American politicians] are men of undoubted charm, ability, and incredible energy, and yet too often they lack purpose or appetite for anything beyond their own careers. With few notable exceptions, they are simply men who want to be loved.
Edward R. Murrow
50.
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.
Edward R. Murrow