Eric Sevareid Quotes

The biggest big business in America is not steel, automobiles, or television. It is the manufacture, refinement and distribution of anxiety.

Christmas is a necessity. There has to be at least one day of the year to remind us that we're here for something else besides ourselves.

Next to power without honor, the most dangerous thing in the world is power without humor.

The difference between the men and the boys in politics is, and always has been , that the boys want to be something, while the men want to do something.

Better to trust the man who is frequently in error than the one who is never in doubt.

The bigger the information media, the less courage and freedom they follow. Bigness means weakness.

Wisdom is essential in a president, the appearance of wisdom will do in a candidate.

I'm sort of a pessimist about tomorrow and an optimist about the day after tomorrow.

The major cause of problems are solutions

With breathtaking rapidity, we are destroying all that was lovely to look at and turning America into a prison house of the spirit. The affluent society, with relentless single-minded energy, is turning our cities, most of suburbia and most of our roadways into the most affluent slum on earth.

No man was ever more than about nine meals away from crime or suicide.

You can't know who you are, as a nation or a people, unless you know where you've been.

It is perfectly clear that people, given no alternative, will choose tyranny over anarchy, because anarchy is the worst tyranny of all... The special nature of liberties is that they can be defended only as long as we still have them. So the very first signs of their erosion must be resisted, whether the issue be domestic surveillance by the Army, so-called preventive detention, or the freedom of corporate television, or that of a campus newspaper.

Tenacity is a pretty fair substitute for bravery, and the best form of tenacity I know is expressed in a Danish fur trapper's principle: "The next mile is the only one a person really has to make."

I have never quite grasped the worry about the power of the press. After all, it speaks with a thousand voices, in constant dissonance.

Brotherhood is not so wild a dream as those, who profit by postponing it, pretend.

It is only people with a sense of personal responsibility who can help others. It is only people with a sense of personal responsibility who can be helped in a lasting way.

The five happiest people I have ever met all had this strange little quirk of referring to their jobs as a 'calling.'

There are only two kinds of people in the world, suckers and people that can be had. Everyone can be had, but a sucker will always bet you $50 that he can't be had. Maybe magicians are around to remind us we can all be had, so we don't become suckers.

The most distinguished hallmark of the American society is and always has been change.

Men want power in order to do something. Boys want power in order to be something.

Consultant: an ordinary guy more than 50 miles from home.

People, if given the choice between anarchy and dictatorship, will always choose dictatorship because anarchy is the worst dictatorship of all.

Dealing with network executives is like being nibbled to death by ducks.

For children, Christmas is anticipation. For adults, Christmas is memory.

The best way to get thrown out of the columnists' club is to be uncertain about anything whatsoever on this earth.

Most problems are caused by solutions.

The chief source of problems is solutions.

Saints are usually killed by their own people.

Words themselves become beings, sentences becomenatural vegetation to be guided by the gardener's hands.