Quotes By Edward R. Murrow

Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts.

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.

Our major obligation is not to mistake slogans for solutions.

Fame is morally neutral.

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.

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

Good night, and good luck.

We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.

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

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

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.

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

We cannot make good news out of bad practice.

A satellite has no conscience.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

People say conversation is a lost art; how often I have wished it were.

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