Edward R. Murrow

Our major obligation is not to mistake slogans for solutions.

To be persuasive, we must be believable, To be believable, we must be credible, To be credible, we must be truthful.

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

The fact that your voice is amplified to the degree where it reaches from one end of the country to the other does not confer upon you greater wisdom or understanding than you possessed when your voice reached only from one end of the bar to the other.

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. 1959

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.

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

Trudność to wymówka, której historia nigdy nie akceptuje.

Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts.

Of this be wary. Honor and fame are often regarded as interchangeable. Both involve an appraisal of the individual. . . but I suggest this difference. Fame is morally neutral.

No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices. (on On US Senator Joseph McCarthy's coercive congressional hearings on Communism, 1954)

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 just the kind of people Joe McCarthy wants. Whose fault is that? Not really McCarthy's. He didn't create this situation of fear. He merely exploited it, and rather successfully.

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

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.

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.

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.

Zagmatwane w końcu zobaczymy jasno. Z całkowicie oczywistym 一 zdaje się 一 zajmuje nieco dłużej.

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