Top 60 Edward R. Murrow Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.”

— Edward R. Murrow

Featured in: Government Quotes

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

— Edward R. Murrow

Featured in: Integrity Quotes

3. “We’re 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

4. “Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts.”

— Edward R. Murrow

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

— Edward R. Murrow

Featured in: Teaching Quotes

6. “We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty.”

— Edward R. Murrow

7. “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.”

— Edward R. Murrow

8. “I simply cannot accept that there are, on every story, two equal and logical sides to an argument.”

— Edward R. Murrow

9. “Anyone who isn’t confused really doesn’t understand the situation.”

— Edward R. Murrow

10. “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

11. “Speaking of Sir Winston Churchill: He mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.”

— Edward R. Murrow

12. “We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason.”

— Edward R. Murrow

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

— Edward R. Murrow

14. “Good night, and good luck.”

— Edward R. Murrow

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

— Edward R. Murrow

16. “Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices – just recognize them.”

— Edward R. Murrow

17. “Our major obligation is not to mistake slogans for solutions.”

— Edward R. Murrow

18. “Just once in a while, let us exalt the importance of ideas and information.”

— Edward R. Murrow

19. “All babies look like Winston Churchill.”

— Edward R. Murrow

20. “We cannot make good news out of bad practice.”

— Edward R. Murrow

21. “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.”

— Edward R. Murrow

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

— Edward R. Murrow

23. “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

24. “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

25. “It has always seemed to me the real art in this business is not so much moving information or guidance or policy five or 10,000 miles. That is an electronic problem. The real art is to move it the last three feet in face to face conversation.”

— Edward R. Murrow

26. “To be credible we must be truthful.”

— Edward R. Murrow

27. “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.”

— Edward R. Murrow

28. “We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.”

— Edward R. Murrow

29. “Language is one of the greatest gifts man has devised for himself. It ranks, alongside the discovery of fire and the wheel, as a major influence in making modern man what he is today.”

— Edward R. Murrow

30. “I am frightened by the imbalance, the constant striving to reach the largest possible audience for everything; by the absence of a sustained study of the state of the nation.”

— Edward R. Murrow

31. “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

32. “The right of dissent, or, if you prefer, the right to be wrong, is surely fundamental to the existence of a democratic society. That’s the right that went first in every nation that stumbled down the trail toward totalitarianism.”

— Edward R. Murrow

33. “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

34. “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

35. “All I can hope to teach my son is to tell the truth and fear no man.”

— Edward R. Murrow

36. “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

37. “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

38. “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

39. “We are to a large extent an imitative society.”

— Edward R. Murrow

40. “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

41. “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

42. “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

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. “A satellite has no conscience.”

— Edward R. Murrow

45. “Learn your language well and command it well, and you will have the first component to life.”

— Edward R. Murrow

46. “Tuberculosis, starvation, fatigue, and there are many who have no desire to live.”

— Edward R. Murrow

47. “I am entirely persuaded that the American public is more reasonable, restrained and mature than most of the broadcast industry’s planners believe. Their fear of controversy is not warranted by the evidence.”

— Edward R. Murrow

48. “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

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

— Edward R. Murrow

50. “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