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.
– Edward R. Murrow
A satellite has no conscience.
– Edward R. Murrow
After last night's debate, the reputation of Messieurs Lincoln and Douglas is secure.
– Edward R. Murrow
Anyone who isn't confused really doesn't understand the situation.
– Edward R. Murrow
Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts.
– Edward R. Murrow
Good night, and good luck.
– Edward R. Murrow
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
Most truths are so naked that people feel sorry for them and cover them up, at least a little bit.
– Edward R. Murrow
No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices.
– Edward R. Murrow
Our major obligation is not to mistake slogans for solutions.
– Edward R. Murrow
People say conversation is a lost art; how often I have wished it were.
– Edward R. Murrow
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
The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer.
– Edward R. Murrow
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
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
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
To be persuasive we must be belivable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be truthful.
– Edward R. Murrow
We are in the same tent as the clowns and the freaks-that's show business.
– Edward R. Murrow
We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.
– Edward R. Murrow
We cannot make good news out of bad practice.
– Edward R. Murrow
We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.
– Edward R. Murrow
A great many people think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices.
– Edward R. Murrow
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.