Quotations from
Edward R. Murrow
[1908-65]

“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 just causes that were, for the moment, unpopular.”
on "See It Now" [CBS News] 6 April 1954  {Issue #55}

“There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful. Stonewall Jackson, who knew something about the use of weapons, is reported to have said, 'When war comes, you must draw the sword and throw away the scabbard'. The trouble with television is that it is rusting in the scabbard during a battle for survival.”  {Issue #67}

“I don't think [that] there are two equal sides to every story.”  {Issue #59}
•      •
“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think
the soul of America dies with it.”   {blog 11/2007}
•      •
“We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.”  {blog 3/2008}
•      •
“To be persuasive, we must be believable; to be believable, we must be credible;
to be credible, we must be truthful.”  {blog 7/2008}

Edward R. Murrow Quotations Not Yet Used on the Blog

"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions,
that I wish it to be always kept alive."

"A reporter is always concerned with tomorrow. There's nothing tangible of yesterday.
All [that] I can say I've done is agitate the air ten or fifteen minutes and then boom – it's gone."

"Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts."

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

"Fame is morally neutral."

"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."

"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."

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

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

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

"Our major obligation is not to mistake slogans for solutions."

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

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home."