Edward R. Murrow Quotes

It is astonishing that in a country so devoted to the individual, so many people should be afraid to speak.

I don't believe that expressing your opinion, regardless of who is there, is being rude. And it's a shame that we've reached a level in our country where we think that you don't have the right to put your opinion out there.

The free expression of the hopes and aspirations of a people is the greatest and only safety in a sane society.

The old restriction meant that only the orthodox were allowed to discuss religion. Modern liberty means that nobody is allowed to discuss it. Good taste, the last and vilest of human superstitions, has succeeded in silencing us where all the rest have failed.

I think people are afraid to express their opinions half the time.

In the West, you don't get in any trouble if you tell the truth, but you still can't do it. Not only can't you tell the truth, you can't think the truth. It's just so deeply embedded, deeply instilled, that without any meaningful coercion it comes out the same way it does in a totalitarian state.

In our society, more and more, people are running around offended by syllables, even. People are afraid to say anything. It reminds me of the days of the old Soviet Union, where people would have to go into the bathroom to say what they were really thinking.

I hate to tell people what they should think 'cause I really have an aversion when people tell me what to think.

The problem of freedom in America is that of maintaining a competition of ideas, and you do not achieve that by silencing one brand of idea.

... in so many Muslim communities now, saving face trumps critical thinking and truth-telling. This is why reform from within Islam is so difficult.

I think people are frightened of saying what they think, and I think that's a bad thing for society.

One's political views and/or religious beliefs should not exist in an impenetrable and inviolable bubble wherein they are protected from criticism or scrutiny.

[Alan Berg's] memory haunts many people, even those who never heard him on the radio, because his death could be read as a message: Be cautious, be prudent, be bland, never push anybody, never say what you really think, offer yourself as a hostage to the weirdos even before they make the first move. These days, a lot of people are opposed to the newfound popularity of 'trash television,' and no doubt they are right, and the hosts of these shows are shameless controversy-mongers. But at least they are not intimidated. Of what use is freedom of speech to those who fear to offend?

In this country, intellectual cowardice is the worst enemy a writer or journalist has to face ... Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and incovenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban ... At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of iedas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question.

We have so few unaffiliated public intellectuals now - people who are not beholden to a think tank, corporate-owned media, or academic department - and even many literary writers look and behave like young urban professionals and canny careerists.

[W]hen a group of people make something sacred, the members of the cult lose the ability to think clearly about it. Morality binds and blinds.

Most Christians are afraid that people will think for themselves; most atheists are afraid that they won’t.

The freedom to think out loud on certain topics, without fear of being hounded into hiding or killed, has already been lost.

On the other side of the spectrum, you see someone like Donald Trump, who is using as the basis of his campaign political incorrectness. It's clearly intentional. He'd have to be a complete moron just to coincidentally insult Mexicans, and women, and disabled people, and Muslims. So clearly he's using it as a vote winner. But I think with comedians there's a responsibility.

Freedom of expression must be considered sacred and thought can only be corrected by counter thought.

In civic life, I think that's where you can debate what is good taste and what is acceptable to other people, and what's gonna offend people. Do that there, but leave it out of art, because art is the one frontier that shouldn't have restraints put on it.

... on the whole 'blasphemy' has been a force for good in human history. It is part of the process by which millions of people have come to reject theocracy and think for themselves.

It's not necessarily a brave thing, people talk about what they think about. There's people out there who love to talk about politics or where they think the countries headed. I don't talk about that I talk about...things that are a little trippier.

On the road, when I do stand-up, people would always say, "What do you think about Donald Trump?" If you said, "He's crazy," they'd be like, "Yeah, he's crazy." But if you said, "I don't know - he seems interesting," they would be like, "That's really what I think."

The civilization of a country consists in the quality of life that is lived there, and this quality shows plainest in the things that people choose to talk about when they talk together, and in the way they choose to talk about them.