Ted Turner Quotes

If you treat people with dignity, respect and friendliness, you can turn enemies into friends. An enemy is nothing but a friend in disguise.

I believe in a reasonable amount of "right to bear arms". But private citizens of the United States are not allowed to own nuclear weapons. I always wanted a nuclear weapon, if I could have gotten one. I'm every other kind of power, but I'm not a nuclear power.

Be sure to set your goals so high that you can't possibly accomplish them in one lifetime. That way you'll always have something ahead of you. I made the mistake of setting my goals too low, and now I'm having a hard time coming up with new ones.

If I only had a little humility, I'd be perfect.

The world and life have been mighty good to me. And I want to put something back.

Nuclear war would really set back cable.

To be happy in this world, first you need a cell phone and then you need an airplane. Then you're truly wireless.

If you had the most prestige and you were the network that everybody turned to in times of a crisis, that that was the most important position, in the news business, to hold.

Once you decide to do something, and you're pretty sure you're right, then you gotta go ahead and do it. Because if you piddle around, somebody else will beat you to it.

If the perpetrators of the World Trade Center plane crashes had a nuclear weapon, there's no doubt in my mind but that they would've detonated it in New York.

If you panic that's a good way to lose. You have to stay in control.

I don't watch entertainment. I haven't watched in years. I want to see serious news.

I'm a very good thinker, but I sometimes grab the wrong word. I say something I didn't think through adequately. I mean, I don't type my speeches, then sit up there and read them off the teleprompter, you know. I wing it.

Basically we are chimpanzees with about two percent more intelligence and a little less hair.

If I had any humility I would be perfect.

The reason that the World Trade Center got hit is because there are a lot of people living in abject poverty out there who don't have any hope for a better life.

I love CNN. I love the Cartoon Network. I mean, I thought these things up.

You can never quit. Winners never quit, and quitters never win.

Music has a great power for bringing people together. With so many forces in this world acting to drive wedges between people, it's important to preserve those things that help us experience our common humanity.

Life is a game. Money is how we keep score.

Over-population is the 'cause of drive-by shootings' and other social ills, but the root of the problem is Christianity, which posits that people are more important than sea otters and elephants.

I'm a millionaire, I guess, but I'm just a normal person and I like everybody, taxi drivers, whoever you are, to call me by my first name and talk to me on a man-to-man basis. I think the garbage collector is as important as the goddamned president.

Sports is like a war without the killing.

I'm a human being, just like everybody else. I'm up some days and down others. Some days, I just refuse comment. If I'm feeling a little down, I won't say anything. But if I'm really up, I'll let it all hang out. I do have a slight propensity to put my foot in my mouth.

Even if we didn't have greenhouse gases, were going to have to move away from fossil fuels, as we're going to run out. They're finite, whereas solar and wind are infinite.

I think we've already voted at the U.N., in the Security Council, to get rid of nuclear weapons. Let's get rid of them. Let's get rid of ours and then Iran will stop, I believe. And so everybody else will, because if everybody doesn't have them, then we're safe, at least safe from a nuclear attack.

I'm sure God, wherever he is, wants to see us get along with one another and love one another.

At Time Warner, I had ten percent of the stock after the merger. But when we merged with AOL, I was diluted down to three percent.

Christianity is a religion for losers.

I didn't care what, how much adversity life threw at me. I intended to get to the top.

If people get all the sex they can handle, they're so happy and content they just sit around and smile. I mean, you never feel aggressive just after you've gotten laid, right? Lots of sex for everybody, that's a solution to the world's problems.

They weren't drunk - they were just being loud. I was trying out for the football team and needed to get some sleep. One night I'd finally had enough and when Ted ran by my open window I reached out, grabbed him by the throat, and pulled him halfway into my room. I said, "Hey, what the hell's the matter with you?

When I was young and ocean-racing competitively, and working the rest of the time, I was going 24 hours. I was on the verge of collapsing. But you've got to slow down a bit.

There's really five companies who control 90% of what we read, see, and hear.

The more good I do, the more money has come in. You have to learn to give. You're not born to give. You're born selfish.

I see the whole field of environmentalis m and population as nothing more
than the survival of the human species. I have wanted to have some bumper
sticker made up saying 'Save the Humans'. At the bottom of it all, we are
trying to save ourselves.

The worst thing you can do if you want to start a fight is to use derogatory terminology.

I'd like to say that right now, in the last few years, the Democrats have been closer - have been more pro-environment. The coal industry is pretty well entrenched in the Republican Party and that's one of the things that we need to phase out.

I like Obama. I don't know who could do a better job. He's got an incredibly tough situation, and a good heart and mind. I'd like to see him rally support a little better.

War has been good to me from a financial standpoint but I don't want to make money that way. I don't want blood money.

Hell, we spent $200 Billion to get a scared guy who needed a shave out of a fox-hole! And he may even die of prostate cancer before we even get a chance to try him, dammit!

I love this planet ... I want to see the environment preserved and I want to see the human race preserved. And I'd like to see everybody living decently in a more equitable, kind-hearted, thoughtful, generous world.

Jesus Christ would have been considered just another long-haired hippie freak if he hadn't been crucified. The folks weren't impressed with healing the sick, feeding the multitudes bread and fish or anything else, except maybe the walking on water. But when he got crucified, that gave him his big start.

I'm just a socialist at heart.

When our time's up, it's up. All the money in the world won't buy you one more day.

I had more energy at 50. On the other hand, at 75, I've probably got a little more wisdom and good judgment than I had at 50 because I've got more experience. But I haven't really changed. I'm still driven by the same philosophy.

I'm no genius. I'm not at all; I just happen to look five or 10 years ahead and think things through ...

I believe in pulling together to make the country better right rather than pulling, tearing it apart for partisan reasons. I think the country comes first.

All my life people have said that I wasn't going to make it.

If you think you're a second-class citizen, you are.

I regret that I wasn't more successful with my marriages, but it is what it is.

Life is like a B-movie. You don't want to leave in the middle of it but you don't want to see it again.

The media is too concentrated, too few people own too much. There's really five companies that control 90 percent of what we read, see and hear. It's not healthy.

Every man sees a little of himself in Rhett Butler.

There's a fine line between being colorful and being an asshole, and I hope I'm still just colorful.

I lost 80 percent of my wealth and then gave away over half of the rest. So I'm a man of modest means now. But if you budget carefully and watch your expenditures, you can get by on a couple billion dollars.

I like snakes. I like hummingbirds. There's nothing on earth I don't like. Frogs. Salamanders. The bunnies, the giraffes, the hippopotamuses.

It was now the fall of 1956, and nine years after entering Georgia Military Academy as a scrawny "Yankee" from Ohio, I was now considered a "southerner," enrolling at one of the North's most elite institutions.

Over a three year period, I gave away half of what I had. To be honest, my hands shook as I signed it away. I knew I was taking myself out of the race to be the richest man in the world.

I'd rather be smart and poor than rich and dumb.

Christians are losers.

To succeed you have to be innovative.

I have both sleep apnea and atrial fibrillation, which are both debilitating conditions.

Rupert Murdoch is the most dangerous man in the world.

Looking back, if I had to live my life over, there are things I would do differently, but the one thing I would not change is my charitable giving. I'm particularly thankful for my father's advice to set goals so high that they can't possibly be achieved during a lifetime and to give help where help is needed most. That inspiration keeps me energized and eager to keep working hard every day on giving back and making the world a better place for generations to come.

The United States has got some of the dumbest people in the world. I want you to know that we know that.

I travel a lot. I'm on the move.

We'll be eight degrees hotter in ten
not ten, but thirty or forty years, and basically none of the crops will grow. Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals.

CNN anchor Gwen Scott claimed it is common knowledge that Turner sits in his office and smokes marijuana.

I fantasize about everything; being a fireman, an Indian chief, climbing mountains. Anything is possible.

Men should be disqualified for public office. Women should run the planet. They're better than us.

Make a way, find a way or get out of the way.

The Palestinians are fighting with human suicide bombers, that's all they have. The Israelis they've got one of the most powerful military machines in the world. The Palestinians have nothing. So who are the terrorists? I would make a case that both sides are involved in terrorism.

You should set goals beyond your reach so you always have something to live for.

Just because your ratings are bigger doesn't mean you're better.

When I was a publisher of CNN, I took responsibility for the actions of the network.

The whole idea of television news or any kind of news is to inform people about things they need to know about.

Even when I started in 1970, I knew that television was having a negative effect on our society.

I'm hard of hearing. I miss a lot. It's really tough.

I wanted to better inform the world.

We're too many people; that's why we have global warming ... on a voluntary basis, everybody in the world's got to pledge to themselves that one child is it.

I was cable when cable wasn't cool.

The worst sin, the ultimate sin for me, in anything, is to be bored.

When I started 'CNN,' I made the decision to stay out of endorsing candidates, and let the doers make up their own minds about politics, that it wasn't going to come from me.

I've got a virtually limitless supply of bullshit.

I mean, there's no point in sittin' around and cryin' about spilt milk. Gotta move on.