Ted turner quotes

It was okay for people to write negative things about me just as long as they spelled my name right.

There is no greater legacy that we can leave our children and grandchildren than a peaceful and safer world.

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

Every few seconds it changes - up an eighth, down an eighth - it's like playing a slot machine. I lose $20 million, I gain $20 million.

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

Many times through the ages, like as not the chance appears, but because of indecision, man's fond hopes are drowned in tears.

What the Bible says is really true-it's better to give than to receive.

Christianity is a religion for losers.

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.

Once again, victims of disaster have turned to the UN and the international community in their time of need, .. The world needs the UN's leadership in these times, and the UN needs the world's support. We are communicating with the UN and its agencies to learn where UN Foundation funds may be of greatest assistance to the UN's relief efforts.

Every action or inaction has an impact-good or bad-upon our surroundings, and anything we do today will have an impact on the lives of our grandchildren.

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 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.

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

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

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

A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal.

If you can get yourself where you're not afraid of dying, then you can move forward a lot faster.

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

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.

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

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

I think Captain Cousteau might be the father of the environmental movement.

I was gonna go broke if I didn't get things turned around real fast.

Newspapers are technologically obsolete. In the days of instant electronic communications, its crazy to have to print these newspapers at a central plant and deliver them by truck. They're the biggest problem with our solid-waste disposal. And the news you get is a day old. You can get it off the Internet instantaneously for a fraction of the cost.

John is very aware of the responsibilities that come with being a landowner. I also feel that way. We both see landownership as a personal investment, but also an opportunity to contribute to the well-being of our planet and its inhabitants.

I've got a virtually limitless supply of bullshit.

There's nothing wrong with being fired.

I've always tried to do the smartest and best thing.

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!

The Iranians don't intimidate! They're like the Vietnamese and the Iraqis. You want to start a war with them? They'll still be fighting in fifty years!

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

My son is now an 'entrepreneur.' That's what you're called when you don't have a job.

It's going to cost trillions of dollars to rework the energy sources all over the world. Were going to have to move away from fossil fuels.

If you never quit, you're never beaten.

The happiest people are those who are contributing to society.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

If there is a God, he is not doing a good job of protecting the earth. He's kind of checked out.

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

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

Rupert Murdoch is the most dangerous man in the world.

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

Man should be judged by the deeds done to help his fellow man.

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.

There are too many people, that's why we have global warming. We have global warming because too many people are using too much stuff.

When I got my statement in January, I was worth $2.2 billion. Then I got another statement in August that said I was worth $3.2 billion. So I figure it's only nine months' earnings, who cares?

I've had the good fortune to have a much more diverse life than most people would, professional sports and television and news and movies.

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.

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.

Never set goals you can reach in your lifetime.

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.

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

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.

I'm 68 and a half years old; I grew up with newspapers; I love newspapers; I love the news business. I started CNN; I'm a journalist and proud of it.

The mind is just another muscle.

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.

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

Sports is like a war without the killing.

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.

Exposure to defeat is a very important thing. Anyone who doesn't look to get beaten is doing a disservice to himself.

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.

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

It was a struggle financing CNN, but I did it without ever asking the government for a nickel.

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

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

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.

The chance for mistakes is about equal to the number of crew squared.

Nuclear war would really set back cable.

The U.N. had such lofty goals to eliminate poverty and stop war and cure diseases and help refugees - things that no one country could do.

Women? I love women. Life would have been virtually zero without them. Journalism? I really feel like I am a journalist... And courage? I had a boat named Courageous.

Struggling hard to achieve something is the most fun I get.

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

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

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

I don't measure success in numbers, but I consider my contributions of more than $1.3 billion to various causes over the years to be one of my proudest accomplishments and the best investment I've ever made. Those dollars have improved lives, saved species, fought disease, educated children, inspired change, challenged ideas and opened minds; at the time of my death, virtually all of my wealth will have gone to charity.

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.

If I only had a little humility, I would be perfect.

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.

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.

It's been a long time since anybody caught me saying something stupid.

We won't be signing off until the world ends. We'll be on, and we will cover the end of the world, live, and that will be our last event . . . we'll play 'Nearer, My God, to Thee' before we sign off.

We must go through a natural revolution if we are to survive on earth. We need to change people's perceptions. If there's no environment, there's no human race. We are in a state of global denial.

The word impossible does not exist for me. I've got a lot of signal flags in my flag bag, but there is not a white one in there. I am going to keep fighting until the day I die - and might keep on fighting afterward ... depends on where I am.

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

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.

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.

We have to do more than keep media giants from growing larger; they're already too big. We need a new set of rules that will break these huge companies to pieces.

The biggest thing I learned from losing? Winning's better.

I know what I'm having 'em put on my tombstone: 'I have nothing more to say'.

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

If I had to predict, the way things are going, I'd say the chances are about 50-50 that humanity will be extinct or nearly extinct within 50 years. Weapons of mass destruction, disease, I mean this global warming is scaring the living daylights out of me.

If the Russian nuclear arsenal was fired at the United States and other targets, and we fired back at them with thousands of nuclear weapons, it would be the end of life on earth.

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

I haven't been in a store to buy anything for five years.

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

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

I just love it when people say I can't do something. There's nothing that makes me feel better, because all my life people have said I wasn't going to make it.

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.

I'm just a socialist at heart.

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

Do something. Either lead, follow or get out of the way.

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

I was cable when cable wasn't cool.

Every man sees a little of himself in Rhett Butler.

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.

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.

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

If I sold all my liabilities, I wouldn't own anything. My wife's a liability, my kids are liabilities, and I haven't sold them.

I just love it when people say I can't do it, there's nothing that makes me feel better because all my life, people have said that I wasn't going to make it.

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

Where's the upside in opening your mouth?

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.

Christians are losers.

I like something with 'vice' in it.

I've never run into a guy who could win at the top level in anything today and didn't have the right attitude, didn't give it everything he had, at least while he was doing it; wasn't prepared and didn't have the whole program worked out.

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.

To succeed you have to be innovative.

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.

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