Ted Koppel Quotes & Sayings

Neighborliness is more than a slogan here; it is, as it has always been, an essential element of self-preservation in a challenging environment. The — Ted Koppel

A secret blueprint for US global domination reveals that President Bush and his cabinet were planning a premeditated attack on Iraq to secure regime change even before he took power in January 2001 ... It has been called a secret blueprint for US global domination ... A small group of people with a plan to remove Saddam Hussein long before George W. Bush was elected president ... And 9/11 provided the opportunity to set it in motion. Not since Mein Kampf has a geopolitical punch been so blatantly telegraphed years ahead of the blow. — Ted Koppel

It becomes increasingly easy, as you get older, to drown in nostalgia. — Ted Koppel

President Carter famously said the hostages were the first thing he thought about in the morning and the last thing he thought about at night. It was a downright foolish thing to say, because it made the people holding the hostages realize that they had an awful lot of influence over the United States. — Ted Koppel

Our society finds truth too strong a medicine to digest undiluted. In its purest form, truth is not a polite tap on the shoulder. It is a howling reproach. — Ted Koppel

I have the necessary lack of tact. — Ted Koppel

There is no more respected or influential forum in the field of journalism than the New York Times. I look forward, with great anticipation, to contributing to its op-ed page. — Ted Koppel

Pessimists calculate the odds. Optimists believe they can overcome them. — Ted Koppel

I think we're glazing eyes all across America. — Ted Koppel

Well, Keith Alexander, the former director of the NSA wants to say every company in the United States falls under one of two categories, those that have been hacked and those that don't yet know it. — Ted Koppel

Emotions get in the way but they don't pay me to start crying at the loss of 269 lives. They pay me to put some perspective on the situation. — Ted Koppel

There's harmony and inner peace to be found in following a moral compass that points in the same direction regardless of fashion or trend. — Ted Koppel

What Moses brought down from Mt Siniai were not ten suggestions. They are Commandments — Ted Koppel

If we're able to identify our own ignorance, we can identify someone else's expertise. We learn how to listen to each other. And that is the foundation of human understanding. — Ted Koppel

History is a tool used by politicians to justify their intentions. — Ted Koppel

Journalism has become a sort of competitive screeching: what is trivial but noisy and immediate takes precedence over important matters that develop over time. — Ted Koppel

I have been an unabashed fan of NPR for many years, and have stolen untold excellent ideas from its programming. — Ted Koppel

Going after ISIS, it's beautiful, I like it. — Ted Koppel

These days, NORAD's peak period of public visibility is at Christmastime when it tracks the course of Santa and his sleigh. — Ted Koppel

But the irony is they think they're being tough on ISIS and Trump thinks he's being tough on ISIS. Senator Rubio in his interview with you touched on it very, very lightly. — Ted Koppel

Beginning, perhaps, from the reasonable perspective that absolute objectivity is unattainable, Fox News and MSNBC no longer even attempt it. They show us the world not as it is, but as partisans (and loyal viewers) at either end of the political spectrum would like it to be. This is to journalism what Bernie Madoff was to investment: He told his customers what they wanted to hear, and by the time they learned the truth, their money was gone. — Ted Koppel

Today, reports of the day's events are conveyed to the viewing public by way of alternate universes, The Fox News cable channel conveys its version of reality, while at the other end of the ideological spectrum MSNBC presents its version. They and their many counterparts on radio are more the result of an economic dynamic than a political one. Dispatching journalists into the field to gather information costs money; hiring a glib bloviator is relatively cheap, and inviting opinionated guests to vent on the air is entirely cost-free. It wouldn't work if it weren't popular, and audiences, it turns out, are endlessly absorbed by hearing amplified echoes of their own biases. It's divisive and damaging to the healthy functioning of our political system, but it's also indisputably inexpensive and, therefore, good business. — Ted Koppel

To face despair and not give in to it, that's courage. — Ted Koppel

My function is, as objectively and accurately as I can, to present reality to people out there, and doing that as quickly as we do is quite difficult enough, thank you. — Ted Koppel

They don't want to get dirty and they know that Trump loves this kind of thing. And your polls, and yours are what's giving them the material that they need, it's the oxygen that the Trump campaign requires, a poll every three or four days showing him where he is. — Ted Koppel

The problem is everybody is worrying about explosive vests and people with AK-47s. We live in a day and age when someone sitting in Somalia or in Chile or in Perth, Australia, can be sitting there with a laptop and can theoretically take down one of our power grids or part of our infrastructure and do infinitely more damage. Nobody talks about that. It's not a question of who comes into the United States. We're way past that. — Ted Koppel

In the days of Caesar, kings had fools and jesters. Now network presidents have anchormen. — Ted Koppel

Siemens had to go to every deployment of their software worldwide and change the password. Getting — Ted Koppel

It is precisely among young, educated radicals, warns Austin, that a new generation of cyber warriors will be recruited. — Ted Koppel

There is something very very special, universal and easily identifiable among all Jews; it is beyond territory, it is something we all have in common. — Ted Koppel

What Moses brought down from Mt. Sinai were not the Ten Suggestions, they are Commandments. Are, not were. — Ted Koppel

You can almost measure where you are in life by the degree to which you have begun looking back rather than ahead. — Ted Koppel

Every single of us is going to be saying, "Thank God, finally, an interesting convention." But you're right about all those people out there. All the people who have been energized by the Trump campaign are going to be very, very angry folk if they think that Trump is not well treated. — Ted Koppel

Set your sights beyond what you can see. There is true majesty in the concept of an unseen power which can neither be measured nor weighed. — Ted Koppel

Donald Trump is, in effect, the Recruiter-in-Chief for ISIS. ISIS wants nothing more right now than to have the world divided into Judeo-Christian on one side and the Islamic world on the other. That's exactly what Trump is doing for them. I think it's time we start with thinking about what ISIS wants and then not doing it. — Ted Koppel

Terrorism is simply the weapon by which the weak engage the strong. — Ted Koppel

My level of cynicism about the reasons that took us to war against Iraq remain just as well-developed as they were before I went. — Ted Koppel

People shouldn't expect the mass media to do investigative stories. That job belongs to the 'fringe' media. — Ted Koppel

Would anyone else like to say anything nice about women? — Ted Koppel

The responsibility that I feel is to do as good a job as a journalist as I can possibly do. — Ted Koppel

And there will continue to be a specific threat, and there will continue to be terrorism, as there has been for as long as human history exists. — Ted Koppel

Look, fundamentally there are two sets of questions that apply in the war against terrorism. The one set of questions deals with the, "Where is it going to happen? What's going to happen? When is it going to happen?" The other set of questions deals with, "What is it that our enemy, the terrorists, are trying to achieve?" What are they trying to induce us to do? — Ted Koppel

More than four thousand programs produced and consumed. Some of them were pretty good, a great many of them were forgettable; but a handful may even be worth a book. — Ted Koppel