Ted Turner Quotes & Sayings

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! — Ted Turner

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

I thought, between sports and news and television and friendship, that you could end the Cold War and, by God, we did. — Ted Turner

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! — Ted Turner

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

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

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. — Ted Turner

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. — Ted Turner

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

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? — Ted Turner

Sports is like a war without the killing. — Ted Turner

I'm just a socialist at heart. — Ted Turner

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

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. — Ted Turner

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. — Ted Turner

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

You can never quit. Winners never quit, and quitters never win. — Ted Turner

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. — Ted Turner

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

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

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. — Ted Turner

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

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

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

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. — Ted Turner

To succeed you have to be innovative. — Ted Turner

Rupert Murdoch is the most dangerous man in the world. — Ted Turner

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. — Ted Turner

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. — Ted Turner

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

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. — Ted Turner

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. — Ted Turner

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. — Ted Turner

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

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

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. — Ted Turner

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. — Ted Turner

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

I made a lot of money. I earned a lot of money with CNN and satellite and cable television. And you can't really spend large sums of money, intelligently, on buying things. So I thought the best thing I could do was put some of that money back to work - making an investment in the future of humanity. — Ted Turner

The next most dangerous thing [after nuclear proliferation] is probably ... global warming, and then, right behind that are overpopulation
we need to get serious about family planning-and trying to alleviate poverty, to get clean, renewable energy, probably with solar panels to the billion and a half people in the world who don't have access to electricity. — Ted Turner

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. — Ted Turner

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. — Ted Turner

There's nothing wrong with being fired. — Ted Turner

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. — Ted Turner

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. — Ted Turner

I didn't get here for my acting ... but I love show business. — Ted Turner

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. — Ted Turner

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

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

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. — Ted Turner

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. — Ted Turner

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. — Ted Turner

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

Where's the upside in opening your mouth? — Ted Turner

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

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

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. — Ted Turner

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. — Ted Turner

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

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. — Ted Turner

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. — Ted Turner

Never set goals you can reach in your lifetime. — Ted Turner

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

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. — Ted Turner

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. — Ted Turner

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

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

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. — Ted Turner

Life is a game. Money is how we keep score. — Ted Turner

I wanted to better inform the world. — Ted Turner

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. — Ted Turner

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. — Ted Turner

The mind is just another muscle. — Ted Turner

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. — Ted Turner

During my first several days there I really did feel like a fish out of water. After years of following a military dress code I wasn't even sure what to wear. The one place I felt like I fit in was out on a boat and, fortunately, trials for the freshman sailing team began right away. — Ted Turner

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. — Ted Turner

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

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

The happiest people are those who are contributing to society. — Ted Turner

The sad thing about destroying the environment is that we're going to take the rest of life with us. The bluebirds will be gone, and the elephants will be gone, and the tigers will be gone, and the pandas will be gone. — Ted Turner

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

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

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

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

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

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. — Ted Turner

Every man sees a little of himself in Rhett Butler. — Ted Turner

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. — Ted Turner

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. — Ted Turner

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. — Ted Turner

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

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

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. — Ted Turner

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. — Ted Turner

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

Christians are losers. — Ted Turner

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

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? — Ted Turner

If I had any humility I would be perfect. — Ted Turner

Christianity is a religion for losers. — Ted Turner