Ted Turner Quotes

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.

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.

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

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'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 just a socialist at heart.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals.

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.

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.

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

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!

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

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.

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'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.