Top 148 Quotes & Sayings by Ted Turner

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American businessman Ted Turner.

Last updated on September 17, 2024.

Robert Edward Turner III is an American entrepreneur, television producer, media proprietor, and philanthropist. He founded the Cable News Network (CNN), the first 24-hour cable news channel. In addition, he founded WTBS, which pioneered the superstation concept in cable television, which later became TBS.

American - Businessman | Born: November 19, 1938

Source: Wikipedia

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

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

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

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

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

Ted Turner

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

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

I see what keeps people young: work!

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

Ted Turner

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

Ted Turner

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

Ted Turner

The mind is just another muscle.

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

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.

Ted Turner

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

Ted Turner

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

Ted Turner

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

Ted Turner

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

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

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.

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

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

Ted Turner

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

Ted Turner

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

Ted Turner

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

Ted Turner

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.

Ted Turner

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

Ted Turner

If I had any humility I would be perfect.

Ted Turner

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

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 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

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

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

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'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

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

There's nothing wrong with being fired.

Ted Turner

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

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 think George Bush is the most dangerous man in the 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

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

Ted Turner

Sports is like a war without the killing.

Ted Turner

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.

Ted Turner

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

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

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

Ted Turner

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

Ted Turner

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

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

Ted Turner

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

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

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

Ted Turner

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

Ted Turner

Rupert Murdoch is the most dangerous man in the world.

Ted Turner

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

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

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