Dan Rather quotes
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“Courage is being afraid but going on anyhow.”
-- Dan RatherSource : Twitter post from Jul 16, 2014
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“A tough lesson in life that one has to learn is that not everybody wishes you well.”
-- Dan RatherSource : FaceBook post by Dan Rather from Jul 21, 2014
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“A college degree is the key to realizing the American dream, well worth the financial sacrifice because it is supposed to open the door to a world of opportunity.”
-- Dan RatherSource : "I’ve Discovered Facebook" by Dan Rather, www.huffingtonpost.com. September 24, 2012.
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“The dream begins with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called 'truth'.”
-- Dan RatherSource : Dan Rather (1984). “The Camera Never Blinks”, Ballantine Books
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“If all difficulties were known at the outset of a long journey, most of us would never start out at all.”
-- Dan RatherSource : Twitter post from Jul 22, 2014
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“A free and truly independent press - fiercely independent when necessary - is the red beating heart of freedom and democracy.”
-- Dan RatherSource : Twitter post from Jul 28, 2014
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“I had someone at the Houston police station shoot me with ***** so I could do a story about it. The experience was a special kind of hell. I came out understanding full well how one could be addicted to 'smack,' and quickly.”
-- Dan Rather -
“Be careful. Journalism is more addictive than crack cocaine. Your life can get out of balance.”
-- Dan Rather -
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“Americans will put up with anything provided it doesn't block traffic.”
-- Dan Rather -
“I got addicted. News, particularly daily news, is more addictive than crack cocaine, more addictive than heroin, more addictive than cigarettes.”
-- Dan RatherSource : "Inside Story: the Wit and Wisdom of Dan Rather". www.independent.co.uk. November 29, 2004.
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“Music is important. It says things you heart can't say any other way, and in a language everyone speaks. Music crosses borders, turns smiles into frowns, and vice versa. These observations are shared with a hope: that, when schools cut back on music classes, they really think about what they're doing - and don't take music for granted.”
-- Dan Rather -
“Once the herd starts moving in one direction, it's very hard to turn it, even slightly.”
-- Dan Rather -
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“Those market researchers... are playing games with you and me and with this entire country. Their so-called samples of opinion are no more accurate or reliable than my grandmother's big toe was when it came to predicting the weather.”
-- Dan Rather -
“The press is a watchdog. Not an attack dog. Not a lapdog. A watchdog. Now, a watchdog can't be right all the time. He doesn't bark only when he sees or smells something that's dangerous. A good watchdog barks at things that are suspicious.”
-- Dan Rather -
“From the streets of Cairo and the Arab Spring, to Occupy Wall Street, from the busy political calendar to the aftermath of the tsunami in Japan, social media was not only sharing the news but driving it.”
-- Dan Rather -
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“Have you ever had any anger about President Bush - who spent his time during the Vietnam War in the National Guard - running, in effect, a campaign that does its best to diminish your service in Vietnam? You have to be at least irritated by that, or have you been?”
-- Dan Rather -
“I read the book [My Life by Bill Clinton] completely. And I think it compares very favorably with Ulysses S. Grant's gold standard of presidential autobiographies.”
-- Dan Rather -
“He [Mikhail Gorbachev] has, as many great leaders have, impressive eyes....There's a kind of laser-beam stare, a forced quality, you get from Gorbachev that does not come across as something peaceful within himself. It's the look of a kind of human volcano, or he'd probably like to describe it as a human nuclear energy plant.”
-- Dan Rather -
“Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore officially introduced his history-making running mate today, Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut....In their first joint appearance they gave a preview of the Gore-Lieberman fight-back, comeback strategy. Their message: They represent the future, not the past, and they are the ticket of high moral standards most in tune with real mainstream America.”
-- Dan Rather -
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“I'm all news, all the time. Full power, tall tower. I want to break in when news breaks out. That's my agenda. Now, respectfully, when you start talking about a liberal agenda and all the, quote, 'liberal bias' in the media, I quite frankly, and I say this respectfully but candidly to you, I don't know what you're talking about.”
-- Dan Rather -
“A lot of tight Senate races out there. Let's hit those chips with another dash of salsa, Ed Bradley.”
-- Dan Rather -
“You'd better do what you feel good about doing. If we [try] to figure out what it is the audience wants and then try to deliver it to them, we're lost souls on the ghost ship forever.”
-- Dan Rather -
“Anyone who says network news cannot be profitable doesn't know what he is talking about. But anyone who says it must "always," make money is misguided and irresponsible.”
-- Dan Rather -
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“We are the "can do" country. We adjust to situations better than any people in the history of the world... We adjust to change.”
-- Dan Rather -
“The dream begins, most of the time, with a teacher who believes in you.”
-- Dan RatherSource : Dan Rather (1984). “The Camera Never Blinks”, Ballantine Books
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“It's a legitimate point to debate. But it's part of the reality. It's happening, but it's also true they (looters) are in the distinct minority. I think there's a hero on every street corner in New Orleans, and I think the reporting has shown that. I think the balance has been there.”
-- Dan Rather -
“(Obama's) a nice person, he's very articulate this is what's been used against him, but he couldn't sell watermelons if it, you gave him the state troopers to flag down the traffic.”
-- Dan Rather -
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“Very big business is in bed with very big government in Washington, and has more to do with what the average person sees, hears and reads than most people know.”
-- Dan Rather -
“Stay with CBS now for more news, including: Is there a pall over the mall as holiday shoppers think small?”
-- Dan Rather -
“What separated Ed Murrow from the rest of the pack was courage.”
-- Dan Rather -
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“There is no doubt that the way journalism worked when I was growing up and getting started has changed forever.”
-- Dan Rather -
“The great lesson my mother and father gave me was almost invisible. It was a strong sense of being rooted.”
-- Dan Rather -
“This race is hotter than a Times Square Rolex.”
-- Dan Rather -
“I think it's important for the public to know, great reporting starts with a publisher who has guts and an editor who has guts.”
-- Dan Rather -
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“I'm proud to say I've never been anybody's lapdog.”
-- Dan Rather -
“As long as I have my health, I want to be reporting somewhere.”
-- Dan Rather -
“Despite what many Americans think, most Soviets do not yearn for capitalism or Western-style democracy.”
-- Dan Rather -
“Fear rules almost every newsroom in the country.”
-- Dan Rather -
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“I don't back down. I don't cave when the pressure gets too great from these partisan political ideological forces.”
-- Dan Rather -
“I still love following and thinking about politics. I enjoy recommending important journalism I read or see from other sources.”
-- Dan Rather -
“I don't pretend to be a digital savant or even a digital apprentice.”
-- Dan Rather -
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“For years Don Imus was just - boy, he was merciless in his criticism of me. Maybe it was justified, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt.”
-- Dan Rather -
“Are the Democrats going to dance the mandate Macarena?”
-- Dan Rather -
“And for whatever reason I've loved the news since I can remember. I loved it when I was in elementary school.”
-- Dan Rather -
“Always marry a woman from Texas. No matter how tough things get, she's seen tougher.”
-- Dan Rather -
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“And now the sequence of events in no particular order.”
-- Dan Rather -
“Well, first of all, I don't want to debate the word conservative, but by my definition, a conservative is someone who wants to conserve the Constitution of the United States and the American tradition and law that no one is above the law.”
-- Dan RatherSource : Twitter post from May 19, 2012
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“I had just turned 10-years-old when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and plunged America into World War II.”
-- Dan Rather -
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“Don't taunt the alligator until after you've crossed the creek.”
-- Dan Rather -
“I've always tried to be fair, even-handed, not an advocate for any group.”
-- Dan Rather -
“If I didn't have a front-row seat on history, it was at least a seat on the aisle.”
-- Dan Rather -
“Journalists should denounce government by public opinion polls.”
-- Dan Rather -
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“Never eat spinach just before going on the air.”
-- Dan Rather -
“[My job is] a very high trapeze act, frequently with no net.”
-- Dan Rather -
“I'm part of nobody's world except Brezhnev's.”
-- Dan Rather -
“To the pilot of a deep sea submersible, upon finding out what would happen if the craft sprung a leak while submerged. I'll trust you to make sure that doesn't happen.”
-- Dan Rather -
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“I've never believed in measuring one's worth by the size of his or her bank account. I prefer to look at distance traveled.”
-- Dan Rather -
“I quote the late Ed Murow. ... He said: 'Look, people listen to me when they want an eyewitness account. 'They think I'm a pretty good reporter. But when it comes to my opinions, mine are not worth anymore than the guy at the end of the bar.' And I believe that about myself.”
-- Dan Rather -
“Editing can alter the original meaning and context, and computers can alter the image itself. The camera can also be manipulated. At the very least, it must be turned in one direction - only one direction at a time ... Who chooses what direction to point the camera, and why?”
-- Dan Rather -
“Journalism is not a precise science, it's a crude art”
-- Dan Rather -
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“If you're in Journalism and you're looking for friends, you should get a dog.”
-- Dan Rather -
“I have tried to remain a working, cutting-edge journalist and I don't do it the way everybody else does it. And I think that's the difference.”
-- Dan Rather -
“In dealing with the press, do yourself a favor, stick with one of three responses: (a) I know and I can tell you; (b) I know and I can't tell you; (c) I don't know.”
-- Dan Rather -
“The American Dream is one of the greatest ideas in the history of human achievement . . . It thrives today in an age when its core components of freedom and opportunity are open to more Americans than ever before. It holds a real, identifiable place in the American heart and mind, and it informs the aspirations of everyone from farmers to software developers, from detectives to bankers, from soldiers to social workers . . . It defines us as a people, even as we add to its meaning with each new chapter in our national experience and our individual actions.”
-- Dan Rather -
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“Performing doesn't turn me on. It's an egomaniac business, filled with prima donnas - including this one.”
-- Dan Rather -
“Journalism is less addictive than communism.”
-- Dan Rather -
“It's the American way: if you don't vote, you don't get to whine.”
-- Dan Rather -
“Covering the civil-rights movement was a mind- and eye-opener for me. Houston was a segregated society, as was Texas as a whole - some of it by law, a lot of it by fear and tradition. But there was no violence where I lived, and if there was hate, it was either concealed from me or I just didn't recognize it.”
-- Dan Rather -
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“If frogs had side pockets, they'd carry hand guns.”
-- Dan Rather -
“I've tried everything. I can say to you with confidence, I know a fair amount about LSD. I've never been a social user of any of these things, but my curiosity has carried me into a lot of interesting areas.”
-- Dan Rather -
“This much we know: Journalism is not a precise science. It's, on its best day, is a crude art. We make mistakes; I make mistakes. With more than 50 years as a journalist, I have at least had the opportunity to blow more stories, make more mistakes than maybe anybody in television.”
-- Dan Rather -
“They may have turned this up, whether you had the Paula Jones case or not. But again maybe not, but again that's like if a frog had side pockets he'd probably wear a handgun.”
-- Dan Rather -
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“Start-ups like UniversityNow, a network of low-cost, online colleges, allows students to work at their own pace and pay a few hundred dollars a month for a degree.”
-- Dan Rather -
“Now, I know you expected me to say that, well, I just kick back in the rocking chair, fished a little bit, listened to Willie Nelson tapes and watched old baseball games on the Classic Sports network. And, tell you the truth, I have done that for maybe about five total minutes.”
-- Dan Rather -
“I respect and empathize with reporters and editors who must compete in today's environment. And I know full well that when I've been covering campaigns, which I still do, I've made my mistakes and have been far from perfect.”
-- Dan Rather -
“But we cannot rely on memorials and museums alone. We can tell ourselves we will never forget and we likely won't. But we need to make sure that we teach history to those who never had the opportunity to remember in the first place.”
-- Dan RatherSource : "A History Lesson" by Dan Rather, www.huffingtonpost.com. September 9, 2011.
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“As someone who's been covering presidential campaigns since the 1950s, I have no delusions about political reporting. Candidates bargaining access to get the kind of news coverage they want is nothing new.”
-- Dan Rather -
“Catholic dioceses typically spent hundreds of thousands of dollars recklessly, then filed for bankruptcy. The goal was to avoid the money going to the hands of victims of predator priests.”
-- Dan Rather -
“Tonight, savagery in the streets of Iraq. Ten Americans die in a single day, four of them civilians murdered, mutilated and dragged through the streets....What drives American civilians to risk death in Iraq? In this economy it may be, for some, the only job they can find.”
-- Dan Rather -
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“The Republican convention opens in New York to re-nominate George W. Bush and showcase the party's, quote, 'moderate side.' Will voters buy it?”
-- Dan Rather -
“President Bush insisted today that he was not caving in to big money contributors, big-time lobbyists, and overall industry pressure when he broke a campaign promise to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. But the air was thick today with accusations from people who believe that's exactly what happened.”
-- Dan Rather -
“On Capitol Hill, the Republican-controlled House voted mostly along party lines tonight to pass President Bush's federal budget blueprint. This includes his big tax cut plan, partly bankrolled, critics say, through cuts in many federal aid programs for children and education.”
-- Dan Rather -
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“Turn the lights down, the party just got wilder.”
-- Dan Rather -
“There are more Muslims in North America then Jews Now.”
-- Dan Rather -
“I think you can be an honest person and lie about any number of things.”
-- Dan Rather -
“These guys [the Catholic church] make Enron look like altar boys.”
-- Dan Rather -
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“One of the most important roles of our journalists is to be watchdogs.”
-- Dan Rather
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