We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.
Interpretation
True freedom must be upheld not just in other lands but in our own society as well.
Edward R. Murrow's quote emphasizes the importance of maintaining and defending our own freedoms and rights domestically before we can advocate for freedom in other countries. It highlights the irony and hypocrisy of promoting liberty abroad while neglecting it at home, suggesting that genuine commitment to freedom should start within our own borders.
In practice
During a discussion on civil rights, this quote can illustrate the importance of protecting freedoms at home.
We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse, and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it, and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.
Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices - just recognize them.
One of the basic troubles with radio and television news is that both instruments have grown up as an incompatible combination of show business, advertising and news. Each of the three is a rather bizarre and demanding profession. And when you get all three under one roof, the dust never settles.
Speaking of Sir Winston Churchill: He mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.
The speed of communications is wondrous to behold. It is also true that speed can multiply the distribution of information that we know to be untrue.
The best speakers know enough to be scared…the only difference between the pros and the novices is that the pros have trained the butterflies to fly in formation.
I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive.
Diversity may be the hardest thing for a society to live with, and perhaps the most dangerous thing for a society to be without.
While the political right may moralize sex, the political left is doing it with food. Food is becoming extremely moralized nowadays, and a lot of it is ideas about purity, about what you're willing to touch, or put into your body.
To be born means being compelled to choose an era, a place, a life. To exist here, now, means to lost the possibility of being countless other potential selves.. Yet once being born there is no turning back. And I think that's exactly why the fantasy worlds of cartoon movies so strongly represent our hopes and yearnings. They illustrate a world of lost possibilities for us.
The only things standing between you and the compassionate, wise, and creative person you want to be are matters of choice. Your choice. No one can occupy your generosity except you.
It is idle to say that nations can struggle to outdo each other in building armaments and never use them. History demonstrates the contrary, and we have but to go back to the last war to see the appalling effect of nations competing in great armaments.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.