Our society finds truth too strong a medicine to digest undiluted. In its purest form, truth is not a polite tap on the shoulder; it is a howling reproach.
Ted KoppelRead
Emotions get in the way but they don't pay me to start crying at the loss of 269 lives. They pay me to put some perspective on the situation.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the need to manage emotions to provide clarity in difficult situations.
Ted Koppel emphasizes that while emotions can impede rational thought, particularly in tragic scenarios, it is essential to adopt a broader perspective and maintain composure. As a journalist or commentator, one's role is to provide insight and context rather than being overwhelmed by personal grief, underscoring the importance of professionalism in conveying information accurately.
In practice
During a discussion about disaster reporting.
Our society finds truth too strong a medicine to digest undiluted. In its purest form, truth is not a polite tap on the shoulder; it is a howling reproach.
My function is, as objectively and accurately as I can, to present reality to people out there, and doing that as quickly as we do is quite difficult enough, thank you.
Set your sights beyond what you can see. There is true majesty in the concept of an unseen power which can neither be measured nor weighed.
You can almost measure where you are in life by the degree to which you have begun looking back rather than ahead.
People shouldn't expect the mass media to do investigative stories. That job belongs to the 'fringe' media.
There's harmony and inner peace to be found in following a moral compass that points in the same direction regardless of fashion or trend.
There's a place in you that you must keep inviolate. You must keep it pristine. Clean. So that nobody has a right to curse you or treat you badly. Nobody. No mother, father, no wife, no husband, noΒΒΒ-nobody. You have to have a place where you say: 'Stop it. Back up. Don't you know I'm a child of God?
In the search [of a deal], we adopt the same attitude one might find appropriate in looking for a spouse: It pays to be active, interested, and open-minded, but it does not pay to be in a hurry.
From this point of view, to avoid your strengths and to focus on your weaknesses isn't a sign of diligent humility. It is almost irresponsible. By contrast the most responsible, the most challenging, and, in the sense of being true to yourself, the most honorable thing to do is face up to the strength potential inherent in your talents and then find ways to realize it.
Power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state, in the shooting of the gulf, in the darting to an aim.
When you lose the ability to step up and hit the ball as hard and as far as you want, that also affects your ability to will the ball to go where you want it to go, if you know what I mean.
Always do I recall the parting words uttered by my old governor: "My boy, never . . ." I won't set 'em down. I disregarded them fool-like and paid, and paid; had I a son I'd hand 'em on and ram 'em home. What fools we be when young. We fancy we be wise, forgetting that the old boys have graduated in the 'varsity of the world, the greatest 'varsity of all, and each day we should learn from they.
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