Ted Turner Quotes
130 Ted Turner Quotes
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I’m like the grass. I get tramped down one day and spring right up the next. I’ve been beat so much that one more loss doesn’t make any difference. Losing is simply learning to win.
Ted Turner
I just love it when people say I can’t do something.
Ted Turner
I’m a very deadly serious person in trying to accomplish things just for the satisfaction of accomplishing them. Struggling hard to achieve something is the most fun I get. All my life is a game.
Ted Turner
You can’t win races without working harder than the other guy.
Ted Turner
Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell, and advertise.
Ted Turner
My desire to excel borders on the unhealthy.
Ted Turner
I just kept working and working and working – that’s the secret of my success.
Ted Turner
People have the most fun when they’re busting their ass.
Ted Turner
I’ve always believed in cash flow rather than state profits, because when you state profits, you’ve got to pay 50% to the government. And if you look back at our company over the last 30 years, we’ve only paid a few million dollars in corporate income tax the entire time. We kept expanding fast enough…
Ted Turner
Exposure to defeat is a very important thing. Anyone who doesn’t look to get beaten is doing a disservice to himself.
Ted Turner
I may look like a clown doing back flips at a baseball game, but I’m a very deadly serious person trying to accomplish things just for the satisfaction of accomplishing them.
Ted Turner
I’m no genius. I’m not at all; I just happen to look five or 10 years ahead and think things through…
Ted Turner
I’ve learned that great wealth isn’t nearly as good as average sex.
Ted Turner
I give [the networks] hell because they don’t serve the public interest. They look at the viewer the same way a slaughterhouse looks at pigs and cattle. They sell them by the pound to the advertiser – the same way they sell ham hocks and spareribs.
Ted Turner
The worst sin, the ultimate sin for me, in anything, is to be bored.
Ted Turner
When you’re little, you have to do crazy things. You just can’t copy the big guys. To succeed you have to be innovative.
Ted Turner
[On the cable TV industry] We dreamed this whole industry up.
Ted Turner
You know, I can do anything I want. If I wanted to walk from there across to that boat [pointing over a stretch of ocean water] I could do it. Weeeell, let’s just assume I could…
Ted Turner
Sailing in rough weather is what the sport is all about.
Ted Turner
You just have to keep going.
Ted Turner
[On a friend looking at his sailing trophies] Anyone could have done it if they had the money and the imagination. We started out and just kept going. Like Alexander. He started out to beat the Persians and kept going until he conquered the whole world.
Ted Turner
[On sailing to Europe in a little 38 foot boat in 1966] It’s hard to eat, you’re wet a lot of the time and just going to the bathroom is a chore.
Ted Turner
[In 1986] I’ve already met or exceeded all goals for personal wealth and accomplishment. Nothing ever comes easy – my first eight years of sailing I didn’t even win my club championship. But I just kept working and working and working – that’s the secret of my success. Now I’m like a runner who has kept running and running and one day finds he has run the Boston Marathon. I don’t need to be the best anymore, I’m just part of a team. I’m just widening, broadening.
Ted Turner
We need to win, because we’re just a bunch of bums. Are there any bluebloods here? Raise your hands. None. I didn’t think so. Anybody from fancy prep schools? Awright. We could have won it with the latest in computers, but that’s not our style. We like to slug it out. These other guys are going to have to slug it out with a bunch of streetfighters from the Bronx and Queens.
Ted Turner
All I know is I get what I want. Maybe because I want things more than others do. I wanted my television stations on the satellite, and there it is. I wanted to win the America’s Cup and that’s getting close. I wanted to be worth $50 million and in a few years it might be double that. People love me, all over the place, they really do. I can communicate on all levels.
Ted Turner
You problem is that you are too worried about losing. There is no disgrace in losing. Everybody loses from time to time. Don’t worry about it.
Ted Turner
Exposure to defeat is a very important thing. Anyone who doesn’t look to get beaten is doing a disservice to himself. You have to go where the hot stuff is and get whipped.
Ted Turner
[On his proven motivational skills] It’s mental attitude. You know, there are a whole lot of little slogans – be sure you’re right and then go ahead – either lead, follow, or get out of the way – get with the problem – don’t stand around beefing, pick something up and carry it away.
Ted Turner
I’ve got a larger does of motivation than most people have. Some people are born fleet of foot, make great runners. When basic characteristics were doled out, I got more than my share of competitiveness. That’s probably all. In fact, it may not be all that healthy.
Ted Turner
All of my life I’ve had this gnawing pain that I might not succeed. It is only in the past four or five years that I have put that ghost to rest.
Ted Turner
[On having an old boat] It’s kind of like having an old wife. A devil you know is sometimes better than a devil you don’t. At least we know we’ve got a good boat.
Ted Turner
[On skin cancer in 1994 before he went in to have surgery] The one piece of advice I can give you is put on sun screen and wear a hat.
Ted Turner
The most fun that you ever have as a man is in doing men’s things. Men’s things are primarily getting a bunch of guys together and going out and conquering a country, fighting a war, winning a big fight, putting a baseball team together.
Ted Turner
You only live once, and you ought to have all the experiences you can. I want to see what it’s like to be big before I die.
Ted Turner
Losing is simply learning how to win.
Ted Turner
Everything is a game – and you keep score with dollars, to a degree.
Ted Turner
I got my thrift from the Scots, my work ethic from the German, and my colorfulness from the French and the British. M judgment and conservatism come from the Dutch, and the Irish – well the Irish, they’re all off their rockers, unbalanced.
Ted Turner
My father has this burning desire to succeed. Success, success, success! And I went to this military school where they pounded in ‘You got to get to the top, boy, you got to get to the top.’ Well, I go to the top.
Ted Turner
I was determined to be the best.
Ted Turner
I was interested in one thing, and that was finding out what you could accomplish if you really tried. My interest was always in why people did the things they did, and what causes people to rise to glorious heights.
Ted Turner
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