Henry R. Luce Quotes

#1. Show me a man who claims he is objective and I'll show you a man with illusions.

Henry R. Luce

#2. I became a journalist to come as close as possible to the heart of the world.

Henry R. Luce

#3. Time should make enemies and Life should make friends.

Henry R. Luce

#4. I suggest that what we want to do is not to leave to posterity a great institution, but to leave behind a great tradition of journalism ably practiced in our time.

Henry R. Luce

#5. Of necessity, we made the discovery that it is easier to turn poets into business journalists than to turn bookkeepers into writers.

Henry R. Luce

#6. Business, more than any other occupation, is a continual dealing with the future; it is a continual calculation, an instinctive exercise in foresight.

Henry R. Luce

#7. Publishing is a business, but journalism never was and is not essentially a business. Nor is it a profession.

Henry R. Luce

#8. I urge each of you to think seriously about the vision Dr. Daniel puts forth and think about what you can do to make it happen.

Henry R. Luce

#9. A missionary deals with all the important people of the community, but he is never really one of them.

Henry R. Luce

#10. To see, and to show, is the mission now undertaken by Life.

Henry R. Luce

#11. Not much longer shall we have time for reading lessons of the past. An inexorable present calls us to the defense of a great future.

Henry R. Luce

#12. It's easier to teach a poet how to read a balance sheet than it is to teach an accountant how to write.

Henry R. Luce

#13. I am all for titillating trivialities. I am all for the epic touch. I could almost say that everything in Time, should be either titillating or epic or starkly, supercurtly factual.

Henry R. Luce

#14. Journalism is the art of collecting varying kinds of information (commonly called news) which a few people possess and of transmitting it to a much larger number of people who are supposed to desire to share it.

Henry R. Luce

#15. The world of the 20th century, if it is to come to life in any viability of health and vigor, must be to a significant degree an American century.

Henry R. Luce

#16. There are men who can write poetry, and there are men who can read balance sheets. The men who can read balance sheets cannot write.

Henry R. Luce