Philo Farnsworth

“They say that ninety percent of TV is junk. But, ninety percent of everything is junk.”

“I find television to be very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go in the other room and read a book.”

“I wish there was a knob on the TV so you could turn up the intelligence. They got one marked “brightness” but it don’t work, does it?”

“If it weren’t for Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of television, we’d still be eating frozen radio dinners.”

“Phil saw television as a marvelous teaching tool. There would be no excuse of illiteracy. Parents could learn along with their children. News and sporting events could be seen as they were happening. Symphonies would mean more when one could see the musicians as they played, and movies would be seen in our own living rooms. He said there would be a time when we would be able to see and learn about people in other lands. If we understood them better, differences could be settled around conference tables, without going to war.”

“The damned thing works! (telegram, on the first successful television broadcast)”

“There’s nothing on it worthwhile, and we’re not going to watch it in this household, and I don’t want it in your intellectual diet. (to his son, on television)”

“This has made it all worthwhile. (The live televised first step by Neil Armstrong on the moon.)”