"You can never quit. Winners never quit, and quitters never win"
About this Quote
Ted Turner delivers a blunt, unforgiving rule of competitive life: persistence separates those who triumph from those who fall short. It recasts success not as a burst of brilliance but as the compound interest of stubborn effort. The command to never quit sets both a moral stance and a mental model: treat setbacks as data, not verdicts. Winners refuse to surrender the long game. They adjust, learn, and pivot while holding onto the mission. Quitters never win because they exit before momentum can build, before luck can be earned, and before skill can sharpen through repetition.
That worldview grew out of Turners own battles. He inherited a struggling billboard company after his fathers death and built it into a media empire. When he launched CNN in 1980, the idea of 24-hour news was ridiculed as impractical and frivolous. The network bled money, cable carriage was uncertain, and critics called it Chicken Noodle News. He kept going anyway, and when major world events hit, CNNs constant presence proved its value, turning a mocked experiment into an industry standard. Turner applied the same endurance in sport, skippering Courageous to win the 1977 Americas Cup through rough conditions that would have broken a lesser crew. He stuck with the Atlanta Braves through years of mediocrity before they became perennial contenders and won the 1995 World Series. He pushed the Goodwill Games amid geopolitical headwinds and later committed $1 billion to the United Nations, thinking in decades, not quarters.
The line is not a call for blind obstinacy. Abandoning a tactic can be wisdom; abandoning the effort is surrender. Turner kept the aim while reinventing routes. The deeper point is temporal: advantage accrues to those who stay in the arena long enough for learning, credibility, and network effects to take hold. The world tends to pay compound returns to persistence.
That worldview grew out of Turners own battles. He inherited a struggling billboard company after his fathers death and built it into a media empire. When he launched CNN in 1980, the idea of 24-hour news was ridiculed as impractical and frivolous. The network bled money, cable carriage was uncertain, and critics called it Chicken Noodle News. He kept going anyway, and when major world events hit, CNNs constant presence proved its value, turning a mocked experiment into an industry standard. Turner applied the same endurance in sport, skippering Courageous to win the 1977 Americas Cup through rough conditions that would have broken a lesser crew. He stuck with the Atlanta Braves through years of mediocrity before they became perennial contenders and won the 1995 World Series. He pushed the Goodwill Games amid geopolitical headwinds and later committed $1 billion to the United Nations, thinking in decades, not quarters.
The line is not a call for blind obstinacy. Abandoning a tactic can be wisdom; abandoning the effort is surrender. Turner kept the aim while reinventing routes. The deeper point is temporal: advantage accrues to those who stay in the arena long enough for learning, credibility, and network effects to take hold. The world tends to pay compound returns to persistence.
Quote Details
| Topic | Never Give Up |
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