Best 101 quotes of Walter Cronkite on MyQuotes

Never before probably has the need for interfaith commitment been nearly as great as it is at this very moment.

News reporters are certainly liberal and left of center.

Not only do we have a right to know, we have a duty to know what our Government is doing in our name. If there's a criticism to be made today, it's that the press isn't doing enough to put the pressure on the government to provide information.

Objective journalism and an opinion column are about as similar as the Bible and Playboy magazine.

Old anchormen, you see, don't fade away. They just keep coming back for more. And that's the way it is, Friday, March 6, 1981.

Our country today is at a stage in our foreign policy similar to that crucial point in our nation's early history when our Constitution was produced in Philadelphia.

Our job is only to hold up the mirror - to tell and show the public what has happened.

Our task is not to tell the truth; we are opinion molders.

Pat Robertson has written in a book a few years ago that we should have a world government, but only when the Messiah arrives. He wrote, literally, any attempt to achieve world order before that time must be the work of the Devil. Well join me - I’m glad to sit here at the right hand of Satan.

People who understand music hear sounds that no one else makes when Frank Sinatra sings.

Probably the most important single element that I found in my own marriage was a sense of humor. My wife had a delicious sense of humor, and I think I have an adequate one.

Putting it as strongly as I can, the failure to give free airtime for our political campaigns endangers our democracy.

Reagan was an exceedingly likeable guy, just a heck of a nice fellow, despite his politics. He was funny and loved a good joke, the dirtier, I'm afraid the more ethnic, the better. I don't think he brought very much to the presidency, except charisma and success.

So now the question is, basically, right now, how will the Osama Bin Laden tape affect the election? And I have a feeling that it could tilt the election a bit. In fact, I'm a little inclined to think that Karl Rove, the political manager at the White House, who is a very clever man, that he probably set up bin Laden to this thing.

Success is more permanent when you achieve it without destroying your principles.

Television [is] a high-impact medium. It does some things no other force can do-transmitting electronic pictures through the air. Still, as an explored, comprehensive medium, it is not a substitute for print.

Television... is not a substitute for print.

Terrible, it was terrible. Even today and it's been several months now you just bring it up and I tear up a little bit, terribly. You know when you're that close that long and got along as well as we did, we seldom had any serious arguments. We might have - might discuss which movie we wanted to see and what play we wanted to go to, where we ought to go for a vacation but that usually didn't last very long because we were much of the same mind all the time.

The battle for the airwaves cannot be limited to only those who have the bank accounts to pay for the battle and win it.

The debates are part of the unconscionable fraud that our political campaigns have become a format that defies meaningful discourse. They should be charged with sabotaging the electoral process.

The ethic of the journalist is to recognize one's prejudices, biases, and avoid getting them into print.

The fact that you are here tonight gathered together with us testifies to the fact you understand the need for this organization and the need for redoubling our efforts in this organization to try to assure that democracy as represented by the United States must depend upon a total freedom of religion, which is written into our Constitution, of course, and the mere suggestion that anyone could maintain that one's patriotism, one's devotion to one's country can be judged by one's religion is so vile, so vile that we have to take to the streets indeed and to put it aside.

The first priority of humankind in this era is to establish an effective system of world law that will assure peace with justice among the peoples of the world.

The great sadness of my life is that I never achieved the hour newscast, which would not have been twice as good as the half-hour newscast, but many times as good.

The invasion of Iraq was illegal from the start.

The perils of duck hunting are great- especially for the duck.

The profession of journalism ought to be about telling people what they need to know - not what they want to know.

There is a compulsion that is perhaps the heart of life's meanings, this marvelous mystery of blood ties that brings joy whenever a new family member comes on the scene.

The ruling class is the rich. . . . And those people are so able to manipulate our democracy that they really control the democracy.

The sweet smell of the South, of Camellias and Azaleas, clings to Beaufort's ancient and historic buildings.

This opens the door on another chapter of history.

Those advocates who work for world peace by urging a system of world government are called impractical dreamers. Those impractical dreamers are entitled to ask their critics what is so practical about war.

To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion. It is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.

To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past.

We are not educated well enough to perform the necessary act of intelligently selecting our leaders.

We are on the precipice of being so ignorant that our democracy is threatened.

We are the lucky generation. We first broke our earthly bonds and ventured into space. From our descendants- perches on other planets or distant space cities, they will look back at our achievement with wonder at our courage and audacity and with appreciation at our accomplishments, which assured the future in which they live.

We cannot defer this responsibility to posterity. Time will not wait.

We know that no one should tell a woman she has to bear an unwanted child. We know that religious beliefs cannot define patriotism.

We must strengthen the United Nations as a first step toward a World Government, patterned after our Own Government with a legislature, executive and judiciary, and police to enforce its international laws and keep the peace.

We're an ignorant nation right now. We're not really capable, I do not think, the majority of our people, of making the decisions that have to be made at election time and particularly in the selection of their legislatures and their Congress and the presidency, of course. I don't think we're bright enough to do the job that would preserve our democracy, our republic. I think we're in serious danger.

We've got a great percentage of our population that, to our great shame, either cannot or, equally unfortunate, will not read. And that portion of our public is growing. Those people are suckers for the demagogue.

When Moses was alive, these pyramids were a thousand years old. Here began the history of architecture. Here people learned to measure time by a calendar, to plot the stars by astronomy and chart the earth by geometry. And here they developed that most awesome of all ideas - the idea of eternity.

When the Eagle landed on the moon, I was speechless—overwhelmed, like most of the world. Couldn't say a word. I think all I said was, 'Wow! Jeez!' Not exactly immortal. Well, I was nothing if not human.

When you're bringing in a fairly unknown candidate challenging a sitting president, the population needs a lot more information than reduced coverage provides.

Would it be better to have a president who cries easily? Well, that depends on what he cried about. I would not like the thought of a president who could not cry. That would be worse than one who cried over the right things. Which, in this case, would be the things I would cry over.

I felt that I had been driven from the temple where for nineteen years, along with other believers, I had worshiped the great god News on a daily basis.

I think being a liberal, in the true sense, is being nondoctrinaire, nondogmatic, non-committed to a cause - but examining each case on its merits. Being left of center is another thing; it's a political position. I think most newspapermen by definition have to be liberal; if they're not liberal, by my definition of it, then they can hardly be good newspapermen. If they're preordained dogmatists for a cause, then they can't be very good journalists; that is, if they carry it into their journalism." [Interview with Ron Powers (Chicago Sun Times) for Playboy, 1973]

The least of us is improved by the things done by the best of us, because if we are not able to land at least we are able to follow. (July 20, 1969 CBS Moon Landing Coverage)

The least of us is improved by the things done by the best of us, because if we are not able to land at least we are able to follow. (July 20, 1969 CBS Moon Landing Coverage)” ― Walter Cronkite