Walter Cronkite Quotes

This opens the door on another chapter of history.

I'd like to be a song and dance man.

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,

If that is what makes us liberals, so be it, just as long as in reporting the news we adhere to the first ideals of good journalism
that news reports must be fair, accurate and unbiased.

I think he [composer Joe Raposo] was the first man who kissed me on the cheek.

News reporters are certainly liberal and left of center.

Ethics must be reintroduced to public service to restore people's faith in government. Without such faith, democracy cannot flourish. Your ambitious agenda is filling a desperate need.

If we are to avoid that catastrophe [a nuclear World War III], a system of world order - preferably a system of world government - is mandatory. The proud nations someday will see the light and, for the common good and their own survival, yield up their precious sovereignty, just as America's thirteen colonies did two centuries ago. When we finally come to our senses and establish a world executive and parliament of nations, thanks to the Nuremburg precedent we will already have in place the fundamentals for the third branch of government, the judiciary.

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

The rule of thumb for all news operations is that stories are assigned their importance on the basis of what affects or interests the greatest number of one's readers or viewers. Depending on the nature of the newspaper or broadcast, the balance between what "affects" and what "interests" is quite different. The first criteria of a responsible newspaper such as The New York Times is going to be that which their readers need to know about their world that day - those developments that in one way or another might affect their health, their pocketbooks, the future of themselves and their children. The first criterion of the tabloid is that which "interests" its readers - gossip, sex, scandal.

I asked [my doctors] if I'd be able to play singles tennis and they said I could. That made me very happy since I haven't played in five years.

Everybody knows that there's a liberal, that there's a heavy liberal persuasion among correspondents.

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

Dan Rather and I just aren't especially chummy.

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.

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

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.

We've always known you can gain circulation or viewers by cheapening the product, and now you're finding the bad driving out the good.

For how many thousands of years now have we humans been what we insist on calling "civilized?" And yet, in total contradiction, we also persist in the savage belief that we must occasionally, at least, settle our arguments by killing one another.

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.

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

And that's the way it is.

I want to say that probably 24 hours after I told CBS that I was stepping down at my 65th birthday, I was already regretting it. And I regretted it every day since.

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.

As anchorman of the CBS Evening News, I signed off my nightly broadcasts for nearly two decades with a simple statement: "And that's the way it is." To me, that encapsulates the newsman's highest ideal: to report the facts as he sees them, without regard for the consequences or controversy that may ensue.

I think it is absolutely essential in a democracy to have competition in the media, a lot of competition, and we seem to be moving away from that.

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

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

In seeking truth you have to get both sides of a story.

Television ... is not a substitute for print.

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 don't think people ought to believe only one news medium. They ought to read and they ought to go to opinion journals and all the rest of it. I think it's terribly important that this be taught in the public schools, because otherwise, we're gonna get to a situation because of economic pressures and other things where television's all you've got left. And that would be disastrous. We can't cover the news in a half-hour event evening. That's ridiculous.

A system of world order-preferably a system of world government -is mandatory ... The proud nations someday will see the light and, for the common good and their own survival, yield up their precious sovereignty ...

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

I'm a romanticist in many ways. I never get behind the wheel of my boat and dropping the anchor without saying to myself, secretly giving my orders to the crew "All right, lift the anchor, we're on our way to South Hampton. We're gonna beat them there with this load of tea!"

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

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

It is not the reporter's job to be a patriot or to presume to determine where patriotism lies. His job is to relate the facts.

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

The invasion of Iraq was illegal from the start.

It is clear that military force and our policy of preemption are alone insufficient to make us safe. But help is on the way. Legislation has been proposed to create a US Department of Peace. In the propsed Department of Peace it would organize our present system into one conscious effort to improve humanity in achieving peace, where true safety lies.

I'm very proud of what Harry Truman turned out to be in office and the record he made. Certainly I think he'll go down in history as one of the greats, because of his conscience, his determination to stick with what he knew was right.

I think that being liberal, in the true sense, is being nondoctrinaire, nondogmatic, noncomitted 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.

It seems to rise again when the crisis times come, and this is a time of most severe crisis, as we all know, not just for the history of the United States and the survival indeed of our democracy, but for the future peace of the world. And never before probably has the need for interfaith commitment been nearly as great as it is at this very moment.

Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation.

There's a little more ego involved in these jobs than people might realize.

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

Freedom of the press is not just important to democracy, it is democracy.

Justice was born outside the home and a long way from it; and it has never been adopted there

I grew my mustache when I was nineteen in order to look older. I never shaved it off even though it overran its usefulness many, many years ago. Once you get started in television, people associate you with your physical appearance - and that includes the mustache. So I can't shave it off now. If I did, I'd have to answer too much mail.

Everything is being compressed into tiny tablets. You take a little pill of news every day - 23 minutes - and that's supposed to be enough.

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.

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.

I sort of think in a way that many of us young reporters who had the opportunity to go overseas for our organizations were kind of, in a sense, war profiteers. We were enhancing our careers while covering that terrible conflict.

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.

I'm still ready to go to the moon, if they'll take me.

I think most newspapermen by definition have to be liberal; if they're not liberal, by 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.

Leaving San Francisco is like saying goodbye to an old sweetheart. You want to linger as long as possible.

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.

I am dumbfounded that there hasn't been a crackdown with the libel and slander laws on some of these would-be writers and reporters on the Internet.

There is no such thing as a little freedom. Either you are all free, or you are not free.

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

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.

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.

I think somebody ought to do a survey as to how many great, important men have quit to spend time with their families who spent any more time with their family.

I can't imagine a person becoming a success who doesn't give this game of life everything he's got.

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.

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.

The 60s undoubtedly were the most turbulent years of the century.

For nearly five decades the World Federalists have worked to promote a strengthened UN and more effective institutions of global governance. I offer my personal endorsement. Now a great opportunity has opened for the realization of the dreams of the UN's founders.

I never had the ambition to be something. I had the ambition to do something.

In all my years as a news commentator I was never once, able to tell the truth, about anything.

To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. 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.

A handful of us determine what will be on the evening news broadcasts, or, for that matter, in the New York Times or Washington Post or Wall Street Journal. Indeed it is a handful of us with this awesome power.And those [news stories] available to us already have been culled and re-culled by persons far outside our control.

It seems to me that instead of cutting taxes, we ought to be increasing the taxes to pay off the deficit, rather than let that thing build up to the point where our grandchildren's grandchildren are going to be paying for our period of time and our years at the helm.

For many years, I did my best to report on the issues of the day in as objective a manner as possible. When I had my own strong opinions, as I often did, I tried not to communicate them to my audience.

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.