Top 70 Walter Cronkite Quotes (2025 Update)

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

— Walter Cronkite

Featured in: Quotes on Liberty, Democracy Quotes

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

— Walter Cronkite

Featured in: Quotes About Stories

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

— Walter Cronkite

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

— Walter Cronkite

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

— Walter Cronkite

6. “I am neither Republican nor Democrat. I am a registered independent because I find that I cast my votes not on the basis of party loyalty but on the issues of the moment and my assessment of the candidates.”

— Walter Cronkite

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

— Walter Cronkite

Featured in: 4th Of July Quotes

8. “The profession of journalism ought to be about telling people what they need to know – not what they want to know.”

— Walter Cronkite

9. “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.”

— Walter Cronkite

10. “And that’s the way it is.”

— Walter Cronkite

11. “America’s health care system is neither healthy, caring, nor a system.”

— Walter Cronkite

12. “Our job is only to hold up the mirror – to tell and show the public what has happened.”

— Walter Cronkite

13. “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.”

— Walter Cronkite

14. “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.”

— Walter Cronkite

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

— Walter Cronkite

16. “I never had the ambition to be something. I had the ambition to do something.”

— Walter Cronkite

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

— Walter Cronkite

Featured in: Goodbye Quotes

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

— Walter Cronkite

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

— Walter Cronkite

20. “Be kind to an old man.”

— Walter Cronkite

21. “This opens the door on another chapter of history.”

— Walter Cronkite

22. “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.”

— Walter Cronkite

Featured in: Strong Quotes

23. “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.”

— Walter Cronkite

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

— Walter Cronkite

25. “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.”

— Walter Cronkite

26. “I am a news presenter, a news broadcaster, an anchorman, a managing editor – not a commentator or analyst. I feel no compulsion to be a pundit.”

— Walter Cronkite

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

— Walter Cronkite

28. “The daily coverage of the Vietnamese battlefield helped convince the American public that the carnage was not worth the candle.”

— Walter Cronkite

29. “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.”

— Walter Cronkite

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

— Walter Cronkite

31. “Interviewing friends is a tough one. Your duty to the interview must transcend your friendship. Occasionally you’ll lose a friend.”

— Walter Cronkite

32. “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.”

— Walter Cronkite

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

— Walter Cronkite

34. “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.”

— Walter Cronkite

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

— Walter Cronkite

36. “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.”

— Walter Cronkite

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

— Walter Cronkite

38. “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.”

— Walter Cronkite

39. “I am not a contemplative type, basically. I am much more of an action person and, as a consequence, I look forward to today and tomorrow and what’s breaking.”

— Walter Cronkite

40. “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.”

— Walter Cronkite

41. “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.”

— Walter Cronkite

42. “The sweet smell of the South, of Camellias and Azaleas, clings to Beaufort’s ancient and historic buildings.”

— Walter Cronkite

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

— Walter Cronkite

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

— Walter Cronkite

45. “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.”

— Walter Cronkite

46. “News reporters are certainly liberal and left of center.”

— Walter Cronkite

47. “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.”

— Walter Cronkite

48. “I’d like to be a song and dance man.”

— Walter Cronkite

49. “I’ve gone from the most trusted man in America to one of the most debated.”

— Walter Cronkite

50. “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.”

— Walter Cronkite