Quotes from Dan Rather

If I didn't have a front-row seat on history, it was at least a seat on the aisle.

What separated Ed Murrow from the rest of the pack was courage.

And now the sequence of events in no particular order.

Only votes talk, everything else walks.

From the streets of Cairo and the Arab Spring, to Occupy Wall Street, from the busy political calendar to the aftermath of the tsunami in Japan, social media was not only sharing the news but driving it.

Are the Democrats going to dance the mandate Macarena?

Ratings don't last. Good journalism does.

You'd better do what you feel good about doing. If we [try] to figure out what it is the audience wants and then try to deliver it to them, we're lost souls on the ghost ship forever.

I think you can be an honest person and lie about any number of things.

If you liked this broadcast, we hope you'll watch it again tomorrow night and maybe tell your neighbors about it.

But we cannot rely on memorials and museums alone. We can tell ourselves we will never forget and we likely won't. But we need to make sure that we teach history to those who never had the opportunity to remember in the first place.

The press is a watchdog. Not an attack dog. Not a lapdog. A watchdog. Now, a watchdog can't be right all the time. He doesn't bark only when he sees or smells something that's dangerous. A good watchdog barks at things that are suspicious.

I'd much rather wear out than rust out.

They may have turned this up, whether you had the Paula Jones case or not. But again maybe not, but again that's like if a frog had side pockets he'd probably wear a handgun.

Those market researchers... are playing games with you and me and with this entire country. Their so-called samples of opinion are no more accurate or reliable than my grandmother's big toe was when it came to predicting the weather.

Courage is being afraid but going on anyhow.

It's the old shell game.

This much we know: Journalism is not a precise science. It's, on its best day, is a crude art. We make mistakes; I make mistakes. With more than 50 years as a journalist, I have at least had the opportunity to blow more stories, make more mistakes than maybe anybody in television.

I don't pretend to be a digital savant or even a digital apprentice.

Journalism is not a precise science, it's a crude art

Be careful. Journalism is more addictive than crack cocaine. Your life can get out of balance.

Performing doesn't turn me on. It's an egomaniac business, filled with prima donnas - including this one.

I read the book [My Life by Bill Clinton] completely. And I think it compares very favorably with Ulysses S. Grant's gold standard of presidential autobiographies.

Journalists should denounce government by public opinion polls.