Politician Quotes

It was always said that the big distinction between the French and the English is that the English are intelligent and the French are intellectual.

He has conferred on the practice of vacillation the aura of statesmanship.

By the end of the 1970s Britain was in a mess.

You don't need to know who's playing on the White House tennis court to be a good president.

When you have energy companies like Shell and British Petroleum, both of which are perhaps represented in this room, saying there is a problem with excess carbon dioxide emission, I think we ought to listen.

This is what happens, when, for the first time in modern history, a candidate resorts to lawsuits to try to overturn the outcome of an election for president.

Sometimes you move publicly, sometimes privately. Sometimes quietly, sometimes at the top of your voice.

Sometimes an active policy is best advanced by doing nothing until the right time - or never.

Never let the other fellow set the agenda.

I understand personally that it is frustrating to lose presidential elections by narrow margins.

You've got to guard against speaking more clearly than you think.

The central question is simply put: What did the president know and when did he know it?

You don't get real reform by pandering to every special interest. With cap and trade we wound up with a bill that didn't accomplish much, was enormously complicated and expensive.

With random urinalysis, there's a clear choice - either get high or go to jail.

When I was first elected I was puzzled why they were holding events in my honor as a mere freshman. I asked myself, why is a federal entity so involved in political activity?

If you set as your goal to roll back the size of government, you have an obligation to answer the tough questions and show real courage, not just appeal to ideology. Treat the voters like adults.

I find it is increasingly difficult to spend the time I need with my family and at the same time do the job that needs to be done.

Governing isn't as easy as you think. Many of you have taken pledges that are contradictory - to balance the budget and cut taxes, for example. You must be honest about the numbers, since our annual deficit now exceeds all discretionary spending combined.

It is our responsibility as Americans to provide for the families of those who have died to defend our nation. Raising the military death benefit is not a Democrat or Republican issue - it is an American issue.

They who forgive most shall be most forgiven.

When the state or federal government control the education of all of our children, they have the dangerous and illegitimate monopoly to control and influence the thought process of our citizens.

War doesn't need more participants. It needs fewer participants.

The government never does anything successfully.

NAFTA and GATT have about as much to do with free trade as the Patriot Act has to do with liberty.

If we really want liberty - if we really want liberty - then we need to go out and get it, we need to take it, because nobody is going to give it to us. And we need to do it now.

I find it very offensive when the government tells me what I can and cannot watch. Censor yourself.

I am opposed to any individual taxes until we eliminate all of the unconstitutional agencies, and I suspect we wouldn't need a tax after that.

The question is: how bad do things have to get before you will do something about it? Where is your line in the sand? If you don't enforce the constitutional limitations on your government very soon, you are likely to find out what World War III will be like.

The first lines of defence against criminals are the victims themselves.

Communities don't have rights. Only individuals in the community have rights.