Quotes by Politicians - Page 44

Ask him about the cemeteries, Dean!"In 1966 upon being told that President Charles DeGaulle had taken France out of NATO and that all U.S. troops must be evacuated off of French soil President Lyndon Johnson mentioned to Secretary of State Dean Rusk that he should ask DeGaulle about the Americans buried in France. Dean implied in his answer that that DeGaulle should not really be asked that in the meeting at which point President Johnson then told Secretary of State Dean Rusk:"Ask him about the cemeteries Dean!"That made it into a Presidential Order so he had to ask President DeGaulle.So at end of the meeting Dean did ask DeGaulle if his order to remove all U.S. troops from French soil also included the 60,000+ soldiers buried in France from World War I and World War II.DeGaulle, embarrassed, got up and left and never answered.
Lyndon B. Johnson
A Country is not a mere territory; the particular territory is only its foundation. The Country is the idea which rises upon that foundation; it is the sentiment of love, the sense of fellowship which binds together all the sons of that territory.
Giuseppe Mazzini
The challenges of change are always hard. It is important that we begin to unpack those challenges that confront this nation and realize that we each have a role that requires us to change and become more responsible for shaping our own future.
Hillary Rodham Clinton
One only gets to the top rung of the ladder by steadily climbing up one at a time and suddenly all sorts of powers all sorts of abilities which you thought never belonged to you- suddenly become within your own possibility and you think "Well I'll have a go too."
Margaret Thatcher
As long as we have faith in our own cause and an unconquerable will to win, victory will not be denied us.
Winston Churchill
The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.
Sarah Palin
Wisdom of the Ages: "Boxing Day" In the UK, the day after Christmas is named after the first activity that takes place between husband and wife after the Christmas receipts are added up.
Matthew D. Heines
Worry is a god invisible but omnipotent. It steals the bloom from the cheek and lightness from the pulse it takes away the appetite and turns the hair gray.
Benjamin Disraeli
If I do not know the will of my Father, and what He requires of me in a certain transaction, if I ask Him to give me wisdom concerning any requirement in my life, or in regard to my own course, or that of my friends, my family, my children, or those that I preside over, and get no answer from Him, and then do the very best that my judgement will teach me, He is bound to own and honor that transaction, and He will do so to all intents and purposes.
Brigham Young
A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.
Mao Zedong
My theory is that the Supernatural is the Impossible, and what is called the supernatural is only something in the laws of nature of which we have been hitherto ignorant.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton
I do not intend to defend capitalism or capitalists. They, like everything human, have their defects. I only say their possibilities of usefulness are not ended.Capitalism has borne the monstrous burden of the war and today still has the strength to shoulder the burdens of peace. ... It is not simply and solely an accumulation of wealth, it is an elaboration, a selection, a co-ordination of values which is the work of centuries. ... Many think, and I myself am one of them, that capitalism is scarcely at the beginning of its story.
Benito Mussolini
Nobody is sure of his life, property and health when the parliament deliberates.
Janusz Korwin-Mikke
The home of everyone is to him his castle and fortress as well for his defence against injury and violence as for his repose.
Edward Coke
Government should never be able to do anything you can't do. If you can't steal from your neighbor, you can't send the government to steal for you.
Ron Paul
For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances freedom to others. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I rest only for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended.
Nelson Mandela
When we got into office the thing that surprised me most was to find that things were just as bad as we'd been saying they were.
John F Kennedy
I get into a tearing passion about something I know very little about, and when I learn more my passion ebbs away.
John Buchan
I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me.
Willard D. Vandiver
Never send a battalion to take a hill if a regiment is available.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
The lack of power to take joy in outdoor nature is as real a misfortune as the lack of power to take joy in books
Theodore Roosevelt
you will need a great deal of self-discipline not to lose your sense of balance, humility, and commitment.
H. Ross Perot
Carnal apple, Woman filled, burning moon,dark smell of seaweed, crush of mud and light,what secret knowledge is clasped between your pillars?What primal night does Man touch with his senses?Ay, Love is a journey through waters and stars,through suffocating air, sharp tempests of grain:Love is a war of lightning,and two bodies ruined by a single sweetness.Kiss by kiss I cover your tiny infinity,your margins, your rivers, your diminutive villages,and a genital fire, transformed by delight,slips through the narrow channels of bloodto precipitate a nocturnal carnation,to be, and be nothing but light in the dark.
Pablo Neruda
The heart, I think, which is the home of all things rhythmic, is where learned poems go to live.
Bill Richardson
...where the preservation of a natural resource like the redwoods is concerned, that there is a common sense limit. I mean, if you've looked at a hundred thousand acres or so of trees — you know, a tree is a tree, how many more do you need to look at?
Ronald Reagan
There are times when you simply have to righteous hang on and outlast the devil.
Ezra Taft Benson
Everything is ceremony in the wild garden of childhood.
Pablo Neruda
You will remember that Albertus Magnus, after describing minutely the process by which spirits may be invoked and commanded, adds emphatically that the process will instruct and avail only to the few - that a man must be born a magician! - that is, born with a peculiar physical temperament, as a man is born a poet. Rarely are men in whose constitution lurks this occult power of the highest order of intellect - usually in the intellect there is some twist, perversity, or disease.' ("The House And The Brain")
Edward Bulwer-Lytton
To criticize one's country is to do it a service... Criticism, in short, is more than a right; it is an act of patriotism--a higher form of patriotism, I believe, than the familiar rituals and national adulation.
J. William Fulbright (Senator)
When you start giving, instead of getting, you make a difference… You can always give a warm smile, a sincere hello, a positive vibe… your concern, your attention, your time, your love, and kindness to those around you.
Roy Bennett
Years ago, a member of Congress slipped a laminated quote into my hand that he must have thought I would find meaningful. I paid little attention at first and unfortunately I don’t recall just who gave me the quote. I placed it next to my voting card and have carried it ever since. The quote came from Elie Wiesel’s book One Generation After. The quote was entitled “Why I Protest.”Author Elie Wiesel tells the story of the one righteous man of Sodom, who walked the streets protesting against the injustice of this city. People made fun of him, derided him. Finally, a young person asked: “Why do you continue your protest against evil; can’t you see no one is paying attention to you?” He answered, “I’ll tell you why I continue. In the beginning, I thought I would change people. Today, I know I cannot. Yet, if I continue my protest, at least I will prevent others from changing me.”tI’m not that pessimistic that we can’t change people’s beliefs or that people will not respond to the message of liberty and peace. But we must always be on guard not to let others change us once we gain the confidence that we are on the right track in the search for truth.
Ron Paul
The worth of a book is to be measured by what you can carry away from it
James Bryce
Honesty is the great essential. It exalts the individual citizenship, and, without honesty, no man deserves the confidence of the people in private pursuit or in public office.
Warren G. Harding
When people speak of great men, they think of men like Napoleon - men of violence. Rarely do they think of peaceful men. But contrast the reception they will receive when they return home from their battles. Napoleon will arrive in pomp and in power, a man who's achieved the very summit of earthly ambition. And yet his dreams will be haunted by the oppressions of war. William Wilberforce, however, will return to his family, lay his head on his pillow and remember: the slave trade is no more.
Charles Fox
A poor woman from Manchester on being taken to the seaside is said to have expressed her delight on seeing for the first time something of which there was enough for everybody.
John Lubbock
I love all things, not only the grand but the infinitely small: thimble, spurs, plates, flower vases.....
Pablo Neruda
Freedom is difficult…but we have never had to put a wall up to keep the people in.
Bill Clintion
To all the women, and especially the young women, who put their faith in this campaign and in me, I want you to know that nothing has made me prouder than to be your champion. Now, I know we have still not shattered that highest and hardest glass ceiling, but some day someone will and hopefully sooner than we might think right now.
Hillary Rodham Clinton
In Israel in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.
David Ben-Gurion
another tradition to politics, a tradition (of politics) that stretched from the days of the country’s founding to the glory of the civil rights movement, a tradition based on the simple idea that we have a stake in one another, and that what binds us together is greater than what drives us apart, and that if enough people believe in the truth of that proposition and act on it, then we might not solve every problem, but we can get something meaningful done.
Barack Obama
What's missing is not money, but a national sense of urgency.
Barack Obama
Daughter! Get you an honest Man for a Husband, and keep him honest. No matter whether he is rich, provided he be independent. Regard the Honour and moral Character of the Man more than all other Circumstances. Think of no other Greatness but that of the soul, no other Riches but those of the Heart. An honest, Sensible humane Man, above all the Littlenesses of Vanity, and Extravagances of Imagination, labouring to do good rather than be rich, to be usefull rather than make a show, living in a modest Simplicity clearly within his Means and free from Debts or Obligations, is really the most respectable Man in Society, makes himself and all about him the most happy.
John Adams
Love, that moves the sun and the other stars
Dante Alighieri
Whether religious or racial, anti-Semitism is always repugnant, one of the most destructive manifestations of human stupidity and evil. What is profoundly expressed in it is man's traditional mistrust of the man who is not part of his tribe, that 'other' who speaks a different language, whose skin is a different color, and who participates in mysterious rites and rituals.
Mario Vargas Llosa
If god is the root cause for our degradation destroy that god. If it is religion destroy it. If it is Manu Darma, Gita, or any other Mythology (Purana), burn them to ashes. If it is temple, tank, or festival, boycott them. Finally if it is our politics, come forward to declare it openly.
Periyar E.V. Ramasamy
You are free; you are free to go to your temples. You are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion, caste or creed—that has nothing to do with the business of the state.
Muhammad Ali Jinnah
If you're going to play the game properly you'd better know every rule.
Barbara Jordan
Wisdom of the Ages: "Friendship" The only ship that can weather any storm.
Matthew Heines
I have observed that gentlemen suppose that the general legislature will do every thing mischievous they possibly can, and that they will omit to do every thing good which they are authorized to do. If this were a reasonable supposition, their objections would be good. I consider it reasonable to conclude that they will as readily do their duty as deviate from it; nor do I go on the grounds mentioned by gentlemen on the other side — that we are to place unlimited confidence in them, and expect nothing but the most exalted integrity and sublime virtue. But I go on this great republican principle, that the people will have virtue and intelligence to select men of virtue and wisdom. Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks, no form of government, can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea. If there be sufficient virtue and intelligence in the community, it will be exercised in the selection of these men; so that we do not depend on their virtue, or put confidence in our rulers, but in the people who are to choose them.” James Madison (speech at the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 20 June 1788)
James Madison
Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
John Adams
I have left orders to be awakened at any time during national emergency, even if I'm in a cabinet meeting.
Ronald Reagan
Forgiveness is the most tender part of love.
John Sheffield
The men who act stand nearer to the mass of man than the men who write and it is in their hands that new thought gets its translation into the crude language of deeds.
Woodrow Wilson
Why, these men would destroy the Bible on evidence that would not convict a habitual criminal of a misdemeanor. They found a tooth in a sand pit in Nebraska with no other bones about it, and from that one tooth decided that it was the remains of the missing link. They have queer ideas about age too. They find a fossil and when they are asked how old it is they say they can't tell without knowing what rock it was in, and when they are asked how old the rock is they say they can't tell unless they know how old the fossil is.
William Jennings Bryan
When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.
Frédéric Bastiat
We'd be the safest country in the world if the world knew we didn't have a gun. Men are not killed because they get mad at each other. They're killed because one has a gun.
Jeannette Rankin
When you're in your nineties and looking back it's not going to be how much money you made or how many awards you've won. It's really what did you stand for. Did you make a positive difference for people?
Elizabeth Dole
May it please your Majesty I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as the House is pleased to direct me whose servant I am here.
William Lenthall
Nine times out of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard and compelled to sink or swim.
James A. Garfield
May our land be a land of liberty, the seat of virtue, the asylum of the oppressed, a name and a praise in the whole Earth, until the last shock of time shall bury the empires of the whole world in one common undistinguished ruin!
Joseph Warren