Politicians From Texas

"I am going to build the kind of nation that President Roosevelt hoped for, President Truman worked for and President Kennedy died for."

"The same society which receives the rewards of technology must, as a cooperating whole, take responsibility for control. To deal with these new problems will require a new conservation. We must not only protect the countryside and save it from destruction, we must restore what has been destroyed and salvage the beauty and charm of our cities. Our conservation must be not just the classic conservation of protection and development, but a creative conservation of restoration and innovation. Its concern is not with nature alone, but with the total relation between man and the world around him. Its object is not just man's welfare, but the dignity of man's spirit."

"We do not want an expanding struggle with consequences, that no one can perceive, nor will we bluster or bully or flaunt our power, but we will not surrender and we will not retreat, for behind our American pledge lies the determination and resources, I believe, of all of the American nation."

"There are no problems which we cannot solve together, and there are very few which any of us can settle by himself."

"And I just want to tell you this — we're in favor of a lot of things and we're against mighty few."

"I do not find it easy to send the flower of our youth, our finest young men, into battle."

"Our government is united in its determination to take all necessary measures in support of freedom and in defense of peace in Southeast Asia."

"Well, I think we may have lost the south for your lifetime—and mine."

"This has been a year without precedent in the history of relations between the Executive and the Legislative Branches of our Government. This session of Congress has enacted more major legislation, met more national needs, disposed of more national issues than any other session of this century or the last."

"Fuck your parliament and your constitution. America is an elephant. Cyprus is a flea. Greece is a flea. If these two fleas continue itching the elephant, they may just get whacked good ... We pay a lot of good American dollars to the Greeks, Mr. Ambassador. If your Prime Minister gives me talk about democracy, parliament and constitution, he, his parliament and his constitution may not last long ..."

"The challenge of the next half century is whether we have the wisdom to use that wealth to enrich and elevate our national life, and to advance the quality of our American civilization…. The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time. But that is just the beginning. The Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to enlarge his talents. It is a place where leisure is a welcome chance to build and reflect, not a feared cause of boredom and restlessness. It is a place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community. It is a place where man can renew contact with nature. It is a place which honors creation for its own sake and for what it adds to the understanding of the race. It is a place where men are more concerned with the quality of their goals than the quantity of their goods. But most of all, the Great Society is not a safe harbor, a resting place, a final objective, a finished work. It is a challenge constantly renewed, beckoning us toward a destiny where the meaning of our lives matches the marvelous products of our labor."

"The purpose of protecting the life of our Nation and preserving the liberty of our citizens is to pursue the happiness of our people. Our success in that pursuit is the test of our success as a Nation."

"I am so proud of our system of government, of our free enterprise, where our incentive system and our men who head our big industries are willing to get up at daylight and work until midnight to offer employment and create new jobs for people, where our men working there will try to get decent wages but will sit across the table and not act like cannibals, but will negotiate and reason things out together."

"This civil rights program about which you have heard so much is a farce and a sham; an effort to set up a police state in the guise of liberty. I am opposed to that program. I fought it in the Congress. It is the province of the state to run its own elections. I am opposed to the anti-lynching bill because the federal government has no business enacting a law against one kind of murder than another ... If a man can tell you who you must hire, he can tell you who not to employ. I have met this head on."

"This is a sad time for all people. We have suffered a loss that cannot be weighed. For me, it is a deep, personal tragedy. I know the world shares the sorrow that Mrs. Kennedy and her family bear. I will do my best; that is all I can do. I ask for your help and God's."

"[[Gerald Ford|[Gerald] Ford]]'s economics are the worst thing that's happened to this country since pantyhose ruined finger-fucking."

"Poverty must not be a bar to learning, and learning must offer an escape from poverty."

"Making a speech on economics is a lot like pissing down your leg. It seems hot to you, but it never does to anyone else."

"If the circumstances make it such that you can't fuck a man in the ass, then just peckerslap him. Better to let him know who's in charge than to let him get the keys to the car."

"Eisenhower used to tell me that this place was a prison. I never felt freer."

"I hope that you of the IPA will go out into the hinterland and rouse the masses and blow the bugles and tell them that the hour has arrived and their day is here; that we are on the march against the ancient enemies and we are going to be successful."

"If the King's English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for the children of Texas!"

"As one of our colleagues recently put it, this Republican pledge of no new taxes is pure Bushlips. It's Bushlips when the president says 'No new taxes' and sends a budget requiring the Finance Committee to raise $20 billion in new revenues: $15 billion in taxes and $5 billion in user fees."

"Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."

"[A] fellow from Texas can tell the difference between grass-roots and AstroTurf."

"We've already found a secret memo coming out of the Justice Department. They're now going to go after 12 new perversions, things like bestiality, polygamy, having sex with little boys and making that legal. Not only that, but they have a whole list of strategies to go after the churches, the pastors, and any businesses that tries to assert their religious liberty. This is coming and it's coming like a tidal wave."

"If we had those 40 million children that were [aborted] over the last 30 years, we wouldn't need the illegal immigrants to fill the jobs that they are doing today."

"After many weeks of personal prayerful thinking and analysis, I have come to the conclusion that it is time to close this public service chapter of my life. It’s time to begin opening new chapters and pursuing new opportunities to engage in the important cultural and political battles of our day from outside the arena of the U.S. House of Representatives...I refuse to allow liberal Democrats an opportunity to steal this seat with a negative, personal campaign....I just realized that my constituents don't deserve this, they deserve a Republican. I think I could have won this seat but it would have been nasty, it would have cost a fortune to do it. The challenge has always been in the interest of the constituents' cause and the Republican majority. I'm more interested in growing the Republican majority than my own future."

"I’ve been indicted for rules that don’t even exist."

"I am the Federal Government."

"Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?"

"I have notified the speaker that I will temporarily step aside from my position as majority leader pursuant to rules of the House Republican Conference and the actions of the Travis County district attorney today."

"I have seen these liberal psychologists and sociologists talk about there is no need for the man in the family. The woman can take care of it. A woman can take care of the family. It takes a man to provide structure. To provide stability. Not that a woman can’t provide stability, I’m not saying that... It does take a father, though."

"It's the fault of the liberals and the media and the Democrats, that from the very beginning have tried to undermine the will of the American people to fight this."

"I don't believe there is a separation of church and state. I think the Constitution is very clear. The only separation is that there will not be a government church."

"You know, the Democrats want to balance the budget by raising spending and raising taxes. The Soviet Union had a balanced budget."

"Nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes."

"The judges need to be intimidated. They need to uphold the Constitution. (If they don't behave) we're going to go after them in a big way."

"Our school systems teach the children that they are nothing but glorified apes who are evolutionized out of some primordial soup of mud."

"Kofi Annan's kangaroo court...a clear and present danger to the war on terrorism and Americans fighting it all over the world."

"Newt Gingrich is an incredible leader. He is a leader of our time, and he's going to lead us into the future. And we're going to accomplish the things that we've all dreamed of."

"It's never been proven that air toxics [sic] are hazardous to people."

"I am not a federal employee. I am a constitutional officer. My job is the Constitution of the United States, I am not a government employee. I am in the Constitution."

"The EPA, the Gestapo of government, pure and simply has been one of the major claw-hooks that the government maintains on the backs of our constituents."

"My friends, there is no Palestinian-Israeli conflict. There is only the global war on terrorism."

"So many minority youths had volunteered...that there was literally no room for patriotic folks like [myself]."

"We have a small faction, and they are a minority, who believe they are there to govern. Then there is the majority of us who believe that indeed we are there to govern but more importantly we are there to be an opposition to the Democratic philosophy and the only way to do that is through confrontation."

"Emotional appeals about working families trying to get by on $4.25 an hour [the minimum wage in 1996] are hard to resist. Fortunately, such families do not exist."

"He was born on third base and thought he hit a triple. [about George Bush, Sr.]"

"Oh, absolutely. No question about it. And the state of Texas, when I was governor, we built an awful lot of prisons. And to be frank with you, I made a deal, and the deal was that I would help pass the legislation and be for building a lot more prisons in Texas if I could get rehab programs for people who were alcoholics and drug abusers because I knew that over 80 percent of the crime committed in Texas was committed by people under the influence of alcohol or drugs."