Rand Paul famous quotes

If someone has Ebola at a cocktail party, they're contagious and you can catch it from them.
-- Rand Paul

#Party #Ebola #Cocktails

In a free society, we will tolerate boorish people, who have abhorrent behavior, but if we're civilized people, we publicly criticize that, and don't belong to those groups, or don't associate with those people.
-- Rand Paul

#People #Groups #Abhorrent

We will not cut one penny from the safety net until we've cut every penny from corporate welfare.
-- Rand Paul

#Cutting #Safety #Pennies

I don't like the idea of telling private business owners - I abhor racism. I think it's a bad business decision to exclude anybody from your restaurant - but, at the same time, I do believe in private ownership. But I absolutely think there should be no discrimination in anything that gets any public funding.
-- Rand Paul

#Believe #Thinking #Ideas

I don't want to live in a nanny state where people are telling me where I can go and what I can do.
-- Rand Paul

#People #Nannies #Want

I do believe people ought to be left alone. I don't care who you are or what you do at home or who your friends are or where you hang out, what kind of music you listen to, what you do in your home is your own business. That's always been who I am. I am a leave me alone kind of guy.
-- Rand Paul

#Believe #Home #Who I Am

If our freedom is taken, the American dream will wither and die.
-- Rand Paul

#Dream #Taken #American Dream

I think women have come a long way. Women are in positions not because they're women, they're in positions because they're intelligent and they should be equal to their counterparts and treated equally.
-- Rand Paul

#Intelligent #Thinking #Long

I am running for president to return our country to the principles of liberty and limited government.
-- Rand Paul

#Running #Country #Government

If you are accused of being associated with terrorism, which could mean you are an Arab- American and you've sent e-mails to a relative in the Middle East, you should get your day in court, and I think you should get a lawyer and a trial, and I think most Americans agree to that.
-- Rand Paul

#Mean #Thinking #East

When you couple this militarization of law enforcement with an erosion of civil liberties and due process that allows the police to become judge and jury-national security letters, no-knock searches, broad general warrants, pre-conviction forfeiture-we begin to have a very serious problem on our hands.
-- Rand Paul

#Couple #Hands #Law

We live in a world, a medieval type of world, where someone can accuse you - through gossip and hearsay, and all of a sudden you're supposed to respond to specific charges from people you don't know, are not aware of who these people are, and you're supposed to respond to their specific allegations?
-- Rand Paul

#Gossip #People #World

I will not vote to send my sons, or your sons, daughters, brothers, sisters or friends to fight for a stalemate.
-- Rand Paul

#Daughter #Brother #Son

Well, I think a handshake is something that honorable men do. Before we had contracts we had handshakes that expressed that we were making an arrangement that was based on our honor. And I don't think I can shake the hand of someone who shows and lacks honor by attacking a man's faith.
-- Rand Paul

#Men #Thinking #Hands

There comes a time, there comes a time in the history of nations when fear and complacency allow power to accumulate and liberty and privacy to suffer. That time is now and I will not let the Patriot Act, the most unpatriotic of acts go unchallenged.
-- Rand Paul

#Suffering #Liberty #Complacency

Unless you really stand for something, people aren't motivated to go out and vote for you.
-- Rand Paul

#People #Vote #Motivated

I have a question, a question for the president: Do you hate all rich people, or just rich people who don't contribute to your campaign? Do you hate poor people or do you just hate poor people with jobs?
-- Rand Paul

#Jobs #Hate #People

I would prefer the [USA] government to be the policeman and not the businessman.
-- Rand Paul

#Usa #Government #Businessman

The U.S. should never get involved where we have no clear national interest. We should not intervene militarily in a country like Syria, where we can’t separate friend from foe and might end up arming the very people who hate us the most.
-- Rand Paul

#Country #Hate #People

If you're white and you're rich in the USA, if you get busted for drugs, you get a good attorney, and you in all likelihood serve no time. But if you're poor, black, Hispanic, or poor and white for that matter, you can get put in jail.
-- Rand Paul

#Usa #White #Jail

I will speak until I can no longer speak. I will speak as long as it takes, until the alarm is sounded from coast to coast that our Constitution is important, that your rights to trial by jury are precious, that no American should be killed by a drone on American soil without first being charged with a crime, without first being found to be guilty by a court,
-- Rand Paul

#Rights #Long #Important

The president wants more tax money in Washington. I want more money left in the communities, particularly poor communities, particularly communities that have high unemployment.
-- Rand Paul

#Community #President #Want

A Tea Party tidal wave is coming.
-- Rand Paul

#Party #Tea #Wave

Do you hate poor people or do you just hate poor people with jobs?
-- Rand Paul

#Jobs #Hate #People

The great and abiding lesson of American history, particularly the cold war, is that the engine of capitalism, the individual, is mightier than any collective.
-- Rand Paul

#War #Lessons #Abiding

For liberty to expand, government must shrink. For the economy to grow, government must get out of the way.
-- Rand Paul

#Government #Liberty #Way

I think Saudi Arabia often finances radical Islam and the teaching of hatred to the West and hatred of Americans. I think it is important that we know that. It's important that we know that there is a threat within and a threat without. I think we can stop it with more aggressive use of actual constitutional tools.
-- Rand Paul

#Teaching #Thinking #Hatred

No president has the right to say he is judge, jury and executioner
-- Rand Paul

#Judging #President #Executioners

I don't think we're actually using the constitutional tools that we have in an appropriate fashion.
-- Rand Paul

#Fashion #Thinking #Tools

American inventiveness and the desire to build developed because we were guaranteed the right to own our success.
-- Rand Paul

#Desire #Inventiveness

I think we're never fully protected, but I think we need to do everything we can to stop threats to us.
-- Rand Paul

#Thinking #Needs #Threat

I've heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines,
-- Rand Paul

#Children #Talking #Vaccines

We still need to secure our southern border. The other thing I would say is we need to secure who visits us in the country.
-- Rand Paul

#Country #Southern #Borders

I call myself a constitutional conservative.
-- Rand Paul

#Conservative

My belief has always been that national defense is the most important thing we do, but we shouldn't borrow to pay for it.
-- Rand Paul

#Important #Pay #Defense

If you give up your rights now, don’t expect to get them back.
-- Rand Paul

#Giving Up #Rights #Giving

I believe people ought to be treated fairly under the law. I see no reason why if the marriage contract conveys certain things that if you want to marry another woman that you can do that and have a contract. But the thing is is the religious connotation of marriage that has been going on for thousands of years, I still want to preserve that. And you probably could have both. You could have both traditional marriage, which I believe in. And then you could also have the neutrality of the law that allows people to have contracts with another.
-- Rand Paul

#Religious #Believe #Years

I was told I got 10 measly minutes, but just in case, I brought 13 hours worth of material.
-- Rand Paul

#Hours #Cases #Minutes

I really think that discrimination and racism is a horrible thing. And I don't want any form of it in our government, in our public sphere.
-- Rand Paul

#Thinking #Government #Racism

The Founders never intended for Americans to trust their government. Our entire Constitution was predicated on the notion that government was a necessary evil, to be restrained and minimized as much as possible.
-- Rand Paul

#Government #Evil #Constitution

You can tell a person's religion 85 percent of the time from their phone records.
-- Rand Paul

#Phones #Records #Persons

As long as I sit at Henry Clay's desk, I will remember his lifelong desire to forge agreement, but I will also keep close to my heart the principled stand of his cousin, Cassius Clay, who refused to forsake the life of any human, simply to find agreement.
-- Rand Paul

#Cousin #Heart #Agreement

I think the vast majority of the American people say you shouldn't be able to collect my phone records if I'm not suspicious, if you don't have probable cause.
-- Rand Paul

#Thinking #Phones #People

I am encouraged President Obama now says he will fulfill his constitutional obligation to seek authorization for any potential military action in Syria. This is the most important decision any President or any Senator must make, and it deserves vigorous debate
-- Rand Paul

#Military #Decision #Important

The GOP of old has grown stale and moss-covered. I don't think we need to name any names, do we? Our party is encumbered by an inconsistent approach to freedom. The new GOP will need to embrace liberty in both the economic and the personal sphere.
-- Rand Paul

#Party #Thinking #Names

The Republican Party is an empty vessel unless we imbue it with values.
-- Rand Paul

#Party #Republican #Empty

Just because a couple people on the Supreme Court declare something to be 'constitutional' does not make it so.
-- Rand Paul

#Couple #People #Doe

You can send a clear message to the establishment
-- Rand Paul

#Messages #Establishment #Clear

If congress refuses to obey its own rules. If congress refuses to pass a balanced budget. If congress refuses to read the Bills. Then I say, sweep the place clean, limit their terms, and send them HOME!
-- Rand Paul

#Home #Bills #Limits

You need to have people within your own party that have the wherewithal to stand up to you.
-- Rand Paul

#Party #People #Needs

The Stamp Act was a direct tax imposed on the colonies by King George III. This act inevitably led to the American Revolution. Just as the Stamp Act did in 1765, Obamacare should act as a wake-up call. Chief Justice Roberts provides us with a similar call to action.
-- Rand Paul

#Kings #Obamacare #Justice

I believe we should work to end all racism in American society and staunchly defend the inherent rights of every person.
-- Rand Paul

#Believe #Rights #Racism

I want to see the original long-form certificate of Donald Trump's Republican registration.
-- Rand Paul

#Long #Want #Republican

Are you so afraid that you are willing to trade your freedom for security?
-- Rand Paul

#Trade #Willing #Security

Do we fear terrorism so much that we throw out our Constitution, and are we unwilling and afraid to debate our Constitution?
-- Rand Paul

#Constitution #Debate #Terrorism

The Republican platform specifically says we don't believe in bailing out private business, and yet we did.
-- Rand Paul

#Believe #Republican #Platforms

My great-grandfather, like many, came to this country in search of the American dream.
-- Rand Paul

#Country #Dream #Grandfather

Washington is horribly broken. We are encountering a day of reckoning and this movement, this Tea Party movement, is a message to Washington that we're unhappy and that we want things done differently.
-- Rand Paul

#Party #Broken #Tea

As our voices rise in protest, the NSA monitors your every phone call. if you have a cell phone, you are under surveillance. I believe what you do on your cell phone is none of their damn business,
-- Rand Paul

#Believe #Cells #Nsa

If you force legislators to balance, at the end of the day, if it has to be balanced, then they step up and they become legislators and can find out where to cut.
-- Rand Paul

#Cutting #The End Of The Day #Balance

If I had been told to get out of the street as a teenager, there would have been a distinct possibility that I might have smarted off. But, I wouldn’t have expected to be shot.
-- Rand Paul

#Teenager #Might #Possibility

We should be proud that so many want to come to America, that it is still seen as the land of opportunity. Let's make it a land of legal work, not black-market jobs. Let's make it a land of work, not welfare. Our land should be one of assimilation, not hiding in the shadows.
-- Rand Paul

#Jobs #Opportunity #Land

If there were an ounce of courage in this body I would be joined by other senators… saying they will not tolerate this.
-- Rand Paul

#Would Be #Body #Tolerate

I have allowed the president to pick his political appointees…But I will not sit quietly and let him shred the Constitution.
-- Rand Paul

#Political #President #Constitution

We should not have the U.S. government buying stock in American industries - the financial industry or any other industry.
-- Rand Paul

#Government #Buying #Financial

What I say is, national defense is the most important thing we do in Washington, but there's still waste in the military budget.
-- Rand Paul

#Military #Important #Waste

The power to tax and spend is restricted by the enumerated powers.
-- Rand Paul

#Taxes

I say the phone records of law abiding citizens are none of their damn business!
-- Rand Paul

#Law #Phones #Citizens

Parents own the children, and it is an issue of freedom and public health.
-- Rand Paul

#Children #Issues #Parent

You campaigned against rich people and you got enough envy whipped up in the country and you're gonna get 'em. You're gonna stick it to those rich people. But guess what? You may not get anymore revenue. You may not get anymore economic growth. But you can say, 'I stuck it to the rich people.'
-- Rand Paul

#Country #Envy #People

The Bill of Rights existed long before President Obama was elected, and as long as I’m a U.S. Senator, I will fight to protect the basic rights and liberties that belong to all of us as American citizens.
-- Rand Paul

#Fighting #Rights #Long

We have a lot of politicians who have really small brains and really big hearts.
-- Rand Paul

#Heart #Political #Brain

I'm being unfairly targeted by a bunch of hacks and haters.
-- Rand Paul

#Bunch

People don't like to vote against something that's so incredibly popular.
-- Rand Paul

#People #Vote

I do not yet know if I will find a Romney presidency more acceptable on foreign policy. But I do know that I must oppose the most recent statements made by Mitt Romney in which he says he, as president, could take us to war unilaterally with Iran, without any approval from Congress.
-- Rand Paul

#War #Iran #President

There comes a time, in the history of Nations when fear and forgetfulness cause a nation to hesitate, to waver and perhaps even to succumb. When that time comes those who love liberty must rise to the occasion. Will you? Will you lovers of liberty, will you rise to the occasion?
-- Rand Paul

#Liberty #Causes #Lovers

What I don't like from the president's administration is this sort of, 'I'll put my boot heel on the throat of BP.' I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business. I've heard nothing from BP about not paying for the spill. And I think it's part of this sort of blame-game society in the sense that it's always got to be someone's fault instead of the fact that sometimes accidents happen.
-- Rand Paul

#Thinking #Games #Criticism

I think it's a conundrum. If we have no laws on this, people take it to one extension further, does it have to be humans, you know?
-- Rand Paul

#Thinking #Law #People

We have to think before we act.
-- Rand Paul

#Thinking

I think we need to treat everybody with dignity.
-- Rand Paul

#Thinking #Needs #Dignity

The state doesn’t own your children. Parents own the children.
-- Rand Paul

#Children #Parent #States

You wonder why your government's completely broken? We lurch from deadline to deadline, and it's on purpose really. We do deadline to deadline because ... 'we've got to go. It's spring break, we're going to be late for spring break, and we've got to go, so we've got to finish this up before we go.'
-- Rand Paul

#Spring #Government #Nsa

Let's say tomorrow that there was a president, that we elected a president that eliminated the bulk collection of data. Let's just say it happened. What do you think would happen? People are like 'the sky would fall. We would be overrun with jihadists.' Maybe we could rely on the Constitution. Maybe we could get warrants. ... If you make the warrant specific, there's no limit to what you can get through a warrant.
-- Rand Paul

#Fall #Thinking #Nsa

Some in Washington say that you have to trade your liberty for security.
-- Rand Paul

#Nsa #Liberty #Trade

I don't think I've ever used the word 'gay rights,' because I don't really believe in rights based on your behavior.
-- Rand Paul

#Believe #Gay #Thinking

I worry that the Senate is working to consider a series of little-noticed provisions in comprehensive immigration reform that may provide a pathway to a national ID card for all individuals present in the United States - citizens and noncitizens,
-- Rand Paul

#Worry #Immigration #United States

I'm not opposed to letting people work and labor in our country, but we shouldn't provide an easy route to citizenship. We're the only country I know of where a person can come in illegally and that baby becomes a citizen and I think that should stop also.
-- Rand Paul

#Country #Baby #Thinking

Republicans who criticize the use of two languages, I think, make a great mistake.
-- Rand Paul

#Mistake #Thinking #Two

I support local solutions to illegal immigration as protected by the 10th amendment. I support making English the official language of all documents and contracts..
-- Rand Paul

#Support #Immigration #Language

The 11 million, I think, are never going home, don't need to be sent home, and I would incorporate them into our society by giving them work visas and making them taxpayers.
-- Rand Paul

#Home #Thinking #Giving

I will not let the patriot act, the most un-patriotic of acts, go unchallenged.
-- Rand Paul

#Patriotic #Patriot #Patriot Act

I don't think Edward Snowden deserves a death penalty or life in prison. I think that's inappropriate. I think that's why he fled, [because] that is what he faced.
-- Rand Paul

#Leadership #Party #Technology

In battle, combatants engaged in war against America get no due process and may lawfully be killed. But citizens not in a battlefield - however despicable - are guaranteed a trial by our Constitution. No one argues that Americans who commit treason shouldn't be punished. The maximum penalty for treason is death. But the Constitution specifies the process necessary to convict.
-- Rand Paul

#War #Father #Technology

I think Republicans will not win again in my lifetime ... unless they become a new GOP, a new Republican Party. And it has to be a transformation. Not a little tweaking at the edges.
-- Rand Paul

#Party #Winning #Reality

Someone is an ignoramus who would say that, 'Oh, we had three hurricanes this year. This proves that somehow the climate is warming.' The earth is 4.5 billion years old, and you're going to say that we had four hurricanes and so it proves a theory?
-- Rand Paul

#Nature #Party #Science

We shouldn't be fearful of freedom, we shouldn't be fearful of individual liberty.
-- Rand Paul

#Liberty #Individual #Fearful

Fear & complacency allow power to accumulate & liberty & privacy to suffer
-- Rand Paul

#Suffering #Liberty #Complacency

Any time someone tries to tell you that metadata is 'meaningless, don't worry, it's just who you call, it's just phone records, it's not a big deal' - realize we kill people based on metadata. So they must be pretty darn certain that they think they know something based on metadata.
-- Rand Paul

#Thinking #Phones #Nsa

In the aftermath of 9/11, the Patriot Act was rushed to the floor. Several hundred pages. Nobody read it ... But people voted because they were fearful and people said there could be another attack and Americans will blame me if I don't vote on this.
-- Rand Paul

#Nsa #People #Aftermath

We must protect ourselves from jihadis without losing ourselves.
-- Rand Paul

#Losing #Protect