John F. Kerry famous quotes

Think about this: terrorism, epidemics, poverty, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction-all challenges that know no borders-the reality is that climate change ranks right up there with every single one of them.
-- John F. Kerry

#Reality #Thinking #Epidemics

Medicare is paid for by the American taxpayer. Medicare belongs to you. Medicare is for seniors, who many of them are on fixed income, to lift them out of poverty.
-- John F. Kerry

#Senior #Income #Poverty

You just don't invade another country on phony pretext in order to assert your interests!
-- John F. Kerry

#Country #Order #Phony

I believe that this president [George W. Bush], regrettably, rushed us into a war, made decisions about foreign policy, pushed alliances away. And, as a result, America is now bearing this extraordinary burden where we are not as safe as we ought to be.
-- John F. Kerry

#War #Believe #America

Great physicians and nurses, skilled, caring and unparalleled in their training, intervened in my life and probably saved it. I was lucky but other Americans are not. It is time to speak again and stand again for the ideal that in the richest nation ever on this planet, it is wrong for 41 million Americans, most of them in working families, to worry at night and wake up in the morning without the basic protection of health insurance.
-- John F. Kerry

#Morning #Caring #Night

So we can do a better job of homeland security. I can do a better job of waging a smarter, more effective war on terror and guarantee that we will go after the terrorists. I will hunt them down, and we'll kill them, we'll capture them. We'll do whatever is necessary to be safe.
-- John F. Kerry

#Jobs #War #Guarantees

America now stands as the world's foremost power. We should be proud: Not since the age of the Romans have one people achieved such preeminence. But we are not Romans; we do not seek an empire. We are Americans, trustees of a vision and a heritage that commit us to the values of democracy and the universal cause of human rights.
-- John F. Kerry

#America #Rights #People

The problem with the American health-care system that it is not working for the American family.
-- John F. Kerry

#Care #Problem #Health Care

Gender based violence anywhere is a threat to peace and security everywhere.
-- John F. Kerry

#Violence #Gender #Threat

The military's job is to win the war. A president's job is to win the peace.
-- John F. Kerry

#Jobs #Military #War

Folks, Sarah Palin said she could see Russia from Alaska. Mitt Romney talks like he's only seen Russia by watching 'Rocky IV.'
-- John F. Kerry

#Alaska #Russia #Said

It's very hard to get other countries to give up their weapons when you're busy developing a new one.
-- John F. Kerry

#Country #Giving Up #Weapons

You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq.
-- John F. Kerry

#Smart #Iraq #Effort

America deserves a real discussion about real policy.
-- John F. Kerry

#Real #America #Policy

Remember the hours after Sept. 11 when we came together as one...It was the worst day we have ever seen, but it brought out the best in all of us.
-- John F. Kerry

#September 11 #Together #Remember

It's pretty standard fare in political discourse. You misconstrue what somebody said. You isolate a statement, you lend your interpretation to it and then feign moral outrage. And Democrats have been doing it for years.
-- John F. Kerry

#Years #Political #Moral

Confronting climate change is, in the long run, one of the greatest challenges that we face, and you can see this duty or responsibility laid down in scriptures, clearly, beginning in Genesis. And Muslim-majority countries are among the most vulnerable. Our response to this challenge ought to be rooted in a sense of stewardship of Earth. And for me and for many of us here today, that responsibility comes from God.
-- John F. Kerry

#Running #Country #Responsibility

A fundamental premise of politics is we can make this work if people just never figure it out.
-- John F. Kerry

#People #Fundamentals #Figures

We should not allow a tiny minority of shoddy scientists and science and extreme ideologues to compete with scientific facts,
-- John F. Kerry

#Facts #Minorities #Tiny

I believe America is safest and strongest when we are leading the world and we are leading strong alliances.
-- John F. Kerry

#Strong #Believe #America

I saw how different life was on different sides of the same city. I saw the fear in the eyes of people who were not free. I saw the gratitude of people toward the United States for all that we had done. I felt goosebumps as I got off a military train and heard the Army band strike up 'Stars and Stripes Forever.'
-- John F. Kerry

#Gratitude #Stars #Military

We are all proud of is World War II where we went in, we were decisive, we came to the conclusion that freedom prevailed, and we were heroes.
-- John F. Kerry

#War #Hero #World

My definition of patriotism is to defend your country with the truth, no matter the consequences.
-- John F. Kerry

#Country #4th Of July #Definitions

Where are they now that we, the men whom they sent off to war, have returned? These are commanders who have deserted their troops, and there is no more serious crime in the law of war. The Army says they never leave their wounded. The Marines say they never leave even their dead. These men have left all the casualties and retreated behind a pious shield of public rectitude. They have left the real stuff of their reputation bleaching behind them in the sun in this country.
-- John F. Kerry

#Country #Real #War

How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?
-- John F. Kerry

#Mistake #Men #Vietnam

I still believe Americas destiny is to become a living testament to what free human beings can accomplish by acting in unity.
-- John F. Kerry

#Believe #Destiny #Unity

Today, if you're an American business, you actually get a benefit for going overseas. You get to defer your taxes. So if you're looking at a competitive world, you say to yourself, "Hey, I do better overseas than I do here in America."
-- John F. Kerry

#America #Hey #Benefits

I saw courage both in the Vietnam War and in the struggle to stop it. I learned that patriotism includes protest, not just military service.
-- John F. Kerry

#Military #War #Struggle

In order to have the best intelligence in the world to know who the terrorists are and where they are and what they're plotting, you've got to have the best cooperation you've ever had in the world.
-- John F. Kerry

#Order #World #Cooperation

Remember the hours after September 11th when we came together as one to answer the attack against our homeland. We drew strength when our firefighters ran upstairs and risked their lives so that others might live; when rescuers rushed into smoke and fire at the Pentagon; when the men and women of Flight 93 sacrificed themselves to save our nation's Capitol; when flags were hanging from front porches all across America, and strangers became friends. It was the worst day we have ever seen, but it brought out the best in all of us.
-- John F. Kerry

#Men #America #Fire

What we need to do is raise the minimum wage. We also need to hold onto equal pay. Women work for 76 cents on the dollar for the same work that men do. That's not right in America.
-- John F. Kerry

#Men #Equal Pay #America

I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force-- if necessary-- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security.
-- John F. Kerry

#Real #Believe #Hands

Our military is overextended. Nine out of 10 active-duty Army divisions are either in Iraq, going to Iraq or have come back from Iraq. One way or the other, they're wrapped up in it.
-- John F. Kerry

#Military #Army #Iraq

We need to guarantee equal rights and civil rights and say that, here in America, workers have the right to organize - women have the right to choose - and justice belongs to everyone regardless of race or gender or sexual orientation.
-- John F. Kerry

#Rights #Race #America

The fact is that in too many parts of our country, we still have discrimination. And affirmative action is not just something that applies to people of color. Some people have a mistaken view of it in America. It also is with respect to women, it's with respect to other efforts to try to reach out and be inclusive in our country.
-- John F. Kerry

#Country #Views #Color

Ask Osama bin Laden if he's better off now than he was four years ago.
-- John F. Kerry

#Years #Four #Osama Bin Laden

It's the [George Bush] president's fiscal policies that have driven up the biggest deficits in American history. He's added more debt to the debt of the United States in four years than all the way from George Washington to Ronald Reagan put together.
-- John F. Kerry

#Years #President #Together

I can't take my Catholic belief, my article of faith, and legislate it on a Protestant or a Jew or an Atheist. We have separation of church and state in the United States of America.
-- John F. Kerry

#Atheist #America #Catholic

I want to fully fund education, No Child Left Behind, special-needs education. And that's how we're going to be more competitive, by making sure our kids are graduating from school and college.
-- John F. Kerry

#Children #School #Kids

Values spoken without actions taken are merely slogans.
-- John F. Kerry

#Taken #Action #Slogans

I'm going to be a president who believes in science.
-- John F. Kerry

#Believe #President

Climate change is real. The science is compelling. And the longer we wait, the harder the problem will be to solve.
-- John F. Kerry

#Real #Waiting #Climate

I have a plan to protect the environment so that we leave this place in better shape to our children than we were handed it by our parents.
-- John F. Kerry

#Children #Parent #Shapes

You just don't in the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pre-text,
-- John F. Kerry

#Country #Fashion #Century

I will not stop in our efforts to hunt down and kill the terrorists.
-- John F. Kerry

#Effort #Down And #Terrorist

I know that our country is strongest when we lead the world, when we lead strong alliances. And that's the way Eisenhower and Reagan and Kennedy and others did it.
-- John F. Kerry

#Country #Strong #Alliances

I will never cede the authority of our country or our security to any other nation. I'll never give a veto over American security to any other entity - not a nation, not a country, not an institution.
-- John F. Kerry

#Country #Giving #Authority

There is no bigger judgment for a president of the United States than how you take a nation to war.
-- John F. Kerry

#War #President #United States

I'm against the partial-birth abortion, but you've got to have an exception for the life of the mother and the health of the mother under the strictest test of bodily injury to the mother.
-- John F. Kerry

#Mother #Abortion #Tests

I'm a Catholic, raised a Catholic. I was an altar boy. Religion has been a huge part of my life. It helped lead me through a war, leads me today.
-- John F. Kerry

#War #Boys #Catholic

Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, others, knew how to lead. They knew how to ask the American people for the right things.
-- John F. Kerry

#People #Harry Truman #Franklin

I don't believe we need a good conservative judge, and I don't believe we need a good liberal judge. I subscribe to the Justice Potter Stewart standard. He was a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. And he said the mark of a good judge, good justice, is that when you're reading their decision, their opinion, you can't tell if it's written by a man or woman, a liberal or a conservative, a Muslim, a Jew or a Christian. You just know you're reading a good judicial decision.
-- John F. Kerry

#Christian #Believe #Reading

I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein. And when the president made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him.
-- John F. Kerry

#Thinking #Iraq #Support

This is deeply disturbing. Congress provided loans to help businesses hurt by the Sept. 11 attacks, not to be used as an accounting gimmick to cover up this administration's failure to provide for small businesses.
-- John F. Kerry

#Hurt #Cover Ups #Administration

If America can go to the moon, then in the decades to come we should not ever have to have young Americans sent to any part of the world to defend and die for America`s gluttony on fossil fuel.
-- John F. Kerry

#Moon #America #Fuel

I don't know what compassionate conservative means. Does it mean cutting kids out of after school programs, Does it mean drilling in the arctic wildlife refuge? Does it mean sending kids to Iraq without body armor that's state of the art?
-- John F. Kerry

#Art #School #Mean

After Mitt Romney said it would be naive to go into Pakistan to pursue the terrorists, it took President Obama, against the advice of many, to give that order and finally rid this earth of Osama bin Laden. Ask Osama bin Laden if he is better off now than he was four years ago!
-- John F. Kerry

#Order #Years #Giving

The threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real, but as I said, it is not new. It has been with us since the end of that war, and particularly in the last 4 years we know after Operation Desert Fox failed to force him to reaccept them, that he has continued to build those weapons. He has had a free hand for 4 years to reconstitute these weapons, allowing the world, during the interval, to lose the focus we had on weapons of mass destruction and the issue of proliferation.
-- John F. Kerry

#Real #War #Wmd

And here and now we must insist again that fidelity, honor, and love of country demand untrammeled debate and open dissent. At no time is that truer than in the midst of a war rooted in deceit and justified by continuing deception.
-- John F. Kerry

#Country #War #Deception

In the middle of the cavernous cargo hold was a simple, aluminum coffin with a small American flag draped over it. We were bringing another American soldier, just killed, home to his family and final resting place. The starkness of his coffin in the center of the hold, the silence except for the din of the engines, was a real time cold reminder of the consequences of decisions for which we Senators share responsibility.
-- John F. Kerry

#Real #Home #Responsibility

Those who doubted whether Iraq or the world would be better off without Saddam Hussein, and those who believe today that we are not safer with his capture, don't have the judgment to be President, or the credibility to be elected President. No one can doubt or should doubt that we are safer - and Iraq is better - because Saddam Hussein is now behind bars.
-- John F. Kerry

#Believe #Iraq #Doubt

If you don't believe...Saddam Hussein is a threat with nuclear weapons, then you shouldn't vote for me.
-- John F. Kerry

#Believe #Nuclear #Hussein

In American elections there are no losers, because whether or not our candidates win or lose, the next morning we wake up as Americans.
-- John F. Kerry

#Morning #Winning #Wake Up

We don't differ with the government on the demands [on Iran], but we totally reject how Bibi is handling it. Bibi sacrificed good relations with the U.S. to keep the status quo on the Palestinians. He poked the [Obama] Administration in the eye on settlements just to appease right-wingers
-- John F. Kerry

#Eye #Government #Israel

There is no greater breach of the public trust than knowingly misleading the country into war. In a democracy, we simply cannot tolerate the abuse of this trust by the government.
-- John F. Kerry

#Country #War #Government

America must always be the world's paramount military power, but we can magnify our power through alliances.
-- John F. Kerry

#Military #America #Alliances

If America is at war, I won't speak a word without measuring how it'll sound to the guys doing the fighting when they're listening to their radios in the desert.
-- John F. Kerry

#War #Fighting #America

I believe America's best days are ahead of us because I believe that the future belongs to freedom, not to fear.
-- John F. Kerry

#Believe #America #I Believe

Mitt Romney says he believes in America and that he will restore American exceptionalism. I have news for him, we already have an exceptional American as president and we believe in Barack Obama.
-- John F. Kerry

#Believe #America #President

We cannot fight communism all over the world, and I think we should have learned that lesson by now.
-- John F. Kerry

#Fighting #Thinking #World

I would rather be the candidate of the NAACP than the NRA.
-- John F. Kerry

#Nra #Naacp

Real Democrats don't abandon the middle class.
-- John F. Kerry

#Real #Class #Middle

In this remarkable time for the world, I refuse to believe it's time to stop believing in the possibilities of our remarkable country. I refuse to accept the downsizing of the American Dream. I refuse to bet against American entrepreneurial spirit and American ingenuity.The competition's tough, and it requires us to be tougher - tough-minded, never hard hearted.
-- John F. Kerry

#Dream #Country #Believe

It took President Obama to make America lead like America again.
-- John F. Kerry

#America #President #President Obama

Republican secretaries of state from Kissinger to Baker, Powell to Rice, President Bush, 71 United States Senators all supported President Obama's new START treaty, but not Mitt Romney.
-- John F. Kerry

#President #United States #Bakers

Even as a supporter of Roe v. Wade, I am compelled to acknowledge that the language both sides use on this subject can be unfortunately misleading and unconstructive.... Everyone is worse off for it
-- John F. Kerry

#Abortion #Use #Wade

The consequences of a crime should not be out of proportion to the crime itself.
-- John F. Kerry

#Crime #Should #Proportion

We're in a battle for our lives for things that really matter to us. There's a shell game going on like I've never seen before.
-- John F. Kerry

#Games #Battle #Shells

Martin Luther King challenged the conscience of my generation, and his words and his legacy continue to move generations to action today at home and around the world. His love and faith is alive in millions of Americans who volunteer each day in soup kitchens or in schools, or who refused to ignore the suffering of millions they'd never met in far-away places when a tsunami brought unthinkable destruction. His vision and his passion is alive in churches and on campuses when millions stand up against the injustice of discrimination anywhere, or the indifference that leaves too many behind.
-- John F. Kerry

#Kings #Moving #Passion

When I was in Vietnam I learned a lot about the promises that soldiers make to each other. The Marines have a promise to never leave behind their dead. In this country, as citizen soldiers, we need to make the commitment to each other that we will never leave our veterans behind.
-- John F. Kerry

#Country #Commitment #Marine

In case after case, President Bush's actions have made American women less safe and less secure -- on the job and on the streets. As president, I will put American government and our legal system back on the side of women. I will stand up for their security, ensure their safety, support their rights, and guarantee their dignity. This nation can do no less.
-- John F. Kerry

#Jobs #Rights #Government

We have to recognize that there is a strong, fresh wind blowing, powered by these new information technologies. It will be increasingly difficult for dictators to impose their will through sheer brutality.
-- John F. Kerry

#Strong #Technology #Wind

It’s time we framed every question - every issue -- not in terms of what’s in it for ‘me,’ but what’s in it for all of us?
-- John F. Kerry

#Issues #Framed #Term

We must uphold the promise of Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, and Clinton and never allow the President and his Republican friends to threaten Social Security by putting it on the Wall Street trading block.
-- John F. Kerry

#Wall #Block #Promise

American can do better, and help is on the way.
-- John F. Kerry

#Way #Helping

I defended this country as a young man, and I will defend it as president.
-- John F. Kerry

#Country #Men #President

There are issues of war and peace. And then, there are issues of life and death like this one that are no less morally compelling than war itself.
-- John F. Kerry

#War #Issues #Life And Death

I've often said that global climate change is an issue where no one has the luxury of being "half-pregnant." You either are or you aren't. And so it is with climate change. You either understand and accept the science - or you don't. Folks this isn't a cafeteria where you can pick and choose and accept the science that tells us what is happening, but then reject the science that warns us what will happen.
-- John F. Kerry

#Luxury #Issues #Climate

I am sympathetic to developing countries' concerns: because of our emissions it's their crops that will disappear; because of our inaction, it's their fields that turn to desert.
-- John F. Kerry

#Country #Desert #Developing Countries

Those who deny the science or choose excuses over action are playing with fire.
-- John F. Kerry

#Fire #Action #Excuse

These guys [Republicans] are the most crooked, you know, lying group I've ever seen.
-- John F. Kerry

#Lying #Guy #Groups

We've been waiting since 1918 for the Boston Red Sox to win the World Series, and ... if I had a choice between the White House and the World Series this year, I'm going to take the White House. How's that?
-- John F. Kerry

#Winning #Boston #Years

I can tell you, Massachusetts, fastest growing sector of our economy is clean energy and energy efficiency companies. And they're growing faster than any other sector.
-- John F. Kerry

#Energy #Massachusetts #Growing

Too many people in America believe that if you are pro-choice that means pro-abortion. It doesn't. I don't want abortion. Abortion should be the rarest thing in the world. I am actually personally opposed to abortion. But I don't believe that I have a right to take what is an article of faith to me and legislate it to other people. That's not how it works in America.
-- John F. Kerry

#Believe #Mean #America

Patriots don't go to Russia. They don't seek asylum in Cuba. They don't seek asylum in Venezuela. They fight their cause here. Edward Snowden is a coward. He is a traitor. And he has betrayed his country. And if he wants to come home tomorrow to face the music, he can do so.
-- John F. Kerry

#Leadership #Country #Home

And now that the Greatest Generation is getting older, I think it is the responsibility of all Americans to make sure we do our part for America's seniors. You have earned the best of America -- and we need to make sure you get the protection and health care you deserve.
-- John F. Kerry

#Senior #Responsibility #Thinking

My dad was a member of the Greatest Generation that achieved victory in World War II. This was the generation that saved the world from fascism, came home and built the great American middle class, led the way in the civil rights movement, protected our environment, and created great programs like Medicare.
-- John F. Kerry

#Dad #War #Home

This President has made, I regret to say, a colossal error of judgment. and judgment is what we look for in the president of the President of the United States of America.
-- John F. Kerry

#Regret #Errors #America

And it is time for those who talk about family values to start valuing families.
-- John F. Kerry

#Family Values #Values

I know there are a lot of musicians and a lot of artists, and there are a lot of writers and other people who inspire young people, but I'd like to see somebody in political life be able to connect and make these choices that we need to make in Washington real in terms of people's lives.
-- John F. Kerry

#Real #Artist #People