Barry Goldwater famous quotes

Can any of us refute the wisdom of Madison and the other framers? Can anyone look at the carnage in Iran, the bloodshed in Northern Ireland or the bombs bursting in Lebanon and yet question the dangers of injecting religious issues into the affairs of state?
-- Barry Goldwater

#Religious #Iran #Issues

By maintaining the separation of church and state, the United States has avoided the intolerance which has so divided the rest of the world with religious wars. Throughout our two hundred plus years, public policy debate has focused on political and economic issues, on which there can be compromise. . . .
-- Barry Goldwater

#Religious #War #Years

The oldest philosophy in the world is conservatism, and I go clear back to the first Greeks. ... When you say 'radical right' today, I think of these moneymaking ventures by fellows like Pat Robertson and others who are trying to take the Republican Party away from the Republican Party, and make a religious organization out of it. If that ever happens, kiss politics goodbye.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Goodbye #Religious #Philosophy

Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Freedom #Gay #Justice

Sex and politics are a lot alike. You don't have to be good at them to enjoy them.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Sex #Like You #Enjoy

We shall return to proven ways - not because they are old, but because they are true.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Inspirational #Way #Return

I could have ended the war in a month. I could have made North Vietnam look like a mud puddle.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Peace #War #Mud Puddles

When I'm not a politician, I'll be dead.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Politician

I've always said I have nothing against a woman doing anything a man can do as long as she gets home in time to cook dinner.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Home #Men #Long

You don't have to be straight to be in the military; you just have to be able to shoot straight.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Funny #Military #Gay

I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have failed in their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is "needed" before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Mean #Government #Law

I am frankly sick and tired of the political preachers telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in A, B, C, and D. Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me?
-- Barry Goldwater

#Believe #Tired #Thinking

Religious factions will go on imposing their will on others unless the decent people connected to them recognize that religion has no place in public policy. They must learn to make their views known without trying to make their views the only alternatives
-- Barry Goldwater

#Religious #Freedom #Views

The effect of Welfarism on freedom will be felt later on - after its beneficiaries have become its victims, after dependence on government has turned into bondage and it is too late to unlock the jail.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Government #Jail #Too Late

Equality, rightly understood as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences; wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Father #Equality #Differences

Everyone knows that gays have served honorably in the military since at least the time of Julius Caesar.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Military #Gay #Julius

Where is the politician who has not promised to fight to the death for lower taxes- and who has not proceeded to vote for the very spending projects that make tax cuts impossible?
-- Barry Goldwater

#Fighting #Cutting #Government

The income tax created more criminals than any other single act of government.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Government #Political #Criminals

I am a conservative Republican, but I believe in democracy and the separation of church and state. The conservative movement is founded on the simple tenet that people have the right to live life as they please as long as they don't hurt anyone else in the process.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Hurt #Believe #Live Life

While I am a great believer in the free enterprise system and all that it entails, I am an even stronger believer in the right of our people to live in a clean and pollution-free environment.
-- Barry Goldwater

#People #Stronger #Environment

Most Americans have no real understanding of the operation of the international money lenders. The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited. It operates outside the control of Congress and manipulates the credit of the United States
-- Barry Goldwater

#Money #Freedom #Real

A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Success #Humor #Government

You don't need to be straight to fight and die for your country. You just need to shoot straight.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Country #Fighting #Needs

Any pilot can describe the mechanics of flying. What it can do for the spirit of man is beyond description.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Men #Flying #Pilots

My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Law #Aim

If you don't mind smelling like peanut butter for two or three days, peanut butter is darn good shaving cream.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Two #Mind #Peanut Butter

To insist on strength ... is not war-mongering. It is peace-mongering.
-- Barry Goldwater

#War #Patriotic

I will offer a choice, not an echo.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Inspiring #Echoes #Choices

I think every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Christian #Thinking #Atheism

Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Heaven #Liberty #Doe

Extremism in defense of Liberty is no vice
-- Barry Goldwater

#Liberty #Vices #Defense

I think the President ought to bring everybody that's in American uniform back because we're headed for war.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Peace #War #Thinking

We have enough trouble with women without giving them M16 rifles.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Sex #Giving #Rifles

Today neither of our two parties maintains a meaningful commitment to the principle of States' Rights. The 10th Amendment is not a 'general assumption' but a rule of law. States rights mean that states have a right to act or not to act, as they see fit, in areas reserved to them.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Meaningful #Party #Commitment

I'd rather see a woman elected...They understand they can't spend more money than the old man brings home.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Sex #Home #Men

The president, who finds so much to complain about in other areas of the world, apparently saw nothing wrong in recognizing a Communist regime that has killed more people in its short history of control over the teeming millions of that great country than any other collection of dictators or tyrants in the history of the world.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Country #War #Tyrants

I've played everything - baseball, football, basketball. I can still swim a mile a day. That's why I can't walk.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Basketball #Baseball #Football

I understand Jacqueline Kennedy has redone the White House in eighteenth-century style. Why, then, I'd fit in perfectly.
-- Barry Goldwater

#White #House #Style

When fraternities are not allowed, Communism flourishes. Young men who are inexperienced but have faith are more useful than older, experienced men without faith. The fraternity system is a bastion of American strength.
-- Barry Goldwater

#War #Men #Have Faith

The constitution is an instrument, above all, for LIMITING the functions of government.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Government #Constitution #Function

We now have a president who tries to save money by turning off lights in the White House, even as he heads toward a staggering addition to the national debt. "L.B.J." should stand for Light Bulb Johnson.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Light #White #House

I fear Washington and centralized government more than I do Moscow.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Government #Moscow #Centralized Government

I found Mr. Carter's actions toward the Republic of China so incredible that they defy description by socially acceptable expletives. If December 7, 1941 was a "day of infamy" then December 15, 1978 ranks right up there in international betrayal...The pathetic thing about this whole mess, however, is that it is typical of this administration's conduct of foreign affairs, which could be kindly described as being riddled by ineptitude and hypocrisy.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Betrayal #War #Hypocrisy

Unlimited campaign spending eats at the heart of the democratic process.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Heart #Campaigns #Politics

History has to judge every man who served. I don't know how they're going to treat me. I may be the worst S.O.B. that ever came down the pike. But I won't lose any sleep over it. I just like to be remembered as an honest person who tried.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Sleep #Men #Judging

It's political Daddyism and it's as old as demagogues and despotism.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Political #Despotism

Throughout history civilian populations and political rulers have talked of peace. We have never been free of war. The soldier, whose profession is war, understands that peace must be enforced by superior military might. The certainty of defeat is the only effective deterrent we can use to maintain peace. Furthermore, we can be strong without being aggressive.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Strong #Military #War

Perserverance. . .that's been the story of my family.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Stories #Perserverance #My Family

I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Mean #Government #Littles

We are on the Colorado...that means something more to me than thoughts of electrical power or a harnessed river.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Mean #Rivers #Colorado

My mother took us to services at the Episcopal church. Yet she always said that God was not just inside the four walls of a house of worship, but everywhere - in the rising sun over Camelback Mountain in Phoenix, a splash of water along the nearby Salt or Verde rivers, or clouds driving over the Estrella Mountains, south of downtown. I've always thought of God in those terms.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Mother #Wall #Clouds

At this sunset hour, the canyon walls are indescribably beautiful and I fear the magic of photography can never record what I see now. The tall spires near the canyon's top and the walls of the canyon up there look as if God had reached out and swiped a brush of golden paint across them, gilding these rocks in the bright glow of the setting sun.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Beautiful #Photography #Wall

We Americans understand freedom; we have earned it, we have lived for it, and we have died for it. This nation and its people are freedom's models in a searching world. We can be freedom's missionaries in a doubting world. The genius of the American system is that through freedom we have created extraordinary results from plain old ordinary people.
-- Barry Goldwater

#War #People #Doubt

The great decisions of government cannot be dictated by the concerns of religious factions.... We have succeeded for 205 years in keeping the affairs of state separate from the uncompromising idealism of religious groups and we mustn't stop now. To retreat from that separation would violate the principles of conservatism and the values upon which the framers built this democratic republic.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Religious #Government #Years

The best thing Clinton could do — I think I wrote him a letter about this, but I'm not sure — is to shut up. He has no discipline.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Thinking #Discipline #Letters

To my mind the single essential element on which all discoveries will be dependent is human freedom.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Discovery #Mind #Essentials

Conservatism, we are told, is out-of-date. This charge is preposterous and we ought to boldly say so. The laws of God, and of nature, have no dateline. [...] These principles are derived from the nature of man, and from the truths that God has revealed about His creation. [...] To suggest that the Conservative philosophy is out of date is akin to saying that the Golden Rule, or the Ten Commandments or Aristotle 's Politics are out of date.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Philosophy #Men #Law

I have the unmitigated gall to think that I could lead men anywhere, business, politics or combat.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Business #Men #Thinking

When white and black and brown and every other color decide they're going to live together as Christians, then and only then are we going to see an end to these troubles.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Christian #Race #Color

I'm the most underdog underdog there is.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Underdog

To disagree, one doesn't have to be disagreeable.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Communication #Anger #Manners

Hubert Humphrey talks so fast that listening to him is like trying to read Playboy magazine with your wife turning the pages.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Marriage #History #Wife

You've got to forget about this civilian. Whenever you drop bombs, you're going to hit civilians.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Peace #War #Bombs

Once upon a time our traditional goal in war and can anyone doubt that we are at war? - was victory. Once upon a time we were proud of our strength, our military power. Now we seem ashamed of it. Once upon a time the rest of the world looked to us for leadership. Now they look to us for a quick handout and a fence-straddling international posture.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Military #War #Goal

American business has just forgotten the importance of selling.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Forgotten #Selling #Importance

I won't say that the papers misquote me, but I sometimes wonder where Christianity would be today if some of those reporters had been Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Political #Would Be #Paper

Nixon was the most dishonest individual I have ever met in my life. He lied to his wife, his family, his friends, his colleagues in the Congress, lifetime members of his own political party, the American people and the world.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Party #People #Wife

I think any man in business would be foolish to fool around with his secretary. If it's somebody else's secretary, fine.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Business #Stupid #Men

If everybody in this town connected with politics had to leave town because of chasing women and drinking, you would have no government.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Drinking #Government #Political

The conservative movement, to which I subscribe, has as one of its basic tenets the belief that government should stay out of people’s private lives. Government governs best when it governs least – and stays out of the impossible task of legislating morality. But legislating someone’s version of morality is exactly what we do by perpetuating discrimination against gays.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Gay #Government #People

We cannot allow the American flag to be shot at anywhere on earth if we are to retain our respect and prestige
-- Barry Goldwater

#Respect #Flags #Earth

None of us here in Washington knows all or even half of the answers ... If you love your country, don't depend on handouts from Washington for your information. If you cherish your freedom, don't leave it all up to big government.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Love #Country #Government

...this bill will require the creation of a Federal police force of mammoth proportions. It also bids fair to result in the development of an 'informer' psychology in great areas of our national life-neighbors spying on neighbors, workers spying on workers, business spying on businessmen-were those who would harass their fellow citizens for selfish and narrow purposes will have ample inducement to do so. These, the Federal police force an 'informer' psychology, are the hallmarks of the police state and landmarks in the destruction of a free society.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Selfish #Psychology #Police

I say further that for this great legislative body to ignore the Constitution and the fundamental concepts of our governmental system is to act in a manner which could ultimately destroy the freedom of all American citizens, including the freedoms of the very persons whose feelings and whose liberties are the major subject of this legislation.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Feelings #Liberty #Citizens

The Trilateralist Commission is international...(and)...is intended to be the vehicle for multinational consolidation of the commercial and banking interests by seizing control of the political government of the United States. The Trilateralist Commission represents a skillful, coordinated effort to seize control and consolidate the four centers of power - political, monetary, intellectual, and ecclesiastical.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Government #Effort #Political

And here we encounter the seeds of government disaster and collapse - the kind that wrecked ancient Rome and every other civilization that allowed a sociopolitical monster called the welfare state to exist.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Government #Rome #Civilization

A man from the west will fight over three things: water, women and gold, and usually in that order.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Fighting #Men #Order

The time has come to recognize the United Nations for the anti-American, anti-freedom organization that it has become. The time has come for us to cut off all financial help, withdraw as a member, and ask the United Nations to find headquarters location outside the United States that is
-- Barry Goldwater

#Cutting #Organization #United States

‎"I feel certain that Conservatism is through unless Conservatives can demonstrate and communicate the difference between being concerned with [the unemployed, the sick without medical care, human welfare, etc.] and believing that the federal government is the proper agent for their solution.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Believe #Differences #Government

The only summit meeting that can succeed is the one that does not take place.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Doe #Succeed #Summit

Government should stay the hell out of people's business.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Government #People #Liberty

There's no greater service to this country than the defense of its freedom.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Country #Liberty #Defense

A woman has a right to an abortion. That's a decision that's up to the pregnant woman, not up to the pope or some do-gooders or the Religious Right.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Religious #Abortion #Decision

I think some highly secret government UFO investigations are going on that we don't know about--and probably never will unless the Air Force discloses them.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Thinking #Government #Air

Well, once you've been in the Canyon and once you've sort of fallen in love with it, it never ends...it's always been a fascinating place to me, in fact I've often said that if I ever had a mistress it would be the Grand Canyon.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Mistress #Would Be #Facts

If the Conservative is less anxious than his Liberal brethren to increase Social Security ‘benefits,’ it is because he is more anxious than his Liberal brethren that people be free throughout their lives to spend their earnings when and as they see fit
-- Barry Goldwater

#People #Earning #Benefits

Small men, seeking great wealth or power, have too often and too long turned even the highest levels of public service into mere personal opportunity.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Opportunity #Men #Long

Conservatism therefore looks upon the enhancement of man's spiritual nature as the primary concern of political philosophy. Liberals, on the other hand,— in the name of a concern for “human beings”— regard the satisfaction of economic wants as the dominant mission of society.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Spiritual #Philosophy #Men

Throughout history, government has proved to be the chief instrument for thwarting man's liberty.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Men #Liberty #Chiefs

Politics [is] the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Art #Order #Political

It's a great country, where anybody can grow up to be president . . . except me.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Country #Growing Up #Political

The fellow has absolutely no principles."Money and gall" is all he has.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Presidential #Principles

I made an effort to find out what was in the building at Wright Patterson Air Force Base where the information is stored that has been collected by the Air Force, and I was understandably denied this request. It is still classified above Top Secret.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Air #Effort #Secret

I certainly believe in aliens in space, and that they are indeed visiting our planet. They may not look like us, but I have very strong feelings that they have advanced beyond our mental capabilities.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Strong #Believe #Space

It is true that I was denied access to a facility at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, because I never got in. I can't tell you what was inside. We both know about the rumors concerning a captured UFO and crew members. I have never seen what I would call a UFO, but I have intelligent friends who have.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Intelligent #Air #Ohio

On Hillary Clinton, who was an ardent Goldwater supporter in 1964: 'If he'd let his wife run business, I think he'd be better off. ... I just like the way she acts. I've never met her, but I sent her a bag of chili, and she invited me to come to the White House some night and said she'd cook chili for me. Someday, maybe.'
-- Barry Goldwater

#Running #Religious #Gay

The big thing is to make this country... quit discriminating against people just because they're gay. You don't have to agree with it, but they have a constitutional right to be gay. ... They're American citizens.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Country #Gay #People

The Conservative knows that to regard man as part of an undifferentiated mass is to consign him to ultimate slavery.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Men #Slavery #Conservative

Having spent 37 years of my life in the military as a reservist, and never having met a gay in all of that time, and never having even talked about it in all those years, I just thought, why the hell shouldn't they serve? They're American citizens. As long as they're not doing things that are harmful to anyone else... So I came out for it.
-- Barry Goldwater

#Military #Gay #Years