Top 100 Gary Johnson Quotes
#2. I see the demographics increasing, and by that I mean the notion of social acceptance is growing, not decreasing; I think the notion of fiscal responsibility is growing, not decreasing. And Republicans seem to be moving further away from those two categories than closer.
Gary Johnson
#3. Every time you pass a law, it is a little bite out of freedom.
Gary Johnson
#4. That's the first sign you know you're a Libertarian. You see the red light. You stop. You realize that there's not a car in sight. And you put your foot on the gas.
Gary Johnson
#5. Where in the Constitution does it say that because we don't like a foreign country's leader, we should go in and topple the dictator?
Gary Johnson
#6. I'm one of those who believe the bumper sticker: If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns. The first people who are going to be in line to turn in their guns are law-abiding citizens. Criminals are going to be left with guns.
Gary Johnson
#7. The retirement age needs to be raised. A portion of Social Security ought to be privatized, if not all. And there probably needs to be some means testing. It's a Ponzi scheme that's not sustainable.
Gary Johnson
#8. Using a broad brushstroke, I think Libertarian - most of America are socially accepting and fiscally responsible. I'm in that category. I think, broadly speaking, that's a Libertarian. A Libertarian is going to be somebody who's really strong on civil liberties.
Gary Johnson
#9. Everyone else is parsing it in terms of lowering the corporate income tax. Eliminate it. It's not that big of a generator of income, and it's a double tax. Get rid of it, and you would have an explosion of hiring.
Gary Johnson
#10. I support gay unions. I think the government should get out of the marriage business completely - leave marriages to the churches. And grant civil unions to gay couples, grant civil unions to a man and woman.
Gary Johnson
#11. Most Americans are fiscally conservative and socially liberal. I'm advocating a balanced budget. But along with that, look, there should be gay marriage equality. A woman should have the right to choose. Let's not build a fence across the border.
Gary Johnson
#12. I reject the insurance model. I think we should have a free-market approach to healthcare.
Gary Johnson
#13. I don't personally have a sense that life starts at conception. I don't personally have that sense.
Gary Johnson
#14. Getting elected Governor of New Mexico, I really did enjoy that job. I thought I made a really big difference, and I think the same running for president of the United States - that I could make a really big, positive difference.
Gary Johnson
#15. New Mexico is 2-to-1 Democrat. I got elected as a Republican. I think I did a great job of showing people that government doesn't have to spend money to make you happy, that government really needs to be providing a level playing field.
Gary Johnson
#16. Immigration is a good thing. We should make that as easy as possible.
Gary Johnson
#17. I'll be the first one to admit that if I have conclusions based on faulty premises, then let me know about that, and I'll be the first one to change it.
Gary Johnson
#18. I don't believe there should be any restrictions when it comes to firearms. None.
Gary Johnson
#19. My vision of the border with Mexico is that a truck from the United States going into Mexico and a truck coming from Mexico into the United States will pass each other at the border going 60 miles an hour. Yes, we should have open borders.
Gary Johnson
#20. Regardless of my legislation, spending has to be stopped.
Gary Johnson
#21. My next-door neighbor's two dogs have created more shovel-ready jobs than this current administration.
Gary Johnson
#22. Government Picking Winners and Losers = Corruption. When government tries to pick winners and losers, the inevitable consequence is corruption. Yes, corruption. If not in a legal sense, certainly in a moral sense
Gary Johnson
#23. I leave abortion to the woman. I just fundamentally end there. I absolutely support a woman's right to choose.
Gary Johnson
#24. If there's a clear genocide somewhere, don't we really want to positively impact that kind of a situation? Isn't that what we're all about? Isn't that what we've always been about?
Gary Johnson
#25. Tonight was a great opportunity to take on the political status quo that has given us trillion dollar deficits and put millions out of work. Our objective was to inject some common sense into the conversation among Republicans at a time when business-as-usual simply won't work.
Gary Johnson
#27. My supporters are people who believe in being fiscally responsible and socially accepting. I think most people are in that category. Speaking with a broad brushstroke, those are my supporters.
Gary Johnson
#28. Any movement at all that reduces disease, that reduces overdoses, that reduces property crime, that reduces violent crime, is good.
Gary Johnson
#29. Part of being out there, campaigning, talking to people, is being able to read body language.
Gary Johnson
#30. Unlike President Obama, I am not afraid to state, without a wink or a nod, that the government has no right to tell us who we can marry or not marry.
Gary Johnson
#31. It's not 2038 that Social Security is bankrupt. It's now.
Gary Johnson
#32. My fear is that people associate Rand Paul's social conservatism with libertarianism, when it's not.
Gary Johnson
#33. We live in America. We live in a free society where we are able to make choices. It's about giving individuals freedoms and holding them accountable.
Gary Johnson
#34. I just think everything we do has an unintended consequence. We take out Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and Iraq was the check against Iran.
Gary Johnson
#35. All I suggest is to make K-12 like higher education. Higher education in the United States is the best in the world because these institutions compete with each other for your tuition dollar. Let's just bring competition to public education.
Gary Johnson
#36. If I was a state, I would like to see education left to the schools themselves, but I don't want the federal government involved in education. I think that it ends up setting standards that cost you time and money and don't make any difference in education. I want to stop that.
Gary Johnson
#37. I am actually one of those who took President Obama at his word when he first ran - that he would get us out of ill-advised wars, that he would do something about health care costs, and that he would protect civil liberties. Like many Americans, I was disappointed.
Gary Johnson
#38. Seek reality and base all your decisions and actions upon it.
Gary Johnson
#39. Ron Paul's revolution isn't a fluke. It's the future.
Gary Johnson
#40. There's an unintended consequence when it comes to drone attacks in Yemen. Yeah, you take out the al-Qaida stronghold, but you also wipe out the other half of the block. That makes Yemenis against the United States for the rest of their lives and all their descendants.
Gary Johnson
#41. Pot smokers may be the largest untapped voting bloc in the country ... A hundred million Americans have smoked marijuana. You think they want to be considered criminals?
Gary Johnson
#42. As I told the students every time I visited a campus, you are the director of your own movie, and if you aren't enjoying what you are doing, change it.
Gary Johnson
#43. At the base of Ron Paul support, in my opinion, are people with brains.
Gary Johnson
#44. I was opposed to the government mandating that restaurants not allow people to smoke, believing it becomes the customer's choice whether they go in or not. But then, I thought, 'What about the employees? Aren't they hostage to a smoking environment, even if they don't smoke?'
Gary Johnson
#45. I'd like to think I would have signed the Civil Rights bill and wouldn't have had any issues with it.
Gary Johnson
#46. We have the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. 'America, land of liberty and freedom?' You know, that's baloney. More than 2 million Americans are behind bars now. Communist China has four times the population and they have 1.5 million people behind bars.
Gary Johnson
#47. 90% of the problem with marijuana is prohibition related, not use related.
Gary Johnson
#48. I have not watched Glenn Beck. I don't watch him.
Gary Johnson
#49. I think the government should be out of the marriage business and leave marriage to the churches.
Gary Johnson
#50. Let's abolish the IRS, let's eliminate income tax, let's eliminate corporate tax, let's balance the federal budget, and if we need a tax, it can be one federal consumption tax.
Gary Johnson
#51. My issue with campaign finance is 100 percent disclosure. Wear a suit with patches from your big contributors. Depending on the size of the contribution, that's how big the patch should be.
Gary Johnson
#52. I think very fundamentally to being Libertarian is not having a social agenda. I accept who you are and the life that you live as long as your life does not adversely affect mine.
Gary Johnson
#53. Let's end the unworkable marijuana prohibition and put our money where our mouth is. Let's solve the problems like border crime. We can do it with pot legalization.
Gary Johnson
#54. Too many Americans have lost faith in our approach to the war on drugs ...
Gary Johnson
#55. Am I not correct in saying that Iran has never voiced that they are developing a nuclear weapon, nor do they have any intention of using a nuclear weapon against the United States? That's never actually been voiced. I don't know where that has come from, but it hasn't been from Iran.
Gary Johnson
#56. I was raised a Christian. I'd like to think I have Christian values. I don't attend church.
Gary Johnson
#57. Would the world be a better place if all drugs were legalized tomorrow? Absolutely. But pragmatically speaking, you're not going to go from the criminalization of all drugs to the legalization of drugs overnight.
Gary Johnson
#58. The excitement right now is coming from the Liberty movement. And the Republicans want a piece of it.
Gary Johnson
#59. Involvement in Afghanistan, I thought, was totally warranted. We were attacked, we attacked back, but after six months of being in Afghanistan, I thought we had pretty well effectively wiped out al Qaeda.
Gary Johnson
#60. If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns. The first people who are going to be in line to turn in their guns are law-abiding citizens. Criminals are going to be left with guns. I believe that concealed carry is a way of reducing gun violence.
Gary Johnson
#63. I'm outraged that we're building roads, schools, and hospitals in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that we're doing it with borrowed money from China that we're paying interest on. I'm outraged.
Gary Johnson
#64. I believe in a strong national defense. But it's my belief that neither Iraq nor Afghanistan poses a threat to national security, and we shouldn't be involved in either area.
Gary Johnson
#65. There was a big difference between Ron Paul and me when it came to the 'no.' His 'no' was philosophical. It was reasoned. It was right. My 'no' actually put a stop to legislation. It cut spending. Mine carried further than just no.
Gary Johnson
#66. I think we should balance the federal budget tomorrow. I'm optimistic. I think Americans are optimistic. We went to the moon; we can balance the federal budget.
Gary Johnson
#67. I had a 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington' experience as governor.
Gary Johnson
#68. In a zero corporate tax rate environment, if the private sector doesn't create tens of millions of jobs, then I don't know what it takes to create tens of millions of jobs.
Gary Johnson
#69. I would have never signed the Patriot Act. I would have never signed the National Defense Authorization Act allowing for arrests and detainment of you and me as U.S. citizens without being charged.
Gary Johnson
#70. By bringing about a rational drug policy, we'd be freeing up a lot of resources for real crime. Drug disputes would get played out with courts rather than with guns. So it would make this country a much better place overnight.
Gary Johnson
#71. I'm asked, what about criminal prosecution of those on wall street? You know what, it's probably because none of them committed any crimes. They just made some incredibly bad decisions.
Gary Johnson
#72. I hope that people will see that we don't have to sit by the sidelines and watch as the two major parties limit their choices to slightly different flavors of the status quo. It is, in fact, possible to join the fray, stand up for principles and offer a real alternative.
Gary Johnson
#73. This country would be a better place to live in if all the resources we currently put toward criminalizing marijuana were instead spent by law enforcement on protection from real crime, as opposed to victimless crime.
Gary Johnson
#74. The current prohibition laws are forcing drug disputes to be played out with guns in our streets. We need to put a stop to this criminal drug element in our country.
Gary Johnson
#75. Every single figure on Mount Rushmore was a third party at one time or another, so third parties become major parties, and I think that the Libertarian Party may become my major party.
Gary Johnson
#76. I think the world looks down on Republicans for their socially conservative views, which includes religion in government.
Gary Johnson
#77. I agree that the two-party system stomps on any kind of competition. A great first step is to open the presidential debates to all qualified candidates, including the Libertarians. If that happens, the Libertarian party will experience unprecedented growth.
Gary Johnson
#78. I don't seek the counsel of God. God doesn't speak to me on what I should or shouldn't do.
Gary Johnson
#79. Politicians shouldn't spend most of their time in office trying to get reelected.
Gary Johnson
#80. The voice of the Republican party is up for grabs. It's a contest right now.
Gary Johnson
#81. Would this country be better off if no one drank? Yes, it would be, but we tried that; it doesn't work. I don't want to tell anybody that they can't have as many drinks as they want every single night of the week as long as they don't get behind the wheel of a car.
Gary Johnson
#82. I think that the best that government can do for you and I as individuals is to empower you and I to make decisions that only you and I should make.
Gary Johnson
#83. I don't smoke marijuana anymore. I don't drink. Marijuana is a handicap. So is alcohol. Alcohol is a terrible handicap. But in spite of being a handicap, it shouldn't be criminal.
Gary Johnson
#84. I don't want to put one innocent person to death to put 99 that are guilty to death. So philosophically I'm a tooth-for-tooth guy, but the reality is the death penalty as public policy is flawed.
Gary Johnson
#85. I ran two campaigns for governor in a state that's 2-1 Democrat where I did not mention my opponent in print, radio, or television. I don't know if any other politician at a gubernatorial, congressional, or a senatorial level can make the claim.
Gary Johnson
#86. I think I view the system the same way that Ayn Rand views the system - that it really oppresses those that create, if you will, and tries to take away from those that produce and give to the non-producers.
Gary Johnson
#87. Balance the federal budget now, not 15 years from now, not 20 years from now, but now. And throw out the entire federal tax system, replace it with a fair tax, a consumption tax, that by all measurements is just that. It's fair.
Gary Johnson
#88. Regardless of who wins, an election should be a time for optimism and fresh approaches.
Gary Johnson
#89. I think libertarians need somebody who can articulate getting from A to Z. But you know, if G is achievable, how about it? Let's get there!
Gary Johnson
#90. I'm going to make the claim that I'm stronger than Obama when it comes to civil liberties, and I'm going to make the claim that I'm stronger than Romney when it comes to dollars and cents.
Gary Johnson
#91. A wasted vote is voting for someone that you don't believe in
Gary Johnson
#92. This is something that I witnessed out on the campaign trail for three years, which is that there is a total disconnect between the rhetoric regarding immigration and the reality. And I'm speaking as a border state.
Gary Johnson
#93. I never, ever, when I entered this process of running for president of the United States, thought I would be excluded from the debate table. Ever. What does two terms as governor get you?
Gary Johnson
#94. As governor of New Mexico, I would have - I signed a bill banning late term abortion. I've always favored parental notification. I've always favored counseling. I've always favored the notion of no public funds used for abortion.
Gary Johnson
#95. We're on the verge of a financial collapse unless we balance the budget, and that means some really, really tough decisions.
Gary Johnson
#96. Acknowledge your critics, but do what's right.
Gary Johnson
#97. Politics is a herd mentality. Politicians don't really lead. Politicians reflect what they think is consensus opinion.
Gary Johnson
#98. It is clear from the reaction to our campaign so far that our message is resonating. I look forward to continuing to take this message to all Americans, and showing them that I can be as successful running the country as I was running the state of New Mexico.
Gary Johnson
#99. I was your C student. I paid attention in the classes that were about how to get elected.
Gary Johnson
#100. We should make it as easy as possible to be able to get a legal work visa - not citizenship, not a green card. Just a work visa, with a background check and a Social Security card so that applicable taxes would get paid.
Gary Johnson
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