Top 100 John F. Kerry Quotes
#1. I personally didn't see personal atrocities in the sense I saw somebody cut a head off or something like that. However, I did take part in free-fire zones, I did take part in harassment and interdiction fire, I did take part in search-and-destroy missions.
John F. Kerry
#2. We were sent to Vietnam to kill Communism. But we found instead that we were killing women and children.
John F. Kerry
#3. 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
#4. There is a much cheaper way, less complicated way to bring Iraq and Saddam Hussein to its knees: it is simply to send the Bush economic team over there and let them run the country.
John F. Kerry
#5. 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
#6. I refuse to stand by while our democracy is trampled by politicians more concerned about amassing power than helping the people who sent them to Washington in the first place.
John F. Kerry
#7. 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
#8. 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
#9. I know something about killing. I don't like killing. And I don't think a state honors life by turning around and sanctioning killing. Now, that's just a personal belief that I have.
John F. Kerry
#10. The best way to begin genuine bipartisanship to make America stronger is to work together on the real crises facing our country, not to manufacture an artificial crisis to serve a special interest agenda out of touch with the needs of Americans.
John F. Kerry
#11. There should be a Transatlantic renaissance between the US and Europe based on shared prosperity, security, and values.
John F. Kerry
#12. For those of us who are fortunate to share an Irish ancestry, we take great pride in the contributions that Irish-Americans.
John F. Kerry
#13. I'm glad the President finally found an economic development program. I'm just sad that it's only in Baghdad.
John F. Kerry
#14. I'm fascinated by rap and by hip-hop. I think there's a lot of poetry in it. There's a lot of anger, a lot of social energy in it. And I think you'd better listen to it pretty carefully, 'cause it's important.
John F. Kerry
#15. There the Bush Administration has offered only a merry-go-round policy. They got up on their high horse, whooped and hollered, rode around in circles and ended right back where they'd started.
John F. Kerry
#16. I have confidence in my campaign. I have assembled a great team that is going to beat George W. Bush, and any rumors to the contrary are completely erroneous.
John F. Kerry
#17. NAFTA recognizes the reality of today's economy - globalization and technology. Our future is not in competing at the low-level wage job; it is in creating high-wage, new technology jobs based on our skills and our productivity.
John F. Kerry
#18. From the moment I take office, I will stand up to the special interests and stand with hardworking families so that we can give America back its future and its ideals.
John F. Kerry
#19. 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
#20. I get always a little uptight when I hear politicians say how exceptional America is.
John F. Kerry
#21. I know something about aircraft carriers for real.
John F. Kerry
#22. What we need now is not just a regime change in Saddam Hussein and Iraq, but we need a regime change in the United States.
John F. Kerry
#23. Our military deserves leadership that matches their service and patriotism. Getting our troops the pay raise they deserve is the very least we can do to show how much we value everything they do for us.
John F. Kerry
#24. I want to start by saying something nice about President Bush. Of all the presidents we've had with the last name of Bush, his economic plan ranks in the top two.
John F. Kerry
#25. Foreign policy is effectively the assertion of many individual countries intersecting on the global marketplace. And you have to figure out how to get your interest served in a way that meets the interests and needs of these other folks.
John F. Kerry
#26. Terrorist organizations with specific political agendas may be encouraged and emboldened by Yasser Arafat's transformation from outlaw to statesman.
John F. Kerry
#27. There are all kinds of atrocities, and I would have to say that, yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in shootings in free fire zones. I conducted harassment and interdiction fire.
John F. Kerry
#28. I would rather be the candidate of the NAACP than the NRA.
John F. Kerry
#29. Being lectured by the president on fiscal responsibility is a little bit like Tony Soprano talking to me about law and order in this country.
John F. Kerry
#30. 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
#31. Reduce US military presence in Iraq; and bring in neighbors.
John F. Kerry
#32. 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
#33. You'd be amazed at the number of people who want to introduce themselves to you in the men's room. It's the most bizarre part of this entire thing.
John F. Kerry
#34. Our troops are terrorizing women and children in the dark of night in Iraq.
John F. Kerry
#35. You can't play sports without losing sometimes and, in losing, you learn something about grace and how to act under pressure.
John F. Kerry
#36. Real Democrats don't abandon the middle class.
John F. Kerry
#37. At every step of the way, George W. Bush has put the narrow interests of the few ahead of the interests of most Americans.
John F. Kerry
#38. 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
#39. Democrats proposing success in Iraq by political solution.
John F. Kerry
#40. We should not allow a tiny minority of shoddy scientists and science and extreme ideologues to compete with scientific facts,
John F. Kerry
#41. We can't change minds without knowing what's in them.
John F. Kerry
#42. We have an electorate that doesn't always pay that much attention to what's going on so people are influenced by a simple slogan rather than the facts or truth or what's happening.
John F. Kerry
#43. It's one thing to be certain, but you can be certain and you can be wrong.
John F. Kerry
#44. The problem with the American health-care system that it is not working for the American family.
John F. Kerry
#45. And whatever our faith - whatever our faith, one belief should bind us all: The measure of our character is our willingness to give of ourselves for others and for our country.
John F. Kerry
#46. Those who try to stifle the vibrancy of our democracy and shield policies from scrutiny behind a false cloak of patriotism miss the real value of what our troops defend and how we best defend our troops. We will ask questions and we will defend our democracy.
John F. Kerry
#47. Politics has always been the art of the possible. Today it's too often the art of the probable - tinkering around the edges without any greater vision, without a sense of optimism and imagination.
John F. Kerry
#48. If you don't believe ... Saddam Hussein is a threat with nuclear weapons, then you shouldn't vote for me.
John F. Kerry
#50. We must retool our nation to prepare for the challenge we already face to maintain our position in the global economy. And this much is certain: America will not have national security without economic security.
John F. Kerry
#51. 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
#52. When we walk away from global warming, Kyoto, when we are irresponsibly slow in moving toward AIDS in Africa, when we don't advance and live up to our own rhetoric and standards, we set a terrible message of duplicity and hypocrisy.
John F. Kerry
#53. I just want to assure you that both President Bush and I have very firm alibis.
John F. Kerry
#54. 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
#55. 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
#56. Strong leadership demands more than the willingness to use force. It means directing the use of the right tools at the right time for the right purpose and the right cause.
John F. Kerry
#57. 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
#58. If we can't have a serious conversation without politicizing it on cable TV and making it a scoring point for one day, we're in trouble.
John F. Kerry
#59. Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, others, knew how to lead. They knew how to ask the American people for the right things.
John F. Kerry
#60. Values are not just words, values are what we live by. They're about the causes that we champion and the people we fight for
John F. Kerry
#61. It's hard to say that something is legitimate when a whole portion of the country can't vote and doesn't vote.
John F. Kerry
#62. We will not be derailed by criminal anarchists who legitimately claim a religious cause.
John F. Kerry
#63. 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
#64. War on terror is far less of a military operation and far more of an intelligence-gathering, law-enforcement operation.
John F. Kerry
#65. The military's job is to win the war. A president's job is to win the peace.
John F. Kerry
#66. 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
#67. These guys [Republicans] are the most crooked, you know, lying group I've ever seen.
John F. Kerry
#68. 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
#69. I figured out Karl Rove's political strategy
make gas so expensive, no Democrats can afford to go to the polls.
John F. Kerry
#70. We are a nation of laws and liberties, not of a knock in the night. So it is time to end the era of John Ashcroft. That starts with replacing the Patriot Act with a new law that protects our people and our liberties at the same time.
John F. Kerry
#71. We cannot fight communism all over the world, and I think we should have learned that lesson by now.
John F. Kerry
#72. Iraq may not be the war on terror itself, but it is critical to the outcome of the war on terror, and therefore any advance in Iraq is an advance forward in that ...
John F. Kerry
#73. 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
#74. Climate change is real. The science is compelling. And the longer we wait, the harder the problem will be to solve.
John F. Kerry
#75. 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
#76. I will never conduct a war or start a war because we want to; the United States of America should only go to war because we have to. And if you live by that guidance, you'll never have veterans throwing away their medals or standing up in protest.
John F. Kerry
#77. There is some schedule showing what you (need) to do to get Iraqis standing up and defending themselves which is now suddenly beginning to happen, so there are some signs of progress.
John F. Kerry
#78. It took President Obama to make America lead like America again.
John F. Kerry
#79. Here I am in the state of New Mexico. George Bush is still in the state of denial. New Mexico has five electoral votes. The state of denial has none. I like my chances.
John F. Kerry
#80. The consequences of a crime should not be out of proportion to the crime itself.
John F. Kerry
#81. 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
#82. 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
#83. 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
#84. A fundamental premise of politics is we can make this work if people just never figure it out.
John F. Kerry
#85. Those who deny the science or choose excuses over action are playing with fire.
John F. Kerry
#86. Middle class Americans don't ask for special favors, they just want basic fairness, and a President who fights for that ideal.
John F. Kerry
#87. America must always be the world's paramount military power, but we can magnify our power through alliances.
John F. Kerry
#88. 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
#89. I'm for ethanol, and I think it's a very important partial ingredient of the overall mix of alternative and renewable fuels we ought to commit to.
John F. Kerry
#90. Glossed over the disastrous war and its multibillion-dollar price tag and implied again that our presence in Iraq is somehow improving the situation in that chaotic and turbulent country. The Congress must stand up against Bush's plan to escalate the war.
John F. Kerry
#91. The measurement in this race is not where you come from, it is "what do you fight for."
John F. Kerry
#92. 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
#93. It's hard to believe that in the greatest democracy in the world, we need legislation to prevent the government from writing and paying for the news.
John F. Kerry
#94. Violence has to end. And Israelis have a bright to defend themselves against any violence that is attacking innocent people with a knife in the old city in Jerusalem or elsewhere. No country should be under siege like that.
John F. Kerry
#95. I've been having problems with the right wing lately.
John F. Kerry
#96. Gender based violence anywhere is a threat to peace and security everywhere.
John F. Kerry
#97. Our purpose now is to reclaim democracy itself. We are here to affirm that when Americans stand up and speak their minds and say America can do better, that is not a challenge to patriotism; it is the heart and soul of patriotism.
John F. Kerry
#98. 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
#99. The Reagan Administration has no rational plan for our military. Instead, it acts on misinformed assumptions about the strength of the Soviet military and a presumed 'window of vulnerability,' which we now know not to exist.
John F. Kerry
#100. 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
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