Top 59 Edgar Hoover Quotes
#1. J. Edgar Hoover very famously denied the existence of organized crime up until the Appalachian Meeting, I think, in 1957. It was interesting to me that he clearly had to know that there was such a thing as organized crime and organized criminals as far back as the '20s.
Terence Winter
#2. He was arguably the best-qualified FBI director since J. Edgar Hoover; he thought Clinton was the most talented politician since Richard Nixon. That made their mutual contempt all the more tragic. It undermined the FBI and ultimately damaged the United States.
Tim Weiner
#3. I grew up with J. Edgar Hoover. He was the G-man, a hero to everybody, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation was the big, feared organization. He was ahead of his time as far as building up forensic evidence and fingerprinting. But he took down a lot of innocent people, too.
Clint Eastwood
#4. To me, you couldn't write a character like J. Edgar Hoover and have it be believable. I mean, he was a crock pot of eccentricities. We couldn't even fit all his eccentricities into [ the same named] movie.
Dustin Lance Black
#5. If you read any of the biographies on J. Edgar Hoover, you find that they contradict each other more than they agree. Often times, they're often told from a political perspective.
Clint Eastwood
#6. All my humor is based upon destruction and despair. If the whole world were tranquil, without disease and violence, I'd be standing on the breadline right in back of J. Edgar Hoover.
Lenny Bruce
#7. I'm so happy, I think I'll dress up like J. Edgar Hoover and sing show tunes.
Don Imus
#8. By the early 1920s, the America of Jefferson, Lincoln, Whitman, and the young William Jennings Bryan had ceased to exist. It had been replaced by the world of McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, J. Edgar Hoover, and Woodrow Wilson.
Oliver Stone
#9. Angela Davis's legacy as a freedom fighter made her an enemy of the state under the increasingly neoliberal regimes of Nixon, Reagan and J. Edgar Hoover because she understood that the struggle for freedom was not only a struggle for political and individual rights but also for economic rights.
Henry Giroux
#10. Complex man that he was, J. Edgar Hoover left nothing to chance. The director shrewdly recognized that building what became known as the world's greatest law enforcement agency would not necessarily keep him in office.
Ronald Kessler
#11. Also, with information having just come out at the time about J. Edgar Hoover's electronic surveillance of Dr. King, it gave greater weight to the statements of those persons who were alleging involvement of the FBI.
Louis Stokes
#12. It's interesting in this day and age to do a film about political espionage and wiretapping. I don't think that those types of secrets that J. Edgar Hoover was able to obtain and keep for such a long period of time would be possible in today's world, with the Internet and WikiLeaks.
Leonardo DiCaprio
#13. J. Edgar Hoover, J. Bracken Lee, J. Parnell Thomas, J. Paul Getty
you can always tell a shithead by that initial initial.
Edward Abbey
#14. I would far rather over-estimate the threat [imposed by the Patriot Act] and be proven wrong than to underestimate the threat and wake up one morning in a world where the 21st century's J Edgar Hoover has the power to blackmail anyone in America.
Tim Lee
#15. Edgar Hoover? I'd rather have him inside the tent pissing out than outside pissing in.
Jeffrey Archer
#16. It's an incredible education [for the movie J. Edgar Hoover] . It was like I did a college course on J. Edgar Hoover but not knowing and understanding the history and reading the books, but understanding what motivated this man was the most fascinating part of the research.
Dustin Lance Black
#17. The fact he has some kind of bond with you is quite extraordinary", she [Deep Throat's daughter] said. "He doesn't remember Ed Miller and other FBI guys. He remembers J. Edgar Hoover".
Well, I thought, Hoover and me.
Bob Woodward
#18. I have great respect for the FBI, and I know that there have been some rumors lately that the FBI was disenchanted because of what we were doing in story, or doing a certain take: that's not true. Actually the FBI was tremendously enthusiastic about us doing [ J. Edgar Hoover ] film.
Clint Eastwood
#19. [ J. Edgar]Hoover, I'm sure, felt that he was right in everything he did and even the things that we don't like about his character.
Clint Eastwood
#20. I wonder if 50 years from now we'll look back, and maybe Julian Assange will be the hero and J. Edgar Hoover will be the enemy of the state.
Rick Smolan
#21. for the first time in a popular novel I was reading about wrongdoing by the then-sacred institution, the FBI. I was reading open criticism and accusation of J. Edgar Hoover himself. I was reading it not from the typewriter of a young radical but from that of an old novelist.
Rex Stout
#22. We actually did a lot of takes on this movie [J. Edgar Hoover ]. I never left the set wanting more. That's for sure. I don't know. This was a very difficult character for me and a lot of the other actors here, and at times we went and did 8 or 9 or 10 takes on a single day.
Leonardo DiCaprio
#23. [Re: J. Edgar Hoover] His knowledge was enormous, though his mind was narrow.
Tim Weiner
#24. There are so many parallels in society today [with era of J. Edgar Hoover ] that you can use, whether it's the head of a studio or the head of an organization, a major newspaper, a major factory or company, of people who stay too long, maybe, and overstay their usefulness.
Clint Eastwood
#25. By 1967, J. Edgar Hoover had concluded that the Black Panther Party had replaced the Communist Party as the gravest threat to national security.
Alexander Cockburn
#26. You right," Hawk said. "Couldn't happen. Be like J. Edgar Hoover running around in a dress."
"Exactly," I said. "Impossible.
Robert B. Parker
#27. J. Edgar Hoover: When morals decline and good men do nothing, evil flourishes. A society unwilling to learn from past is doomed. We must never forget our history.
J. Edgar Hoover
#28. The most effective weapon against crime is cooperation ... The efforts of all law enforcement agencies with the support and understanding of the American people.
J. Edgar Hoover
#30. The will to do, the tenacity to overcome all obstacles and to finish the course, the strength to cling to inexorable ideals, are all rooted in courage.
J. Edgar Hoover
#31. I regret to say that we of the FBI are powerless to act in cases of oral-genital intimacy, unless it has in some way obstructed interstate commerce.
J. Edgar Hoover
#32. It can be held certain that information that is withheld or suppressed contains truths that are detrimental to the persons involved in the suppression.
J. Edgar Hoover
#33. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been requested to assist in the investigation of reported sightings of flying disks ...
J. Edgar Hoover
#34. WHAT WE NEED IN AMERICA TODAY IS A VIGOROUS RETURN TO THE GOD OF OUR FATHERS AND A MOST VIGOROUS DEFENSE AGAINST THE MINION OF GODLESSNESS AND ATHEISM.
J. Edgar Hoover
#35. No amount of law enforcement can solve a problem that goes back to the family.
J. Edgar Hoover
#36. There will never be another Black Messiah unless we create him
J. Edgar Hoover
#38. I would do it [study UFOs], but before agreeing to do it, we must insist upon full access to discs recovered. For instance in the L.A. case, the Army grabbed it and would not let us have it for cursory examination.
J. Edgar Hoover
#39. The individual is handicapped by coming face-to-face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists.
J. Edgar Hoover
#40. When morals decline and good men do nothing, evil flourishes.
J. Edgar Hoover
#41. What's important at this time is to re-clarify the difference between hero and villain.
J. Edgar Hoover
#42. I don't need to tell you that, what determines a man's legacy is often what isn't seen.
J. Edgar Hoover
#43. There is no doubt that America is now the prime target of international communism.
J. Edgar Hoover
#44. Experts say that children are not born criminals, nor pampered parasites. They are made that way by the environment in which they live.
J. Edgar Hoover
#45. The American mind simply has not come to a realization of the evil which has been introduced into our midst.
J. Edgar Hoover
#46. A child who has been taught to respect the laws of God will have little difficulty respecting the laws of men.
J. Edgar Hoover
#48. The cure for crime is not the electric chair, but the high chair.
J. Edgar Hoover
#49. We are a fact-gathering organization only. We don't clear anybody. We don't condemn anybody.
J. Edgar Hoover
#50. Above all, I would teach him to tell the truth Truth-telling, I have found, is the key to responsible citizenship. The thousands of criminals I have seen in 40 years of law enforcement have had one thing in common: Every single one was a liar.
J. Edgar Hoover
#51. Banks are an almost irresistible attraction for that element of our society which seeks unearned money.
J. Edgar Hoover
#52. All persons who bear the blessed title of parent have the personal responsibility to see that their children are growing up fully appreciative of the rights of God and their fellowmen.
J. Edgar Hoover
#53. I came to America because of the great, great freedom which I heard existed in this country. I made a mistake in selecting America as a land of freedom, a mistake I cannot repair in the balance of my lifetime.
Albert Einstein
#54. There is but one way to eliminate juvenile delinquency - that is by providing each child in America with competent parents.
J. Edgar Hoover
#58. Just the minute the FBI begins making recommendations on what should be done with its information, it becomes a Gestapo.
J. Edgar Hoover
#59. Purpose of counter-intelligence action is to disrupt and it is immaterial whether facts exist to substantiate the charge. If facts are present it aids in the success of the proposal but the Bureau feels ... that disruption can be accomplished without facts to back it up.
J. Edgar Hoover
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