63 George H. W. Bush Quotes

George H. W. Bush quotes

1. It is possible to tell things by a handshake. I like the 'looking in the eye' syndrome. It conveys interest. I like the firm, though not bone crushing shake. The bone crusher is trying too hard to 'macho it.: The clammy or diffident handshake - fairly or unfairly - get me off to a bad start with a person.

2. Voodoo economics.

3. We love your adherence to democratic principles and to the democratic process.

4. You don't have to go to college to be a success ... We need the people who run the offices, the people who do the hard physical work of our society.

5. I'm the one who will not raise taxes. My opponent now says he'll raise them as a last resort, or a third resort. But when a politician talks like that, you know that's one resort he'll be checking into. My opponent, my opponent won't rule out raising taxes. But I will. And The Congress will push me to raise taxes and I'll say no. And they'll push, and I'll say no, and they'll push again, and I'll say, to them, Read my lips: no new taxes.

6. To all who mourn a son, a brother, a husband, a father, a friend - I can only offer you the gratitude of a nation, for your loved one served his country with distinction and honor.' ... 'Your men are under a different command now, one that knows no rank, only love; knows no danger, only peace, May God bless them all.

7. This is Pearl Harbor Day. Forty-seven years ago to this very day, we were hit and hit hard at Pearl Harbor.

8. I don't have to stand here and defend the campaign of 1988. I'd be perfectly prepared to do it, but I was elected. I put confidence in the American people, their ability to sort through what is fair and what is unfair, what is ugly and what is un-ugly, and be as positive as possible.

9. I do not like broccoli and I haven't liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. And I'm President of the United States and I'm not going to eat any more broccoli. Now look, this is the last statement I'm going to have on broccoli. There are truckloads of broccoli at this very minute descending on Washington. My family is divided. For the broccoli vote out there: Barbara loves broccoli. She has tried to make me eat it. She eats it all the time herself. So she can go out and meet the caravan of broccoli that's coming in.

10. My dog Millie knows more about foreign affairs than these two bozos.

11. Think about every problem, every challenge, we face. The solution to each starts with education.

12. Clearly, no longer can a dictator count on East-West confrontation to stymie concerted United Nations action against aggression. A new partnership of nations has begun. And we stand today at a unique and extraordinary moment. The crisis in the Persian Gulf, as grave as it is, also offers a rare opportunity to move toward an historic period of cooperation. Out of these troubled times, our fifth objective - a new world order - can emerge: a new era, freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice, and more secure in the quest for peace. An era in which the nations of the world, east and west, north and south, can prosper and live in harmony.

13. This is an historic moment. We have in this past year made great progress in ending the long era of conflict and cold war. We have before us the opportunity to forge for ourselves and for future generations a new world order, a world where the rule of law, not the law of the jungle, governs the conduct of nations. When we are successful, and we will be, we have a real chance at this new world order, an order in which a credible United Nations can use its peacekeeping role to fulfill the promise and vision of the U.N.'s founders. We have no argument with the people of Iraq. Indeed, for the innocents caught in this conflict, I pray for their safety.

14. We're going to keep trying to strengthen the American family. To make them more like the Waltons and less like the Simpsons.

15. Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in 'mission creep,' and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under those circumstances, furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-cold war world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the U.N.'s mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different - and perhaps barren - outcome.

16. Whose life would be on my hands as the commander-in-chief because I, unilaterally, went beyond the international law, went beyond the stated mission, and said we're going to show our macho? We're going into Baghdad. We're going to be an occupying power - America in an Arab land - with no allies at our side. It would have been disastrous. We don't gain the size of our victory by how many innocent kids running away - even though they're bad guys - that we can slaughter. ... We're American soldiers; we don't do business that way.

17. Even though I'm a tranquil guy now at this stage of my life, I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the identity of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors.

18. Most of the money that President Clinton and I raised has not been spent yet, and it will go into reconstruction. ... This is bigger than politics; this is about saving lives, and I must confess I'm getting a huge kick out of it.

19. I will never apologize for the United States - I don't care what the facts are... I'm not an apologize-for-America kind of guy.

20. I have just repeated word for word the oath taken by George Washington 200 years ago, and the Bible on which I placed my hand is the Bible on which he placed his. It is right that the memory of Washington be with us today, not only because this is our Bicentennial Inauguration, but because Washington remains the Father of our Country. And he would, I think, be gladdened by this day; for today is the concrete expression of a stunning fact: our continuity these 200 years since our government began. We meet on democracy's front porch, a good place to talk as neighbors and as friends. For this is a day when our nation is made whole, when our differences, for a moment, are suspended.

21. I come before you and assume the Presidency at a moment rich with promise. We live in a peaceful, prosperous time, but we can make it better. For a new breeze is blowing, and a world refreshed by freedom seems reborn; for in man's heart, if not in fact, the day of the dictator is over. The totalitarian era is passing, its old ideas blown away like leaves from an ancient, lifeless tree. A new breeze is blowing, and a nation refreshed by freedom stands ready to push on. There is new ground to be broken, and new action to be taken. There are times when the future seems thick as a fog; you sit and wait, hoping the mists will lift and reveal the right path. But this is a time when the future seems a door you can walk right through into a room called tomorrow. Great nations of the world are moving toward democracy through the door to freedom. Men and women of the world move toward free markets through the door to prosperity. The people of the world agitate for free expression and free thought through the door to the moral and intellectual satisfactions that only liberty allows. We know what works: Freedom works. We know what's right: Freedom is right. We know how to secure a more just and prosperous life for man on Earth: through free markets, free speech, free elections, and the exercise of free will unhampered by the state.

22. We must act on what we know. I take as my guide the hope of a saint: In crucial things, unity; in important things, diversity; in all things, generosity.

23. 'America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral principle. We as a people have such a purpose today. It is to make kinder the face of the Nation and gentler the face of the world.

24. The American people await action. They didn't send us here to bicker. They ask us to rise above the merely partisan. 'In crucial things, unity' - and this, my friends, is crucial.

25. A President is neither prince nor pope, and I don't seek a window on men's souls. In fact, I yearn for a greater tolerance, an easy-goingness about each other's attitudes and way of life.

26. I do not mistrust the future; I do not fear what is ahead. For our problems are large, but our heart is larger. Our challenges are great, but our will is greater. And if our flaws are endless, God's love is truly boundless. Some see leadership as high drama, and the sound of trumpets calling, and sometimes it is that. But I see history as a book with many pages, and each day we fill a page with acts of hopefulness and meaning. The new breeze blows, a page turns, the story unfolds. And so today a chapter begins, a small and stately story of unity, diversity, and generosity - shared, and written, together.

27. No, I don't know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under God.

28. If the people knew what we had done, they would chase us down the street and lynch us.

29. I'm conservative, but I'm not a nut about it.

30. Please don't ask me to do that which I've just said I'm not going to do, because you're burning up time. The meter is running through the sand on you, and I am now filibustering.

31. We're enjoying sluggish times, and not enjoying them very much.

32. You can't negotiate with the Terrorist.

33. This is like the WWF for smart people.

34. The sort of man who steps out of the shower to take a piss.

35. Poor George. He can't help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth.

1. America's freedom is the example to which the world expires.

2. I am not one who - who flamboyantly believes in throwing a lot of words around.

3. Be bold in your caring, and be bold in your dreaming.

4. We can find meaning and reward by serving some higher purpose than ourselves, a shining purpose, the illumination of a Thousand Points of Light...We all have something to give.

5. International exchanges are not a great tide to sweep away all differences, but they will slowly wear away at the obstacles to peace as surely as water wears away a hard stone.

6. Well, I think everybody is frustrated by the finances of the U.N. and the inability to solve problems of war and peace.

7. No, I'm not anguished and tormented.

8. You know I vowed when I became President not to talk about the loneliest toughest job in the world and I didn't.

9. I think it's very hard to fight the war on terrorism if we're in retreat.

10. I firmly believed we should not march into Baghdad ...To occupy Iraq would instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab world against us and make a broken tyrant, into a latter-day Arab hero.

11. Ozone Man, Ozone. He's crazy, way out, far out, man.

12. What's wrong with being a boring kind of guy?

13. The liberation of Kuwait has begun. In conjunction with the forces of our coalition partners, the United States has moved under the code name Operation Desert Storm to enforce the mandates of the United Nations Security Council.

14. The United States will continue its efforts to improve our understanding of climate change - to seek hard data, accurate models, and new ways to improve the science - and determine how best to meet these tremendous challenges.

15. If you believe that there's a being superior to yourself and that will guide you, strengthen you that helps a lot but, you know, you just have to stay the course. You just got to stay in there. You cannot be waffling or taking a poll to see what people think. You have to do what you think is right.

16. There is a God and He is good, and his love, while free, has a self imposed cost: We must be good to one another.

17. A time of historic change is no time for recklessness.

18. I know this about the American people: We welcome competition. We'll match our ingenuity, our energy, our experience and technology, our spirit and enterprise against anyone.

19. Time and again in this century, the political map of the world was transformed. And ineach instance a new world order came about through the advent of a new tyrant or the outbreak of a bloody global war, or its end.

20. From last night's All Together Now, a Celebration of Service: There can be no definition of a successful life that does not include service to others.

21. Out of these troubled times, our fifth objective- a new world order-can emerge... We are now in sight of a United Nations that performs as envisioned by its founders.

22. We don't want an America that is closed to the world. What we want is a world that is open to America.

23. The notion of political correctness has ignited controversy across the land. And although the movement arises from the laudable desire to sweep away the debris of racism and sexism and hatred it replaces old prejudices with new one. It declares certain topics off-limits, certain expressions off-limits, even certain gestures off-limits. What began as a crusade for civility has soured into a cause of conflict and even censorship.

24. If the American people knew what we have done, they would string us up from the lamp posts.

25. Let's forgive the Nazi war criminals.

26. We have had triumphs, we have made mistakes, we have had sex.

27. Lincoln said you cannot be President without spending some item on your knees. I have repeated that and a bunch of Atheists got all over me. Wait a minute. Does that mean that you cannot be President if you are an Atheist? I say yea that does mean that.

28. You got to wrestle with your conscience. You got to listen to people. It doesn't come so easy to me that this is right and that's wrong. It's never that simple.