Everett Dirksen Quotes

Everett Dirksen delivers sharp, witty commentary on power, politics and loyalty.

17 quotes

1. Stronger than all the armies is an idea thats time has come.

2. I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to be flexible at all times.

3. When I face an issue of great import that cleaves both constituents and colleagues, I always take the same approach. I engage in deep deliberation and quiet contemplation. I wait to the last available minute and then I always vote with the losers. Because, my friend, the winners never remember and the losers never forget.

4. Some of my friends support the measure, and some of my friends oppose it. I support my friends.

5. 'A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon, you're talking real money.'

6. When a member of the House moves over to the Senate, he raises the IQ of both bodies.

7. The U.S. Senate - an old scow which doesn't move very fast, but never sinks.

8. During a political campaign everyone is concerned with what a candidate will do on this or that question if he is elected except the candidate; he's too busy wondering what he'll do if he isn't elected.

9. When I feel the heat, I see the light.

10. The oil can is mightier than the sword.

11. Dirksen's Three Laws of Politics: 1. Get elected. 2. Get re-elected. 3. Don't get mad, get even.

12. We are becoming so accustomed to millions and billions of dollars that housands has almost passed out of the dictionary.

13. We have been through this biennial convulsion four or five different times over the past 10 or 12 years, and now it appears that we are going through this quiet agony all over again.

14. There is no force so powerful as an idea whose time has come.

15. But the basic difficulty still remains: It is the expansion of Federal power, about which I wish to express my alarm. How easily we embrace such business.

16. The mind is no match with the heart in persuasion; constitutionality is no match with compassion.

17. When all is said and done, the real citadel of strength of any community is in the hearts and minds and desires of those who dwell there.