John F. Kerry Quotes

It's the [George Bush] president's fiscal policies that have driven up the biggest deficits in American history. He's added more debt to the debt of the United States in four years than all the way from George Washington to Ronald Reagan put together.

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.

Our cause in the war on terror isn't helped when we have army officers like Lieutenant General William Boykin speaking in evangelical churches and claiming this as some sort of battle for the Christian religion. That's wrong. That's un-American.

I'm not insensitive to the jobs. I'm desperately concerned about those jobs. But you don't fix them by pandering to people and telling them you're going to shut the door. You have to grow jobs.

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.

But I can tell you what I believe: When tens of thousands of innocent souls have perished in Darfur-when 11 million children are without health insurance-when our colossal debt subjects our economic future to the whims of Asian bankers-no one can tell me that faith demands this Senate spend its time arguing over a handful of judges. No one with those priorities can use my faith to intimidate me.

We are not interested in a proxy war. Our objective is to change Russia's behavior.

What we need to do is raise the minimum wage. We also need to hold onto equal pay. Women work for 76 cents on the dollar for the same work that men do. That's not right in America.

I don't think losing 3 million jobs, having deficits as far as the eye can go, having 2 million people lose their health insurance, turning your back on kids in schools and not funding No Child Left Behind represents a vision.

I saw courage both in the Vietnam War and in the struggle to stop it. I learned that patriotism includes protest, not just military service.

I'm a Catholic, raised a Catholic. I was an altar boy. Religion has been a huge part of my life. It helped lead me through a war, leads me today.

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.

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.

When I was in Vietnam I learned a lot about the promises that soldiers make to each other. The Marines have a promise to never leave behind their dead. In this country, as citizen soldiers, we need to make the commitment to each other that we will never leave our veterans behind.

I mean does Israel want a third Intifada?

This is deeply disturbing. Congress provided loans to help businesses hurt by the Sept. 11 attacks, not to be used as an accounting gimmick to cover up this administration's failure to provide for small businesses.

I'm John Kerry, and I'm reporting for duty,

It's very hard to get other countries to give up their weapons when you're busy developing a new one.

If Saddam Hussein is unwilling to bend to the international community's already existing order, then he will have invited enforcement, even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act.

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.

And here and now we must insist again that fidelity, honor, and love of country demand untrammeled debate and open dissent. At no time is that truer than in the midst of a war rooted in deceit and justified by continuing deception.

Each and every child in this country is valuable because they are our future as a society. We cannot afford to lose a single child to ill-health, under-education, abuse, addiction, jail, or gun violence. America's highest goal should be for every child to grow up to be a successful young adult
healthy, educated, free, secure, and a good citizen.

There should be a Transatlantic renaissance between the US and Europe based on shared prosperity, security, and values.

I saw how different life was on different sides of the same city. I saw the fear in the eyes of people who were not free. I saw the gratitude of people toward the United States for all that we had done. I felt goosebumps as I got off a military train and heard the Army band strike up 'Stars and Stripes Forever.'

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.

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.

We owe our troops the opportunity to serve in the best-planned, best-equipped, and best-led military force in the world, and we owe them the peace of mind that comes from knowing that they and their families will be taken care of if they sacrifice life, limb or the ability to sleep without war's nightmares. We owe them not just thanks and best wishes, but action, and action in our nation's capital.

My friends, that's trickle-down economics, and I believe every worker in America is tired of being trickled on by George W. Bush

You don't value families if you force them to take up a collection to buy body armor for a son or daughter in the service.

We need a new approach to national security

These guys [Republicans] are the most crooked, you know, lying group I've ever seen.

Thank you very much for contacting me to express your support for the actions of President Bush in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. From the outset of the invasion, I have strongly and unequivocally supported President Bush's response to the crisis and the policy goals he has established with our military deployment in the Persian Gulf.

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.

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.

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.

The Ukrainian people should not be coerced. Make no mistake: the US stands together with the Ukrainians aspiring for democracy.

Real Democrats don't abandon the middle class.

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?

Reduce US military presence in Iraq; and bring in neighbors.

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.

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.

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.

We were sent to Vietnam to kill Communism. But we found instead that we were killing women and children.

Where are they now that we, the men whom they sent off to war, have returned? These are commanders who have deserted their troops, and there is no more serious crime in the law of war. The Army says they never leave their wounded. The Marines say they never leave even their dead. These men have left all the casualties and retreated behind a pious shield of public rectitude. They have left the real stuff of their reputation bleaching behind them in the sun in this country.

In American elections there are no losers, because whether or not our candidates win or lose, the next morning we wake up as Americans.

A fundamental premise of politics is we can make this work if people just never figure it out.

I think George Mitchell is a consummate professional. He is the ideal selection to handle the job of special envoy if you choose to have a special envoy.

I think the question of abortion is one that should be left for the states to decide.

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.

You might not see climate change as an immediate threat to your job, your community, or your families," Kerry said. "But let me tell you, it is." He continued, "climate change is directly related to the potential of greater conflict and greater instability. I'm telling you that there are people in parts of the world - in Africa today, they fight each other over water. They kill each over it. And if glaciers are melting and there's less water available and more people, that is a challenge we have to face.

We cannot continue to see the Middle East in the context of 9/11. We must see it in the context of 2011.

You just don't invade another country on phony pretext in order to assert your interests!

Capturing Saddam Hussein and ensuring that this brutal dictator will never return to power is an important step toward stabilizing Iraq for the Iraqis. Let's also be clear: Our problems in Iraq have not been caused by one man, and this is a moment when the administration can and must launch a major effort to gain international support and win the peace.

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.

That is what Americans do. We face a challenge - no matter how great - because we know that on the other side there is always hope.

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.

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.

Ask Osama bin Laden if he's better off now than he was four years ago.

The fact is that in too many parts of our country, we still have discrimination. And affirmative action is not just something that applies to people of color. Some people have a mistaken view of it in America. It also is with respect to women, it's with respect to other efforts to try to reach out and be inclusive in our country.

Martin Luther King challenged the conscience of my generation, and his words and his legacy continue to move generations to action today at home and around the world. His love and faith is alive in millions of Americans who volunteer each day in soup kitchens or in schools, or who refused to ignore the suffering of millions they'd never met in far-away places when a tsunami brought unthinkable destruction. His vision and his passion is alive in churches and on campuses when millions stand up against the injustice of discrimination anywhere, or the indifference that leaves too many behind.

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.

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.

It appears that with the deadline for exile come and gone, Saddam Hussein has chosen to make military force the ultimate weapons inspections enforcement mechanism. If so, the only exit strategy is victory, this is our common mission and the world's cause.

I will not stop in our efforts to hunt down and kill the terrorists.

I believe America is safest and strongest when we are leading the world and we are leading strong alliances.

Terrorist organizations with specific political agendas may be encouraged and emboldened by Yasser Arafat's transformation from outlaw to statesman.

It took President Obama to make America lead like America again.

I look forward to standing up and holding George Bush accountable for pushing seniors off of Medicare into HMOs.

In a few years, you should be able to plug your American-made plug-in hybrid into the outlet in your garage, so that you never use a drop of gas on your daily commute. This won't happen overnight, but I promise you, it is closer than you think.

Those who doubted whether Iraq or the world would be better off without Saddam Hussein, and those who believe today that we are not safer with his capture, don't have the judgment to be President, or the credibility to be elected President. No one can doubt or should doubt that we are safer - and Iraq is better - because Saddam Hussein is now behind bars.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I commanded a naval gunboat patrolling the Mekong Delta. Then when I came home after two tours of duty, I decided that the same sense of service demanded something more of me.

I'm an internationalist. I'd like to see our troops dispersed through the world only at the directive of the United Nations.

America has not led but fled on the issue of global warming.

We should not allow a tiny minority of shoddy scientists and science and extreme ideologues to compete with scientific facts,

President Clinton was often known as the first black president. I wouldn't be upset if I could earn the right to be the second.

I'm going to be honest with you - I don't know a lot about Cuba's healthcare system. Is it a government-run system?

I think there has been an exaggeration [of the terrorist threat].

In case after case, President Bush's actions have made American women less safe and less secure
on the job and on the streets. As president, I will put American government and our legal system back on the side of women. I will stand up for their security, ensure their safety, support their rights, and guarantee their dignity. This nation can do no less.

War on terror is far less of a military operation and far more of an intelligence-gathering, law-enforcement operation.

Republican secretaries of state from Kissinger to Baker, Powell to Rice, President Bush, 71 United States Senators all supported President Obama's new START treaty, but not Mitt Romney.

At every step of the way, George W. Bush has put the narrow interests of the few ahead of the interests of most Americans.

We do not need to divide America over who served and how. I have personally always believed that many served in many different ways. Someone who was deeply against the war in 1969 or 1970 may well have served their country with equal passion and patriotism by opposing the war as by fighting in it.

I'm going to be a president who believes in science.

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

Folks, Sarah Palin said she could see Russia from Alaska. Mitt Romney talks like he's only seen Russia by watching 'Rocky IV.'

I can't take my Catholic belief, my article of faith, and legislate it on a Protestant or a Jew or an Atheist. We have separation of church and state in the United States of America.

We must recognize that there is no indication that Saddam Hussein has any intention of relenting. So we have an obligation of enormous consequence, an obligation to guarantee that Saddam Hussein cannot ignore the United Nations. He cannot be permitted to go unobserved and unimpeded toward his horrific objective of amassing a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.

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.

The American spirit wears no political label. In service to others and yes, in sacrifice for our country, there are no Republicans; there are no Democrats; there are only Americans.

This fight against drilling in the Arctic Refuge is a fight about our principles. Its about standing up for our environment, our families and our future, and I wont give up this fight.

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.

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.

What we have to do is go on the offensive. [The science on climate change] has been maligned and misinterpreted, and we need to fight back ... [P]eople [need to] stop being moved by these talk show [hosts] and start looking for the facts themselves.

I promise just to serve two terms. Republicans do it differently. They just have the son repeat the father's whole first term.

I just want to assure you that both President Bush and I have very firm alibis.

As I have said for two years now, when Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda were cornered in the mountains of Tora Bora, it was wrong to outsource the job of capturing them to Afghan warlords who a week earlier were fighting against us.