Barry Goldwater Quotes

I have characterized Nixon as a loner, a cold man with great self-confidence and a one-track mind centered on the advancement of Richard Nixon. ~ Barry Goldwater

Once upon a time our traditional goal in war and can anyone doubt that we are at war? - was victory. Once upon a time we were proud of our strength, our military power. Now we seem ashamed of it. Once upon a time the rest of the world looked to us for leadership. Now they look to us for a quick handout and a fence-straddling international posture. ~ Barry Goldwater

After one of his [Hubert Humphrey] long-winded harangues I suggested he had probably been vaccinated with a phonograph needle. He responded by saying that I would have been a great success in the movies working for Eighteenth Century-Fox. ~ Barry Goldwater

Do you realize that at the moment we have Barry Goldwater fighting the Moral Majority, with The New York Times rooting for Goldwater? Times have changed. ~ William A. Rusher

You've got to forget about this civilian. Whenever you drop bombs, you're going to hit civilians. ~ Barry Goldwater

There's no greater service to this country than the defense of its freedom. ~ Barry Goldwater

Perserverance ... that's been the story of my family. ~ Barry Goldwater

Can any of us refute the wisdom of Madison and the other framers? Can anyone look at the carnage in Iran, the bloodshed in Northern Ireland or the bombs bursting in Lebanon and yet question the dangers of injecting religious issues into the affairs of state? ~ Barry Goldwater

Unlimited campaign spending eats at the heart of the democratic process. ~ Barry Goldwater

Republicans think that [Ted] Cruz would be like Barry Goldwater. He'd lose in a landslide and pull the party down with him. They'd lose Senate and House seats. ~ Mara Liasson

It is safe to say that the U.S. Congress is now run by paid staffers, not by people elected to do the job. ~ Barry Goldwater

The president, who finds so much to complain about in other areas of the world, apparently saw nothing wrong in recognizing a Communist regime that has killed more people in its short history of control over the teeming millions of that great country than any other collection of dictators or tyrants in the history of the world. ~ Barry Goldwater

This bill will require the creation of a Federal police force of mammoth proportions. It also bids fair to result in the development of an 'informer' psychology in great areas of our national life-neighbors spying on neighbors, workers spying on workers, business spying on businessmen-were those who would harass their fellow citizens for selfish and narrow purposes will have ample inducement to do so. These, the Federal police force an 'informer' psychology, are the hallmarks of the police state and landmarks in the destruction of a free society. ~ Barry Goldwater

The only summit meeting that can succeed is the one that does not take place. ~ Barry Goldwater

On religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this Supreme Being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. ~ Barry Goldwater

I wouldn't trust Nixon from here to that phone. ~ Barry Goldwater

Women are hard enough to handle now without giving them a gun! ~ Barry Goldwater

The Barry Goldwater movement excited the depths because the apocalypse was brought more near, and like millions of other whites, I had been leading a life which was a trifle too pointless and a trifle too full of guilt and my gullet was close to nausea with the empty promises of an empty liberal center. ~ Norman Mailer

If everybody in this town connected with politics had to leave town because of chasing women and drinking, you would have no government. ~ Barry Goldwater

Religious factions will go on imposing their will on others unless the decent people connected to them recognize that religion has no place in public policy. They must learn to make their views known without trying to make their views the only alternatives ~ Barry Goldwater

I think every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass. ~ Barry Goldwater

We shall return to proven ways - not because they are old, but because they are true. ~ Barry Goldwater

If you don't mind smelling like peanut butter for two or three days, peanut butter is darn good shaving cream. ~ Barry Goldwater

It's a great country, where anybody can grow up to be president ... except me. ~ Barry Goldwater

While I am a great believer in the free enterprise system and all that it entails, I am an even stronger believer in the right of our people to live in a clean and pollution-free environment. ~ Barry Goldwater

The best thing Clinton could do - I think I wrote him a letter about this, but I'm not sure - is to shut up. He has no discipline. ~ Barry Goldwater

We cannot allow the American flag to be shot at anywhere on earth if we are to retain our respect and prestige ~ Barry Goldwater

The big thing is to make this country ... quit discriminating against people just because they're gay. You don't have to agree with it, but they have a constitutional right to be gay ... They're American citizens. ~ Barry Goldwater

And here we encounter the seeds of government disaster and collapse - the kind that wrecked ancient Rome and every other civilization that allowed a sociopolitical monster called the welfare state to exist. ~ Barry Goldwater

I have gone from a Barry Goldwater Republican to a New Democrat, but I think my underlying values have remained pretty constant; individual responsibility and community. I do not see those as being mutually inconsistent. ~ Hillary Clinton

I think a current understanding about urban behavior tells us that it's important that people get out and be able to get away from the concrete jungles and the dense environment where they live for their own mental well-being. If they don't do this, the costs in human loss and human sickness will be far greater than what we would be expending for these kinds of releases and open spaces. ~ Barry Goldwater

When white and black and brown and every other color decide they're going to live together as Christians, then and only then are we going to see an end to these troubles. ~ Barry Goldwater

Nixon was the most dishonest individual I have ever met in my life. He lied to his wife, his family, his friends, his colleagues in the Congress, lifetime members of his own political party, the American people and the world. ~ Barry Goldwater

It is true that I was denied access to a facility at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, because I never got in. I can't tell you what was inside. We both know about the rumors concerning a captured UFO and crew members. I have never seen what I would call a UFO, but I have intelligent friends who have. ~ Barry Goldwater

In 1964, I tried to convince my grandfather, who was active in the New York City firefighters union, to vote for Barry Goldwater over Lyndon Johnson because at the time I thought his approach to limited government was right on. ~ Joe Lhota

Barry Goldwater once said, 'I'd rather be right than president.' I can't tell you how much I disagree with that Barry Goldwater. ~ Howard Dean

You don't have to be straight to be in the military; you just have to be able to shoot straight. ~ Barry Goldwater

Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan had tremendous influence on generations of American because, even if people disagreed with them, they admired them because they made very strong commitments to things they believed in. ~ Phil Crane

I certainly believe in aliens in space, and that they are indeed visiting our planet. They may not look like us, but I have very strong feelings that they have advanced beyond our mental capabilities. ~ Barry Goldwater

[My father ] came home from World War II and he voted for [Dwight] Eisenhower. He was pretty thoughtful about those things, but never, as I said, ever campaigned for anybody. He let me put a [Barry] Goldwater sticker on his pickup truck, but he never put a bumper sticker on his car. We never had a yard sign or anything in our yards, never contributed to anybody's campaign. ~ Jeff Sessions

The split has widened because the right has moved right, not because the left has moved left. Republican presidents Eisenhower, Nixon, and Ford all supported the Equal Rights Amendment. In 1960, the GOP platform embraced "free collective bargaining" between management and labor. REpublicans boasted of "extending the minimum wage to several million more workers" and "strengthening the unemployment insurance system and extension of its benefits." Under Dwight Eisenhower, top earners were taxed at 91 percent; in 2015, it was 40 percent. Planned Parenthood has come under serious attack from nearly all Republican presidential candidates running in 2016. Yet a founder of the organization was Peggy Goldwater, wife of the 1968 conservative Republican candidate for president Barry Goldwater. General Eisenhower called for massive invenstment in infrastructure, and now nearly all congressional Republicans see such a thing as frightening government overreach. Ronald Reagan raised the national debt and favored gun control, and now the Republican state legislature of Texas authorizes citizens to "open carry" loaded guns into churches and banks. Conservatives of yesterday seem moderate or liberal today. ~ Arlie Russell Hochschild

Today neither of our two parties maintains a meaningful commitment to the principle of States' Rights. The 10th Amendment is not a 'general assumption' but a rule of law. States rights mean that states have a right to act or not to act, as they see fit, in areas reserved to them. ~ Barry Goldwater

I think some highly secret government UFO investigations are going on that we don't know about
and probably never will unless the Air Force discloses them. ~ Barry Goldwater

I'm a liberal to a degree, I want everybody to be free. But if you think that I'll let Barry Goldwater move in next door. ~ Bob Dylan

By maintaining the separation of church and state, the United States has avoided the intolerance which has so divided the rest of the world with religious wars. Throughout our two hundred plus years, public policy debate has focused on political and economic issues, on which there can be compromise ... ~ Barry Goldwater

I'd rather see a woman elected ... They understand they can't spend more money than the old man brings home. ~ Barry Goldwater

I've always said I have nothing against a woman doing anything a man can do as long as she gets home in time to cook dinner. ~ Barry Goldwater

The constitution is an instrument, above all, for LIMITING the functions of government. ~ Barry Goldwater

Government should stay the hell out of people's business. ~ Barry Goldwater

One way we exercise political freedom is to vote for the candidate of our choice. Another way is to use our money to try to persuade other voters to make a similar choice - that is, to contribute to our candidate's campaign. If either of these freedoms is violated, the consequences are very grave not only for the individual voter and contributor, but for the society whose free political processes depend on a wide distribution of political power. ~ Barry Goldwater

He [Barry Goldwater] was called "the cheerful malcontent." It takes a rare and fine temperament to wed that adjective with that noun. His emotional equipoise was undisturbed by the loss of 44 states as a presidential nominee. Perhaps he sensed that he had won the future. We
27,178,188 of us
who voted for him in 1964 believe he won, it just took 16 years to count the votes. ~ George F. Will

The time has come to recognize the United Nations for the anti-American, anti-freedom organization that it has become. The time has come for us to cut off all financial help, withdraw as a member, and ask the United Nations to find headquarters location outside the United States that is ~ Barry Goldwater

At this sunset hour, the canyon walls are indescribably beautiful and I fear the magic of photography can never record what I see now. The tall spires near the canyon's top and the walls of the canyon up there look as if God had reached out and swiped a brush of golden paint across them, gilding these rocks in the bright glow of the setting sun. ~ Barry Goldwater

It was hard to listen to Goldwater and realize that a man could be half Jewish and yet sometimes appear twice as dense as the normal Gentile. ~ I. F. Stone

The oldest philosophy in the world is conservatism, and I go clear back to the first Greeks ... When you say 'radical right' today, I think of these moneymaking ventures by fellows like Pat Robertson and others who are trying to take the Republican Party away from the Republican Party, and make a religious organization out of it. If that ever happens, kiss politics goodbye. ~ Barry Goldwater

When I'm not a politician, I'll be dead. ~ Barry Goldwater

Bill Rehnquist makes Barry Goldwater look like a liberal. ~ John Dean

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" ... in an airport in '64, Goldwater said, 'Well, keep punching, Hubert' during a chance meeting there.
By the end of 1977, it became increasingly clear that the Boss (Hubert Humphrey) would not be around much longer. And on the Senate floor one day, Barry Goldwater walked across the aisle and enveloped Hubert Humphrey. Goldwater was so big and Humphrey so frail that Humphrey almost disappeared. The two men stood for a long moment, locked in a hug, and I could see that both men were crying. They made no effort to hide it."
- Joe Biden (Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics) ~ Joe Biden

We have enough trouble with women without giving them M16 rifles. ~ Barry Goldwater

It is impossible to maintain freedom and order and justice without religious and moral sanctions. ~ Barry Goldwater

I could have ended the war in a month. I could have made North Vietnam look like a mud puddle. ~ Barry Goldwater

You don't need to be straight to fight and die for your country. You just need to shoot straight. ~ Barry Goldwater

Social and cultural change, however desirable, should not be effected by the engines of national power. Let us, through persuasion and education, seek to improve institutions we deem defective. But let us, in doing so, respect the orderly processes of the law. Any other course enthrones tyrants and dooms freedom. ~ Barry Goldwater

A man from the west will fight over three things: water, women and gold, and usually in that order. ~ Barry Goldwater

Conservatism therefore looks upon the enhancement of man's spiritual nature as the primary concern of political philosophy. Liberals, on the other hand, - in the name of a concern for "human beings" - regard the satisfaction of economic wants as the dominant mission of society. ~ Barry Goldwater

My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. ~ Barry Goldwater

I have the unmitigated gall to think that I could lead men anywhere, business, politics or combat. ~ Barry Goldwater

In your heart you know he's right. ~ Barry Goldwater

I will offer a choice, not an echo. ~ Barry Goldwater

When fraternities are not allowed, Communism flourishes. Young men who are inexperienced but have faith are more useful than older, experienced men without faith. The fraternity system is a bastion of American strength. ~ Barry Goldwater

[G]overnment can, instead of extending freedom, restrict freedom. And note ... that the 'can' quickly becomes 'will' the moment the holders of government power are left to their own devices. This is because of the corrupting influence of power, the natural tendency of men who possess some power to take unto themselves more power. The tendency leads eventually to the acquisition of all power - whether in the hands of one or many makes little difference to the freedom of those left on the outside. ~ Barry Goldwater

I won't say that the papers misquote me, but I sometimes wonder where Christianity would be today if some of those reporters had been Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. ~ Barry Goldwater

We are on the Colorado ... that means something more to me than thoughts of electrical power or a harnessed river. ~ Barry Goldwater

Senator Goldwater would have been a great success in the movies - working for 18th century Fox. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

The great decisions of government cannot be dictated by the concerns of religious factions ... We have succeeded for 205 years in keeping the affairs of state separate from the uncompromising idealism of religious groups and we mustn't stop now. To retreat from that separation would violate the principles of conservatism and the values upon which the framers built this democratic republic. ~ Barry Goldwater

I say that when you elect a president you want a man to manage the legitimate business of your government. The government that is big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take it away. ~ Barry Goldwater

I say further that for this great legislative body to ignore the Constitution and the fundamental concepts of our governmental system is to act in a manner which could ultimately destroy the freedom of all American citizens, including the freedoms of the very persons whose feelings and whose liberties are the major subject of this legislation. ~ Barry Goldwater

Any pilot can describe the mechanics of flying. What it can do for the spirit of man is beyond description. ~ Barry Goldwater

Trade unions infringe upon the property rights of company owners. ~ Barry Goldwater

The Trilateralist Commission is international ... (and) ... is intended to be the vehicle for multinational consolidation of the commercial and banking interests by seizing control of the political government of the United States. The Trilateralist Commission represents a skillful, coordinated effort to seize control and consolidate the four centers of power - political, monetary, intellectual, and ecclesiastical. ~ Barry Goldwater

The Republicans have a positive talent for self-destruction. ~ Barry Goldwater

If someone is lying to you, they'll generally look up to the top right. That means that they're trying to construct an image that doesn't exist. ~ Keith Barry

That last voice in his head.
It hadn't been Billy's.
It was his own. ~ Barry Lyga

I think it is going to be very difficult for any church that still calls itself a church, never to try and convince someone that their religion is the best one. ~ Barry W. Lynn

Story, as I understood it by reading Faulkner, Hardy, Cather, and Hemingway, was a powerful and clarifying human invention. The language alone, as I discovered it in Gerard Manley Hopkins and Faulkner, was exquisitely beautiful, also weirdly and mysteriously evocative. ~ Barry Lopez

Fred Astaire. Not a handsome man. He said himself he couldn't sing. He was balding his whole life. He danced like a cheetah runs, with the grace of the first creation. I mean, that first week. On one of those days God created Fred Astaire. Saturday maybe, since that was the day for the pictures. When you saw Fred you felt better about everything. He was a cure. He was bottled in the films and all around the earth, from Castlebar to Cairo, he healed the halt and the blind. That's the gospel truth. St Fred. Fred the Redeemer. ~ Sebastian Barry

I was reading this James Bond book, and right away I realized that, like most books, it had too many words. ~ Dave Barry

You know, there are some people who just don't - that cannot get comfortable behind the wheel of a car and always sort of think they're going to kill somebody. ~ Robert Barry

I have a little dictaphone and if a sound takes my fancy or if a lyric comes to me in the middle of the night I'll just record it there and then. ~ Barry Gibb

I hate it when theater people go on about professionalism - aren't they boring? I try to be as unprofessional as possible. And I'm a little bit politically incorrect. ~ Barry Humphries

The two party system just means that the corporations cut two checks instead of one. ~ Barry Crimmins

What you pay for an investment is the single biggest determinant for how successful that investment will be. When equity prices are high, your returns will be lower. When they are cheap, your returns will be higher. ~ Barry Ritholtz

Whoever you are, be that person with all your might. Time goes by faster than we thought. It is a thief so quiet. You must let yourself be loved and you must love, parts of you that never loved must open and love. You must announce yourself in all particulars so you can have yourself. ~ Barry Hannah

If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there are men on base. ~ Dave Barry

Atrial fibrillation has been the low man on the totem pole and so we're just trying to get more visibility about this particular disease and how dangerous this could be. ~ Barry Manilow

I've always said my biggest influence is my, just, the last work I did, the last piece I made. ~ Robert Barry

The weapons were conceived and created by a small band of physicists and chemists; they remain a cataclysmic threat to the whole of human society and the natural environment. ~ Barry Commoner

Dogs do not grasp the concept of house cleaning. ~ Dave Barry

The way this country deals with drugs is just not funny. What a waste of everyone's time and effort. What a waste of a lot of people's lives. ~ Dave Barry

All love - love of children, love of parents, love of God or life - comes out of making physical love. Without the making of love there is no body to love anything. ~ Barry Long