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Barry Goldwater Quotes

Total quotes: 37
“Unlimited campaign spending eats at the heart of the democratic process.”
— Barry Goldwater, Goldwater would have hated ‘Citizens United’
Tagged: Campaign Financing, Democracy
“I think any man in business would be foolish to fool around with his secretary. If it's somebody else's secretary, fine.”
— Barry Goldwater, 449 Stupid Things Republicans Have Said
Tagged: Cheating, Infidelity
“The income tax created more criminals than any other single act of government.”
— Barry Goldwater, Benny L. Kass- Too-Good-to-Be-True Tax Myths
Tagged: Income Tax, Government
“It's a great country, where anybody can grow up to be president...except me.”
— Barry Goldwater, Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes
Tagged: President
“Never forget, there was only one freedom—only one freedom—on which this nation was founded. That was freedom from government—from too much, oppressive government.”
— Barry Goldwater, Text of Senator Goldwater's Address at Madison Sq. Garden in Only Campaign Appearance in city
Tagged: Freedom, Government
“You don't need to be 'straight' to fight and die for your country. You just need to shoot straight.”
— Barry Goldwater
Tagged: gay rights
“And I needn't remind you, but I will; it has been during Democratic years that a billion persons were cast into Communist captivity and their fate cynically sealed.”
— Barry Goldwater
Tagged: Communism, Democrats
“The effect of Welfarism on freedom will be felt later on - after its beneficiaries have become its victims, after dependence on government has turned into bondage and it is too late to unlock the jail.”
— Barry Goldwater, The Conscience of a Conservative
Tagged: Conservatism, Welfare, Dependence
“There's no greater service to this country than the defense of its freedom.”
— Barry Goldwater
Tagged: Freedom
“I believe in the great American Dream. I say we can be a people led but not driven, governed, but not ruled; organized, but not regimented; taxed, but not bled.”
— Barry Goldwater, Text of Senator Goldwater's Address at Madison Sq. Garden in Only Campaign Appearance in city
Tagged: American Dream, Taxation
“What kind of a private club are these people running? Whose government is it, anyway ? I used to think it belonged to the people.”
— Barry Goldwater, Text of Senator Goldwater's Address at Madison Sq. Garden in Only Campaign Appearance in city
Tagged: Government
“I voted against the Civil Rights Act and I'd probably vote against it again. No one has the right to tell me who I have the right to rent a room to.”
— Barry Goldwater, 'He did a real job on America'
Tagged: Civil Rights, Freedom of Association
“Hubert Humphrey talks so fast that listening to him is like trying to read Playboy magazine with your wife turning the pages.”
— Barry Goldwater, the Ultimate Book of Quotations
Tagged: Hubert Humphrey, Playboy Magazine
“The good Lord raised this mighty Republic to be a home for the brave and to flourish as the land of the free-not to stagnate in the swampland of collectivism, not to cringe before the bully of communism.”
— Barry Goldwater
Tagged: Collectivism, Communism
“I could have ended the war in a month. I could have made North Vietnam look like a mud puddle.”
— Barry Goldwater, At the Abyss
Tagged: Cold War, Vietnam War
“Any government which can promise you everything you want can also take away everything you have.”
— Barry Goldwater, Goldwater
Tagged: Government, Power
“Let us henceforth make war on all monopolies—whether corporate or union. The enemy of freedom is unrestrained power, and the champions of freedom will fight against the concentration of power wherever they find it.”
— Barry Goldwater
Tagged: Monopolies, Freedom, Power
“To disagree, one doesn't have to be disagreeable.”
— Barry Goldwater, The Peace Officer's Companion
“Women are hard enough to handle now, without giving them a gun.”
— Barry Goldwater, 646 Ways To Stir A Controversy
Tagged: Misogyny, Gun Rights
“We have been led to look upon taxation as merely a problem of public financing: How much money does the government need? We have been led to discount, and often to forget altogether, the bearing of taxation on the problem of individual freedom.”
— Barry Goldwater, The Conscience of a Conservative
Tagged: Taxation, Freedom
“I'm the most underdog underdog there is.”
— Barry Goldwater, Nation: The Underdog Underdog
Tagged: Underdogs
“You know, once before a great and self‐governing people gave up their liberty—a liberty far less than ours. They put themselves in the hands of their leader, asking only to be fed and entertained. They traded their votes for ‘bread and circuses.’ They traded their Senate for an emperor.”
— Barry Goldwater, Text of Senator Goldwater's Address at Madison Sq. Garden in Only Campaign Appearance in city
Tagged: Liberty, Roman Empire
“Empty promises are cheap—and cheaper by the dozen.”
— Barry Goldwater, Text of Senator Goldwater's Address at Madison Sq. Garden in Only Campaign Appearance in city
Tagged: promises
“The Conservative approach is nothing more or less than an attempt to apply the wisdom and experience and the revealed truths of the past to the problems of today. The challenge is not to find new or different truths, but to learn how to apply established truths to the problems of the contemporary world.”
— Barry Goldwater, The Conscience of a Conservative
Tagged: conservatives
“People didn't vote for me -- they thought I'd blow up the world.”
— Barry Goldwater, 'He did a real job on America'
Tagged: vote
“I fear Washington and centralized government more than I do Moscow.”
— Barry Goldwater, Great American Hypocrites
Tagged: Federal Government
“If he'd let his wife run business, I think he'd be better off....I just like the way she acts. I've never met her, but I sent her a bag of chili, and she invited me to come to the White House some night and said she'd cook chili for me. Someday, maybe.'”
— Barry Goldwater
Tagged: Hillary Clinton, White House
“Forced integration is just as wrong as forced segregation.”
— Barry Goldwater, GOLDWATER TURNS TO RIGHTS ISSUE
Tagged: Integration, Segregation, Coercion
“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
Tagged: Philosophy, Pat Robertson, Religious Right, Republican Party
“Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed.”
— Barry Goldwater
Tagged: Power, tyranny
“Having spent 37 years of my life in the military as a reservist, and never having met a gay in all of that time, and never having even talked about it in all those years, I just thought, why the hell shouldn't they serve? They're American citizens. As long as they're not doing things that are harmful to anyone else...So I came out for it.”
— Barry Goldwater
Tagged: gay rights
“My mother took us to services at the Episcopal church. Yet she always said that God was not just inside the four walls of a house of worship, but everywhere - in the rising sun over Camelback Mountain in Phoenix, a splash of water along the nearby Salt or Verde rivers, or clouds driving over the Estrella Mountains, south of downtown. I've always thought of God in those terms.”
— Barry Goldwater, Arizona Republic from Phoenix, Arizona on June 7, 1998 · Page 20
Tagged: Nature, Phoenix, God
“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 financial help, withdraw as a member, and ask the United Nations to find a headquarters location outside the United States that is more in keeping with the philosophy of the majority of voting members, someplace like Moscow or Peking.”
— Barry Goldwater, Barry Goldwater and Ron Paul- LRC Blog LewRockwell.com
Tagged: United Nations, Moscow, Peking
“The graduated tax is a confiscatory tax. Its effect, and to a large extent its aim, is to bring down all men to a common level. Many of the leading proponents of the graduated tax frankly admit that their purpose is to redistribute the nation's wealth. Their aim is an egalitarian society—an objective that does violence both to the charter of the Republic and the laws of Nature. We are all equal in the eyes of God but we are equal in no other respect. Artificial devices for enforcing equality among unequal men must be rejected if we would restore that charter and honor those laws.”
— Barry Goldwater, The Conscience of a Conservative
Tagged: Taxation
“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…. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in ‘A,’ ‘B,’ ‘C’ and ‘D.’ Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me?”
— Barry Goldwater, The Quotable Atheist
Tagged: atheism, Religion
“It is a fact that Lyndon Johnson and his curious crew seem to believe that progress in this country is best served simply and directly through the ever-expanding gift power of the everlastingly growing Federal Government. One thing we all know, and I assure you I do: that's a much easier way to get votes than my way. It always has been. It's political Daddyism, and it's as old as demagogues and despotism.”
— Barry Goldwater, Text of Senator Goldwater's Address at Madison Sq. Garden in Only Campaign Appearance in city
Tagged: LBJ, Progress, Government, Despotism
“You want something for nothing ? The Federal Government will give it to you.

You want to avoid responsibility for bringing up your children and educating them? The Federal Government will take over.

You want to duck the job of facing your local problems and solving them? The Federal Government will do it for you.

Never mind the fact that the power and the money to do these things has to he taken from you before the Federal Government can do them for you. Every step in this direction is a loss of freedom for you!”
— Barry Goldwater, Text of Senator Goldwater's Address at Madison Sq. Garden in Only Campaign Appearance in city
Tagged: Government, Welfare, Personal Responsibility, Freedom
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