Top 91 Quotes & Sayings by Dianne Feinstein

Ninety percent of leadership is the ability to communicate something people want.

College costs continue to rise, and student loan debt threatens to price many Americans out of a college education and out of the middle class.

Banning guns addresses a fundamental right of all Americans to feel safe.

Winning may not be everything, but losing has little to recommend it.

The sole purpose of nuclear weapons must be to deter their use by others.

We have a chance to wind down and expedite the removal of 96 percent of the world's nuclear weapons. What an achievement it would be, if at the end of the next administration, we could say that the nuclear arsenals of both Russia and the United States had been reduced to the barest minimums.

If we want our nuclear stockpile to truly serve the interests of our country in a strategic, balanced manner, we have to change course. That means pursuing creative options such as reducing the weapons held in reserve.

Well, that day is gone, and it will not occur again.

There's no reason to think a Guantanamo detainee is any more likely to escape from Supermax than any other federal prisoner.

Survival is nothing more than recovery.

Student loan debt is certainly not a fitting topic for a commencement speech, but it's an issue we must confront - not only for thousands of college graduates who deserve a fair shot, but also for our economy.

We're not perfect, and there are some dark patches in our past, but what makes us special is that we recognize these evils, we come to grips with them, and we fix them.

Tax reform shouldn't add one penny to our deficit or to the tax bills of middle-class Americans.

My mother emigrated from Russia as a young child. She couldn't speak English and had no education. Her father died at age 32, leaving the family destitute. An uncle, who worked as a carpenter, supported the family.

In the wake of 9/11, we were desperate to bring those responsible for the brutal attacks to justice. But even that urgency did not justify torture. The United States must be held to a higher standard than our enemies, yet some of our actions did not clear that bar.

The time has come to repeal 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell.' It is the right thing to do. Every American should have the opportunity to serve their country, regardless of race, sex, creed, or sexual orientation.

Our system of checks and balances requires policymakers to have accurate information about government actions.

Theft of a firearm should be punished as a felony, plain and simple.

We cannot expect to keep our nation's secrets secure - or provide meaningful oversight for our intelligence agencies - if proper classification of our country's secrets is as likely as a coin flip.

I am religious in my thinking.

Simply put, Guantanamo is one of the best propaganda tools that terrorists have today. Our enemies use it to justify terrorism and recruit others to carry out violent jihad, and our allies continue to criticize it as a violation of the rule of law.

Torture goes against the very soul of our country. We are a democracy, established on the rule of law.

Nuclear weapons present us with a paradox: We spend billions of dollars building and maintaining them in the hope that we never have to use them.

Toughness doesn't have to come in a pinstripe suit.

Designing new low-yield nuclear weapons for limited strikes dangerously lowers the threshold for their use.

Supreme Court justices should not be an extension of the Republican Party.

Let me be crystal clear: There is no such thing as 'limited use' nuclear weapons, and for a Pentagon advisory board to promote their development is absolutely unacceptable.

At age 14, my paternal grandfather fled Poland to escape the pogroms that killed tens of thousands of European Jews. He worked full-time for a cobbler in Boston, making his way to California and eventually starting his own business in Taft - the Goldman Oil Supply Company.

I basically believe the medical insurance industry should be nonprofit, not profit-making. There is no way a health reform plan will work when it is implemented by an industry that seeks to return money to shareholders instead of using that money to provide health care.

Ports are the gaping hole in America's homeland security.

It is my belief that tax credits only go to people who are making money, and they generally keep it.

We have no regulation of drones in the United States in their commercial use. You can see drones some day hovering over the homes of Hollywood luminaries, violating privacy. This question has to be addressed. And we need rules of operation on the border, by police, by commercial use, and also by military and intelligence use.

'No Child Left Behind' requires states and school districts to ensure that all students are learning and are reaching their highest potential. Special education students should not be left out of these accountability mechanisms.

Rogue internet pharmacies continue to pose a serious threat to the health and safety of Americans. Simply put, a few unethical physicians and pharmacists have become drug suppliers to a nation.

As a former nine-year member of the Board of Supervisors and nine-year mayor, I know firsthand the merits of strong zoning laws. They protect residential areas so they can support families and be free of commercial activities that are not related to neighborhood needs.

Information-sharing is elementary to good intelligence work.

The criteria for serving one's country should be competence, courage and willingness to serve. When we deny people the chance to serve because of their sexual orientation, we deprive them of their rights of citizenship, and we deprive our armed forces the service of willing and capable Americans.

America is still the land of opportunity, and hard work is still a pathway to success.

Global warming is real. It is happening today. It is being charted by our satellites. It is being charted by our scientists. It is being charted by those of us in this body, and I think the real key is if we are ready to admit that fact and take the action to make the necessary conversion.

It is my hope that the number of stem cell lines available for federally-funded research will be expanded so that the government can continue to participate in this vital research and provide hope to the millions of Americans with diseases that might be cured.

America is big enough to admit when it's wrong and confident enough to learn from its mistakes.

Instead of starting a new nuclear arms race, now is the time to reclaim our Nation's position of leadership on nuclear nonproliferation efforts.

Today we have a health insurance industry where the first and foremost goal is to maximize profits for shareholders and CEOs, not to cover patients who have fallen ill or to compensate doctors and hospitals for their services. It is an industry that is increasingly concentrated and where Americans are paying more to receive less.

Women have begun to see that if I go through that doorway, I take everybody through it.

For the life of me, I don't understand what honest motive there is in putting this in front of this body to philosophically debate marriage on a constitutional amendment that is not going to happen, and which is enormously divisive in all of our communities.

Yes, I support the death penalty. It is an issue that cannot be fudged or hedged.

Let me say this: I believe closing Guantanamo is in our Nation's national security interest. Guantanamo is used not only by al-Qaida, but also by other nations, governments, and individuals - people good and bad - as a symbol of America's abuse of Muslims, and it is fanning the flames of anti-Americanism around the world.

Congressional overseers and the public must be given appropriate insight into government activities as well as their legal rationale to ensure America's values are being upheld and our interests advanced.

In addition to being a terrorist recruiting tool, Guantanamo is a huge drain on taxpayer dollars.

And, I know the sense of helplessness that people feel. I know the urge to arm yourself because that's what I did. I was trained in firearms. I'd walk to the hospital when my husband was sick. I carried a concealed weapon. I made the determination that if somebody was going to try to take me out, I was going to take them with me.

A woman does not have to make decisions based on the need to survive. She can cut through issues, call shots as she sees them....Many bad decisions are made by men in government because it is good for them personally to make bad public decisions.

The National Guard fulfills the militia mentioned in the Second amendment. Citizens no longer need to protect the states or themselves.

It's a myth that the border can't be enforced. It can be enforced.

If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them... 'Mr. and Mrs. America, turn 'em all in,' I would have done it.

Let the record show that you can be a United States senator for 21 years. You can be 79 years old. You can be the chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and one of the most recognizable and widely-respected veteran public servants in your nation. But if you are female while all of those things, men who you defeat in arguments will still respond to you by calling you hysterical and telling you to calm down. They'll patronize you and say they admire your passion, 'sweetie,' but they deal in facts, not your silly, girly feelings. It's inescapable. You can set your watch by it.

If I could have banned them all...I would have!

Once you sacrifice your rights, it's hard to get those rights protected again.

We need steel spines, not weak knees when it comes to political independence in the Department of Justice.

I think that some restriction on speech is appropriate.

We have federal regulations and state laws that prohibit hunting ducks with more than three rounds. And yet it's legal to hunt humans with 15-round, 30-round, even 150-round magazines.