Top 518 Quotes & Sayings by John McCain
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American politician John McCain.
Last updated on April 14, 2025.
The first pork-barrel bill that crosses my desk, I'm going to veto it and make the authors of those pork-barrel items famous all over America.
The first role of government is to help people who are in crisis or need. That's why we have government.
When you're not winning, you're losing.
But we should be mindful as we argue about our differences that so much more unites than divides us. We should also note that our differences, when compared with those in many, if not most, other countries, are smaller than we sometimes imagine them to be.
Do not yield. Do not flinch. Stand up. Stand up with our President and fight. We're Americans. We're Americans, and we'll never surrender. They will.
Frankly, I would never accept an award from Vladimir Putin because then you kind of give some credence and credibility to this butcher, this KGB agent, which is what he is.
During one period while I was in solitary, I memorized the names of all 335 of the men who were then prisoners of war in North Vietnam. I can still remember them.
Our political differences, no matter how sharply they are debated, are really quite narrow in comparison to the remarkably durable national consensus on our founding convictions.
You have to listen to people that have chosen the nominee of our Republican Party. I think it would be foolish to ignore them.
I know from personal experience that the abuse of prisoners will produce more bad than good intelligence.
To argue against the global economy is like stating opposition to the weather - it continues whether you like it or not.
For America, our interests are our values, and our values are our interests.
When Barack Obama won in 2008, in 2009 I voted for his team because I think that - that the American people wanted him to have his team. But don't think I wasn't worried about it. Really worried.
I'm as frustrated with the French, I think, as anyone, but look, there's going to be other challenges and there are going to be other issues. As long as there's a war on terrorism going on, we're all going to have to work together.
I've always given presidents the benefit of the doubt on their nominees.
On 'don't ask, don't tell' I was always the same. I said we needed a complete review of the impact on morale and battle effectiveness of 'don't ask, don't tell' before we repeal it. That's my position now. Now they're trying to ram through a repeal without a - any kind of really realistic survey done.
If you want to preserve - I'm very serious now - if you want to preserve democracy as we know it, you have to have a free and many times adversarial press. And without it, I am afraid that we would lose so much of our individual liberties over time. That's how dictators get started.
On Putin's order, Russia intervenes in Syria not to fight terrorists but to abet the war crimes of the Assad regime. Russian bombers deliberately target aid workers and hospitals. They threaten Syrian freedom fighters trained by the U.S. They are allied with our enemies in the Middle East and trying to weaken our friendships there.
If we lost, then who won? Did Al Qaida win? When on the floor of the House of Representatives they cheer - they cheer - when they pass a withdrawal motion that is a certain date for surrender, what were they cheering? Surrender? Defeat?
Politics abhors a vacuum, and Asian countries will gravitate towards China if U.S. influence is perceived as declining.
In 1987, I had my first opportunity to provide 'advice and consent' on a Supreme Court nominee. At that time, I stated that the qualifications essential for evaluating a nominee for the bench included 'integrity, character, legal competence and ability, experience, and philosophy and judicial temperament.' On that test, Elena Kagan fails.
The way you have bipartisan negotiations, you sit down across the table, as we did with Ted Kennedy, as I've done with many other members, and you say, 'OK, here's what I want, here's what you want. We'll adhere to your principles, but we'll make concessions.'
War is wretched beyond description, and only a fool or a fraud could sentimentalize its cruel reality.
The truth is sometimes a hard pill to swallow. It sometimes causes us difficulties at home and abroad. It is sometimes used by our enemies in attempts to hurt us. But the American people are entitled to it, nonetheless.
Our shared values define us more than our differences. And acknowledging those shared values can see us through our challenges today if we have the wisdom to trust in them again.
Putin wants to restore the Russian empire. That's his ambition; he's stated it many times.
My greatest fear is the Iranians acquire a nuclear weapon and give it to a terrorist organization. And there is a real threat of them doing that.
Our great power does not mean we can do whatever we want whenever we want, nor should we assume we have all the wisdom and knowledge necessary to succeed.
America's greatest strength has always been its hopeful vision of human progress.
We must win in Iraq. If we withdraw, there will be chaos; there will be genocide; and they will follow us home.
I'm sick and tired of only being asked about everything that Donald Trump says or does.
On Putin's order, Russian security services try to destabilize NATO allies the U.S. has sworn to defend.
I don't doubt the sincerity of my Democratic friends. And they should not doubt ours.
I am a Republican. I'm loyal to the party of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. And I believe that my party, in some ways, has strayed from those principles, particularly on the issue of fiscal discipline.
As far as this business of solitary confinement goes, the most important thing for survival is communication with someone, even if it's only a wave or a wink, a tap on the wall, or to have a guy put his thumb up. It makes all the difference.
I am fully prepared to be commander in chief... I don't need on-the-job training.
You raise taxes during an economic crisis time, as we did in - back in the time of Herbert Hoover, you send the country into a depression.
On the issue of the gay marriage, I believe if people want to have private ceremonies, that's fine. I do not believe that gay marriages should be legal.
I'm sick and tired - and the American people are sick and tired - of the pork barrel spending.
The core political values of our free society are so deeply embedded in our collective consciousness that only a few malcontents, lunatics generally, ever dare to threaten them.
But please know, whether you believe campaign contributions are speech or property, that I learned to love very dearly the right of free expression when I lived without that freedom for a while a long time ago.
I believe in evolution. But I also believe, when I hike the Grand Canyon and see it at sunset, that the hand of God is there also.
The problem... is that most members of Congress don't pay attention to what's going on.
In the real world, as lived and experienced by real people, the demand for human rights and dignity, the longing for liberty and justice and opportunity, the hatred of oppression and corruption and cruelty is reality.
The United States must look beyond Mr. Putin. His regime may appear imposing, but it is rotting inside. His Russia is not a great power on par with America. It is a gas station run by a corrupt, autocratic regime.
On the subject of Osama bin Laden... we will track him down. We will capture him. We will bring him to justice, and I will follow him to the gates of hell.
We are a country with a conscience.
The president has promised greater border security. We can agree to that. A literal wall might not be the most effective means to that end, but we can provide the resources necessary to secure the border with smart and affordable measures.
For much of my life, the Navy was the only world I knew. It is still the world I know best and love most.
We need a free press. We must have it. It's vital.
Only the most deluded of us could doubt the necessity of this war.
The U.S. never lost a battle against North Vietnam, but it lost the war.
For Mr. Putin, vacillation invites aggression. His world is a brutish, cynical place, where power is worshiped, weakness is despised, and all rivalries are zero-sum.
A strong E.U., a strong NATO, and a true strategic partnership between them is profoundly in our interest.
As a governor and senator, John Chafee set the standard for honesty and decency that the rest of us on our best days could only dream to emulate.
Putin's Russia is our adversary and moral opposite. It is committed to the destruction of the post-war, rule-based world order built on American leadership and the primacy of our political and economic values.
We cannot forever hide the truth about ourselves, from ourselves.
Our armed forces will fight for peace in Iraq, a peace built on more secure foundations than are found today in the Middle East. Even more important, they will fight for two human conditions of even greater value than peace: liberty and justice.
Russia's leaders, rich with oil wealth and corrupt with power, have rejected democratic ideals and the obligations of a responsible power.
Thank God for our form of government. The media won't let there be any cover-up.
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