Top 120 Quotes & Sayings by Karl Rove - Page 2

I`m not planning to endorse anybody. I have a long friendship with the family and a long friendship with Jeb [Bush], but I`m, like a lot of people, sitting on the sidelines watching and waiting.

To win in November, Republican candidates must show they are in touch with voter concerns about growth, jobs, paychecks, government spending and debt. The only way to do this is by offering specific, persuasive ideas.

Every presidential spouse is going to be subjected to scrutiny.

If you decide to become a political actor, then the things that you say and you do become subject of public scrutiny and comment.

Our health-care issues is another big structural drag. All of these need to be dealt with if we're going to keep the American economy the most dynamic and flexible in the world.

In chaos, there is opportunity.

You may be right that people say: You know what, we had Obama. He was inexperienced. The guy had great rhetoric, sounded good, looked good, but has turned out to be an utter disaster. I want someone where I have confidence and credibility that they're up to the job and that I can trust what they tell me.

It's time to put America at the front of all of our agendas and to find ways to work together on common ground.

My Greek mythology is not strong enough.

5,000 years of human history should not be overthrown by the acts of a few liberal judges or by the acts of a few local elected officials.

Guy got in a gyrocopter in Gettysburg, flew under the radar all the way to Washington and came - What if he had had rather than petitions to Congress had had a bomb?

So Americans do want their presidents, by and large, you want them to be people who get things done and have experience. That's going to be Trump's big disadvantage going into this election, because people are going to be looking back and saying, we've got the guy without the experience who said the things that sounded good. And guess what? That hasn't worked out for us too well.

We need to be asking for the vote in the most powerful way possible, which is to have people asking for the vote who are comfortable and look like and sound like the people that we're asking for the vote from.

I don't know about you, but moderation and restraint is not what I felt when I watched the twin towers crumble to the ground, a side of the Pentagon destroyed, and almost 3,000 of our fellow citizens perish in flames and rubble.

Would I like to see the Republican Party be the dominant party for whatever time history gives it the chance to be? You bet.

If you are wealthy and can hire enough accountants and attorneys, you can find ways around the code. It's fundamentally not fair. It wastes a lot of time and energy and effort to comply with it. It doesn't encourage savings and investment. And we need to simply it and make it more fair.

Look, America was a narrowly divided country in 2000;49-49 was what Michael Barone called it. It's a 49-49 nation.

Marriage is and should be defined as being between one man and one woman.

There is a difference between Senator Obama and Senator McCain. Senator Obama believes that the government ought to be able to take as much as it thinks it needs from anybody.

America has become a nation of struggling folks who are barely making it every day.

It's a complex system we live in to think the actions that we take have consequences beyond the years in which we serve, and we all have an obligation to do what is best for our country.

It's been just a year since the RNC committed to revamp the way they help our candidates with its 'Growth and Opportunity Project,' and already there are signs of improvement. From new leadership and initiatives in the digital arena, to improving the GOP ground game (as we just saw with David Jolly's victory in FL-13), to the historic decision to restructure the primary calendar and primary debates, the RNC's steps will help keep the House and to take the Senate in 2014, win the White House in 2016, and build for the future. Looking forward to more progress in the months ahead.

If we do with Latinos what we did with African-Americans, Republicans and conservatives will be doomed.

You may end up with a different math, but you're entitled to your math. I'm entitled to the math.

One of the great things about America is that we have the freedom to worship or not worship as we please. It doesn't matter whether you're a Christian, Jew, Muslim. It doesn't matter whether you're an evangelical or a Catholic or a moderate Jew. You're entitled to worship - or an agnostic or atheist.

All politicians operate within an Orwellian nimbus where words don't mean what they normally mean, but Rovism posits that there is no objective, verifiable reality at all. Reality is what you say it is.

My name is Patrick Fitzgerald ... I like to tear the tops off small animals.

To be able to compete, we've got to improve our education system, our litigation environment, our tax code, our health system and our trading policies if we're going to be as strong economically in the years ahead.

I believe in limited government and the right of the individual to make choices and in a strong national defense and in freedom and liberty as being the right of every person on the face of the Earth.

But the world is a better place with Saddam Hussein gone.

It's a mandate for you to do in office what you said you would do on the campaign trail.

Hurricane Sandy interrupted Mr. Romney’s momentum and allowed Mr. Obama to look presidential and bipartisan.

The definition of relationships ought to be left up to the states and that proper protections can be put in place for the right to visit in the hospital or the right to inherit or other legal contractual questions like that.

When you appoint someone, you appoint somebody because of their character, their convictions, their abilities. And not because you have a belief, a confidence, in a foreordained outcome in any given decision.

There has to be a consequence to failure. Schools in the inner cities cannot be told, 'Oh, we want you to teach every child to learn how to read and, incidentally, if you fail to do that there's no consequence,' .. There has to be a consequence to failure, and the Title I money needs to follow the child.

Senator McCain believes there ought to be a limit to how much the government can take from anybody, and he believes that today with the federal tax rate at 35 percent that that's more than the government ought to be taking from any individual regardless of how much they make.

I'm not a journalist. I'm a pundit. I'm a commentator, I'm somebody with an opinion.

We face a brutal enemy who will kill the innocent for one purpose and that is to gain control of the Middle East and to use the leverage of oil to bring down the West, and to attack us again.

Social Security is fine for those at or near retirement today. For those receiving their checks today, don't worry. It's going to be there for you. For those that are nearing their retirement years, don't worry, it's going to be there for you. But for your kids - for your boy and my boy, and for their children, for our kids and grandkids, it's a real big question as to whether or not the system's going to be there.

I think it was Osama bin Laden's [idea to start a pre-emptive war in Iraq].

Would the Iraq War have occurred without WMD? I doubt it.

Our [Republicans'] object is to avoid having stupid candidates who can't win general elections, who are undisciplined, can't raise money, aren't putting together the support necessary to win a general election campaign, because this money is too difficult to raise to be spending it on behalf of candidates who have little chance of winning in a general election.

Karl Rove told me about Valerie Plame's identity on July 11, 2003. I called him because Ambassador Wilson was in the news that week. I didn't know Ambassador Wilson even had a wife until I talked to Karl Rove, and he said that she worked at the Agency and worked on WMD.

The effective strategies in politics are ones that are so clear and obvious that people can grasp it.

But perhaps the most important difference between conservatives and liberals can be found in the area of national security. Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers. In the wake of 9/11, conservatives believed it was time to unleash the might and power of the United States military against the Taliban.

The president has an obligation to serve all the people of America.

Now is the time to be bold. It is easy when the wind is at your back. But the real test is now when the wind is in our face. That's when we find out if we are tough enough. Inspired enough, committed enough.

You're entitled in this country to worship as you please or to not worship. It's one of the great things that defines us as a nation, and it's at the heart of what it is to be in America.

If we're going to have a strong and dynamic economy in the years ahead, we need to tackle some of the structural challenges that our economy faces and the tax code is one of the biggest.

The labor movement must be destroyed.

71 percent of the American people think that the federal government should take no more than 20 percent of anybody's paycheck no matter how much they make.

Once again the powers of light and good have triumphed over the media!

If you make a mistake, clean it up quicker rather than later.

That's important, I think, for people who come here to realize that we are here for only a time and we have an obligation of service and we need to keep things in perspective.

The Democratic Party's problem is that voters don't believe the president's claims that the economy is thriving. Even people with jobs feel apprehensive. Paychecks are flat, growth anemic, and people are worried about their children's prospects. Mr. Obama had a 38% approval on handling the economy in the Sept. 9 Fox News poll. In the Sept. 7 NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, 67% believe America is on the wrong track.

We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality - judiciously, as you will - we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.

In America we believe there ought to be limits on government.

[T]he economy remains the top issue for the electorate.

The government that can take everything from somebody can take everything from everybody. And there ought to be a limit.

I believe in the principles of the Republican Party.