Top 124 Quotes & Sayings by Barry Goldwater - Page 2

Politics [is] the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.

Throughout history, government has proved to be the chief instrument for thwarting man's liberty.

Conservatism, we are told, is out-of-date. This charge is preposterous and we ought to boldly say so. The laws of God, and of nature, have no dateline. These principles are derived from the nature of man, and from the truths that God has revealed about His creation. To suggest that the Conservative philosophy is out of date is akin to saying that the Golden Rule, or the Ten Commandments or Aristotle's Politics are out of date.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

To insist on strength ... is not war-mongering. It is peace-mongering.

Throughout history civilian populations and political rulers have talked of peace. We have never been free of war. The soldier, whose profession is war, understands that peace must be enforced by superior military might. The certainty of defeat is the only effective deterrent we can use to maintain peace. Furthermore, we can be strong without being aggressive.

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

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.

The Conservative knows that to regard man as part of an undifferentiated mass is to consign him to ultimate slavery.

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

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.

I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws but to repeal them.

?"I feel certain that Conservatism is through unless Conservatives can demonstrate and communicate the difference between being concerned with [the unemployed, the sick without medical care, human welfare, etc.] and believing that the federal government is the proper agent for their solution.

Whether in families or in politics, a good observation: "One can disagree without being disagreeable."

I fear Washington and centralized government more than I do Moscow.

We Americans understand freedom; we have earned it, we have lived for it, and we have died for it. This nation and its people are freedom's models in a searching world. We can be freedom's missionaries in a doubting world. The genius of the American system is that through freedom we have created extraordinary results from plain old ordinary people.

I think the President ought to bring everybody that's in American uniform back because we're headed for war.

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.

I found Mr. Carter's actions toward the Republic of China so incredible that they defy description by socially acceptable expletives. If December 7, 1941 was a "day of infamy" then December 15, 1978 ranks right up there in international betrayal...The pathetic thing about this whole mess, however, is that it is typical of this administration's conduct of foreign affairs, which could be kindly described as being riddled by ineptitude and hypocrisy.

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.

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

The best thing Clinton could do — I think I wrote him a letter about this, but I'm not sure — is to shut up. Every time I turn that radio on, there's Clinton, making a speech. And he makes speeches on a subject he doesn't know anything about. He has no discipline.

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.

We are on the Colorado — that means something more to me than electric power or a harnessed river.

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

On Hillary Clinton, who was an ardent Goldwater supporter in 1964: '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.'

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.

I made an effort to find out what was in the building at Wright Patterson Air Force Base where the information is stored that has been collected by the Air Force, and I was understandably denied this request. It is still classified above Top Secret.

I'm the most underdog underdog there is.

And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents' "interests," I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.

Trade unions infringe upon the property rights of company owners.

To my mind the single essential element on which all discoveries will be dependent is human freedom.

Well, once you've been in the Canyon and once you've sort of fallen in love with it, it never ends...it's always been a fascinating place to me, in fact I've often said that if I ever had a mistress it would be the Grand Canyon.

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.

Most Americans have no real understanding of the operation of the international money lenders. The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited. It operates outside the control of Congress and manipulates the credit of the United States.

It's political Daddyism and it's as old as demagogues and despotism.

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

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.

Extremism in defense of Liberty is no vice and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size.

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.

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

Without the National Federation of Republican Women, there would be no Republican Party.

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

We now have a president who tries to save money by turning off lights in the White House, even as he heads toward a staggering addition to the national debt. "L.B.J." should stand for Light Bulb Johnson.

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

The only summit meeting that can succeed is one that does not take place.

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

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.

I understand Jacqueline Kennedy has redone the White House in eighteenth-century style. Why, then, I'd fit in perfectly.

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.

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.

If the Conservative is less anxious than his Liberal brethren to increase Social Security ‘benefits,’ it is because he is more anxious than his Liberal brethren that people be free throughout their lives to spend their earnings when and as they see fit

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.

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.