Top 1200 Tea Party Quotes & Sayings

I think there is a real misunderstanding about what the Tea Party movement is. The Tea Party movement is a sentiment in America that government is broken - both parties are to blame - and if we don't do something soon, this exceptional country will be lost, and it will become just like everybody else.

The most misreported and misunderstood thing about the tea party is its political leanings. The tea party has no political leaning. It stands straight for limited government, low taxes, and liberty for all.

When [Marco] Rubio won the election, he was a Tea Party darling, he was a Tea Party favorite. What happened? "Gang of Eight".

The shouting, the overrunning of the Capitol, the sneaking in of Tea Party participants into the basement of the Capitol, the name-calling, the spitting, all of that... The Tea Party emerges as not only outrageous, but they have turned up the volume in ways that even Code Pink have not been able to do.

Is Romney a tea party candidate? I'd probably say that he's the least of the candidates running for president right now that would be considered a tea party candidate.

The fundamental weakness in the Tea Party machine is the stark difference between what the leaders of the Tea Party elite - plutocrats like the Koch Brothers -want and what the average grassroots Tea Party follower wants.

Well you know I'm very supportive of what the Tea Party is trying to do. They're very concerned with spending, the deficit, the bailouts, you know all of those kinds of things. But I really think that the strength of the Tea Party is being a grassroots movement.

The Tea Party has very close affinities with independent third-party movements like the George Wallace movement. The Tea Party is still inchoate, still trying to figure out what it's going to become.

To some extent, the mainstream's absence means the Tea Party is the Republican Party.

Really it's hard to know where the Republican Party ends and the Tea Party begins.

The Tea Party grew out of indignation over the Wall Street bailout - an indignation shared by the vast majority of Americans. But the Tea Party ended up directing its ire at government rather than at big business and Wall Street.

I always start my discussions with the Tea Party groups with telling them, 'you know I have only three words for you: God. Bless. You.' Because the Tea Party's bringing the Republican party back to a more conservative base.

Much like the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street's message has gotten wrapped up in stereotypes. The Tea Party was weighed down by the birther movement, and Occupy Wall Street has gotten looped in with hippie culture.

I think the Tea Party has brought enormous strength to the Republican Party and I absolutely support its fiscal responsibility message, yes.

If not for the Tea Party, the Republican Party would not be coming back to its roots.

Since first hearing the story as a child, any mention of the 'Boston Tea Party' has elicited in me an excitement that is uniquely American. When I heard rumblings that there was a new Tea Party, I got goose bumps. I love tea, I love parties, I hate taxes; I'm in! It seemed that most of America joined in my excitement!

Marco Rubio was the darling of the Tea Party. Marco Rubio was elected as a Tea Party conservative Republican. Marco Rubio was sent to Washington clearly with the belief that he was part of a new conservative majority that was not tied to the establishment.

In honor of Al Gore, green tea, not Tea Party, but Al Gore green tea. And by the way, it's tree hugger-approved.

It's tempting to remember that the Tea Party had a peak and then the Republican Party establishment sort of beat it back down. And so these things are won in a day.

In many respects, I guess I would say I was into Tea Party before there was a Tea Party.

One of the beauties of the Tea Party movement - and the many, many like-minded citizens that don't participate in the Tea Party movement - is the fact that it is independent.

Tainting the Tea Party movement with the charge of racism is proving to be an effective strategy for Democrats. There's no evidence that Tea Party adherence are any more racist than other Republicans and indeed many other Americans. But getting them to spend their time purging their ranks and having candidates distance themselves should help Democrats in November, having one's opponent rebut charges of racism is far better than discussing joblessness.

When I go about my own politics, I meet Tea Party supporters who I can work with in Congress, that I find common ground with. I find Tea Party supporters who won't let me get a sentence out without judging me. To say that there is a 'Tea Party supporter' is a gross generality.

The Tea Party has definitely increased political involvement, not only among Tea Party members but among people who oppose the Tea Party members. It's been a general stimulus.

The Washington establishment does not like the Tea Party. Don't you love all these politicians that run around and campaign as outsiders, anti-establishment, 'I'm not part of that Washington culture.' Well, then join the Tea Party, 'cause that's who's really anti-establishment, that's who's really a bunch of outsiders is the Tea Party. But you don't see those politicians who want to be considered outsiders joining or embracing the Tea Party, do you?

The Democrats don't like the Tea Party because the Tea Party engineered their defeat. The Republicans, some members, don't like the Tea Party because the Tea Party illustrates what they have to do to win and they're not really comfortable with that.

I want the ones that stood up for the Tea Party when the Tea Party was being pilloried by the mainstream media. I like the Bachmanns and the Palins and the Wests and I like the Herman Cains, I like Thaddeus McCotter, I like fighters, and I don't like the poll-tested ones.

Crossroads is second to none in our support of Tea Party candidates. In 2010 and '12, we spent over $30 million for Senate candidates who were Tea Party candidates. We spent almost $20 million for House candidates who were Tea Party candidates.

I think it's interesting that people like Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi said that the Tea Party was dead and they weren't influential and yet they're still talking about the Tea Party.

I'm really into rooibos tea with goat's milk and a little bit of honey. I also drink dandelion tea, Earl Grey, and sometimes a green tea. I'm very into tea.

It will make the Tea Party look like a tea party.

Blame the Tea Party? Geez, no wonder Kerry did so well in an election. If it wasn't for the Tea Party, they would have passed the debt ceiling thumbs up; we would have been rated BBB.

The Republican Party is like the corpse in 'Weekend at Bernies' and the Tea Party is like the two guys who put sunglasses and a party hat on it and drag it around.

I do think the Tea Party position will prevail, and I am often asked: 'What has the Tea Party done and is it even still alive?' People think because there have been no demonstrations with the 'Don't Tread on Me' flag it's gone, but it hasn't.

I was Tea Party years before there was an official Tea Party.

I think that, you know, when we start talking about the Tea Party, people want to marginalize that into some kind of organization or party, but it really isn't.

Democrats cannot win elections without capturing the votes of independent-minded swing voters. And that is where writing off the Tea Party as a bunch of racist kooks becomes self-destructive. The Tea Party outrage over health-care reform, deficit spending and entitlements run amok is no fringe concern.

One thing Republican leaders, regardless of whether they love us or they hate us, have got to understand is there's no way in hell there will ever be another Republican president without the active engagement of the Tea Party masses and support of the Tea Party masses.

I think we have a Tea Party mandate, and that Tea Party mandate is for good-government type of things, things like term limits, things like a balanced budget amendment, things like read the bills for goodness sakes, things like that maybe Congress should only pass legislation that they apply to themselves as well.

One question is: Who is the working class today, and how has it changed? Where are we in that? I don't have a knee-jerk kind of 1930s thing about we must build the unions and that's the way to the future. I'm writing this book right now called Pallin' Around, and the subtitle is: "Talking to the Tea Party." And frankly I find talking to the Tea Party exhilarating, I love it.

In America today, unfortunately, the right wing has been totally commandeered by the Tea Party, and it's a bad thing for our party.

I usually wake up around 9, and the first thing I do is make myself a cup of tea. I drink a lot of tea - green tea, white tea, and all kinds of herbal teas.

There's this Tea Party wing, the Republican Party with the Chamber of commerce folks and all of those other people. They are not anti-immigration, by the way.

I'm a believer in the Tea Party. I love the Tea Party. I love the people in the Tea Party. And, yes, I have a lot of different likes and maybe dislikes. And I don't know why.

The Tea Party thing is only apt in some ways. The activism in the town halls, that looks superficially like it. But what the Tea Party did was, they went after the party, the Republican Party, as their vehicle. And parties is how you change history.

The Tea Party movement is a wide and diverse group. It will hurt the Republican Party if some elements of the Tea Party decide to become third party advocates because it will split the conservative vote.

Essentially, the Tea Party are the Hell's Angels, but with sun visors instead of switch blades. They push macaroni instead of meth. Mess with the Tea Party and they'll put your dog in an American flag sweater on a hot day.

The only tactic liberals have is to try to intimidate people into thinking that the Tea Party is racist. The Tea Party is not a racist movement, period! If it were, why would the straw polls keep showing that the black guy is winning? That's a rhetorical question. Let me state it: The black guy keeps winning.

I, my own damn self, am not a Tea Party supporter. I disagree with them on social liberties, our overseas wars, Obama's birthplace, Sarah Palin, and the conspicuous absence of tea at their rallies.

Part of why the Tea Party so deeply threatened the elite media is the tea party looked around and suddenly realized, there are more of us than there are of them.

There is a Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado, page on the Colorado Tea Party site as well, talking about him joining the Tea Party last year. Now we don’t know if this is the same Jim Holmes - but this is Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado.

I think part of the reason the Tea Party has resonated is that people feel disempowered. The Tea Party says, "You are out of power because of big government." Then some Democrats tend to respond by saying, "No, you're wrong, you're not out of power." It's a sense that doesn't resonate with people's lived experience.

The grass roots are energized because the absolutely highest priority in the country in November is to defeat Barack Obama. I have spoken with literally thousands and thousands of tea-party activists - I have yet to meet a single tea-party leader that is not going to vote for Mitt Romney.

The Tea Party definitely scored a significant victory with Senator Cruz's election in 2012 and scored victories in some statewide primaries. But to me, as the Tea Party gets stronger within the Republican Party in Texas, the prospect of a blue Texas becomes stronger and stronger.

The Tea Party is almost solely grassroots-based; business interests have almost no grassroots organization. The Republican Party has for too long been run on behalf of business interests who favor candidates the grassroots hate; the minute that those candidates begin to flag, only loyal Tea Partiers stand behind them.

The tea party saved the Republican Party. In a broad sense, the tea party rescued it from being the fat, unhappy, querulous creature it had become, a party that didn't remember anymore why it existed, or what its historical purpose was. The tea party, with its energy and earnestness, restored the GOP to itself.

In America we need members of the Latino community to come to the Tea Party movement and enrich the Tea Party.

Let us be clear about one thing: The tea party movement is not seeking a junior partnership with the Republican Party, but a hostile takeover of it.

Liberals have difficulty understanding the Tea Party because they think it is a bunch of selfish racists. But I think the Tea Party is driven in large part by concerns about fairness.

The Republican Party would be really smart to absorb as much of the Tea Party movement as possible.