A president must serve only the common cause of the people of the United States.
I was affectionately known as Bird Legs during high school.
I went to Massachusetts to make a difference. I didn’t go there to begin a political career running time and time again. I made a difference. I put in place the things I wanted to do.
Our nation is too different, too diverse to say that what works in Massachusetts is somehow going to be grabbed by the federal government, usurping the power of states and imposing a one-size-fits-all plan on the nation. That will not work.
Conservatives believe in providing Constitutional rights to our citizens, not to enemy combatants like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
The 21st century can and must be an American century. It began with terror, war, and economic calamity. It is our duty to steer it onto the path of freedom, peace, and prosperity.
A nation has the capacity to choose its own capital city, and Jerusalem is Israel’s capital.
Presidents have an impact on the nature of our nation.
When you raise taxes on small business, from 35% to 40%, you will kill jobs.
I will continue to work with the Republican Party to try to encourage primaries.
The strength and power and goodness of America has always been based on the strength and power and goodness of our communities, our families, our faiths. That is the bedrock of what makes America, America. In our best days, we can feel the vibrancy of America’s communities, large and small.
I’ve met graduating college kids facing loan payments and a bad economy, and they are worried that they won’t be able to get a job. This is not the way America needs to be.
We are a nation of immigrants. We are the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the ones who wanted a better life, the driven ones, the ones who woke up at night hearing that voice telling them that life in that place called America could be better.
I think the trend to move towards caucuses and conventions, whether to nominate senators, governors or presidential nominees, I think the move towards caucuses and conventions is a very bad one, and that our party should reward those states that spend the time and money to have primaries.
The unemployment rate went down as I was governor of Massachusetts. We were losing jobs every month when I came into the state.
When sperm and egg unite, something goes from inanimate to animate. It is life.
I happen to love the patriotic songs of America.
We believe in individual initiative, personal responsibility, opportunity, freedom, small government, the Constitution. These principles, these American principles are key to getting our economy back to being successful and leading the world.
In recent years, we have seen the United States back away from pressuring the Castro regime, under the misguided view that placating them with an open hand would yield progress. That naivete has invited only more cruelty and oppression in return.
When I become president, it will be about helping the 100 percent.
Primaries are the place where you see whose message is connecting with the largest number of people.
I know what it’s like to start a business. I know how extra ordinarily difficult it is to build something from nothing. I know how government kills jobs and, yes, I know how it can help from time- to-time.
I read serious books, but every now and then, I read just for fun.
In every stump speech I give, I speak about the fact that people who dream and achieve enormous success do not make us poorer – they make us better off.
What’s at the heart of my faith is a belief that there’s a creator. That we’re all children of the same God. And that, fundamentally, the relationship you have with your spouse is important and eternal.
I kind of like America. I’m not looking for it to be fundamentally transformed into something else. I don’t want it to become like Europe.
My whole life has been learning to lead, from my parents, to my education, to the experience I had in the private sector, to helping run the Olympics, and then of course helping guide a state.
The greatest threat that the world faces is a nuclear Iran. A nuclear North Korea is already troubling enough.
A competitive primary does not divide us, it prepares us and we will win.
One of the best things that can happen to any cause, to any people, is to have Bill Clinton as its advocate. That is how needy and neglected causes have become global initiatives.
Together we will build an America where hope is a new job with a paycheck, not a faded word on an old bumper sticker.
China can be our partner, but that doesn’t mean that they can just roll all over us and steal our jobs on an unfair basis.
I’d rather see the tax for innovation reduced rather than expanded.
The decision to withdraw our missile defense sites from Poland put us in greater jeopardy, in my view.
I have inherited nothing. Everything Ann and I have we have earned the old-fashioned way.
President Obama wants to put free enterprise on trial.
When it comes to the economy, my highest priority as President will be worrying about your job, not saving my own.
If you felt that excitement when you voted for Barack Obama, shouldn’t you feel that way now that he’s President Obama? You know there’s something wrong with the kind of job he’s done as president when the best feeling you had was the day you voted for him.
Leadership – leadership is about taking responsibility, not making excuses.
Consulting offered me an opportunity to see a lot of different businesses in different regions of the world, to see how textiles were being affected by foreign competition, how technology was changing.
I care about America. I care about the people that can’t find jobs. I care about my 20 grandkids and what kind of America they are going to have.
Trickle-down racism, trickle-down bigotry, trickle-down misogyny, all these things are extraordinarily dangerous to the heart and character of America.
Dependency is death to initiative, to risk-taking and opportunity. It’s time to stop the spread of government dependency and fight it like the poison it is.
Humanity is not common in its views.
I’m very much engaged in the political battles, but I’m doing it as a supporter of Republicans out of conservatism rather than an active candidate.
Were it my choice, I would not vote for Russia to hold the Winter Olympics or the Summer Olympics. But it’s not my choice.
I’m not running again. I will say this: It was a great experience. I loved it.
I don’t doubt for a second that Neil Armstrong’s spirit is still with us: that unique blend of optimism, humility and the utter confidence that when the world needs someone to do the really big stuff, you need an American.
I think that the effort to continue to look for some law to somehow make violence go away is missing the point.
I feel very deeply about the need to respect and tolerate people of different social – or sexual orientation. But at the same time, I believe marriage should be preserved as an institution for one man and one woman.
People don’t want to be told what type of insurance they have to have.
I just think the most important aspect in being able to have a productive relationship between the teachers’ unions and the districts and the states that they’re dealing with is that the person sitting across the table from them should not have received the largest campaign contributions from the teachers’ union itself.
This is the America that I love. This is a great people. We can do anything. We can achieve anything. We’ve got a government that has gotten in the way of the American people. We’re going to change that in November.
It kills me not to be there, not to be in the White House doing what needs to be done.
I love practical jokes and humor. That there’s frankly no joke that I don’t think is funny. I love practical jokes, but I don’t like being scared.
I think I had a superb campaign team. And I know it’s always expected that if you lose, people point to the campaign team and say, ‘Gee, they didn’t do their job well.’ If you win, they’re all brilliant. And the team, in my view, did a superb job.
Ronald Reagan was a president of strength. His philosophy was a philosophy of strength – a strong military, a strong economy and strong families.
I’ve met people of great faith. I sat in the home of Billy Graham and in the residence of Cardinal Dolan and prayed with these men of God.
The promise of America has always been that if you worked hard, had the right values, took some risks, that there was an opportunity to build a better life for your family and for your next generation.
Pre-existing conditions for those previously insured must not lead to someone being unable to get insurance.
Sometimes I wonder whether Washington’s liberal politicians truly understand the greatness that is America.
My mom and dad gave their kids the greatest gift of all – the gift of unconditional love. They cared deeply about who we would be, and much less about what we would do.
Democrats want to use the slowdown as an excuse to do what their special interests are always begging for: higher taxes, bigger government and less trade with other nations.
There is no day more joyful in my life than when I see all my family around me. That’s the best it gets.
The economy is my wheel house.
