Top 25 Michael Nutter Quotes

I believe in the critical importance of participating in the political system – from voting to standing for election. It’s both rewarding and necessary that men and women of good will and clear thinking engage in honest, open debate.

For those of us in the political business, generally, it’s been pretty much an unwritten but understood rule that family and children are out of bounds, that you don’t attack someone’s family.

To succeed in big-city politics requires a powerful, motivating vision of a better world, a plan to get there, a willingness to meet constituents on their terms, and a tough political skin.

If you want to act like a butthead, your butt is going to get locked up.

I’m honored to serve as mayor of my hometown where our founders started America with three simple words: ‘We, the people.’ And when they said ‘people’ they didn’t mean ‘corporations.’

Mayors are leaders, doers. We get things done, and we are moving America’s cities forward.

We are serious about our music here in Philadelphia, and jazz has meant a lot to this city.

Vice President Biden is the real deal. He’ll give it to you straight. He communicates in a way that I think connects with people at a real level.

What the mayors care about is, ‘How can I get money to invest in the infrastructure in my city? How do we put people back to work, lower the unemployment rate, provide for job training programs? How do we make class sizes smaller and make investments in our children from an education standpoint?’

Part of the problem in politics is that people only look at the next four to eight years: kick the can down the road and say, ‘Hey, it’s the next person’s problem.’

Parents who neglect their children, who don’t know where they are, who don’t know what they’re doing, who don’t know who they’re hanging out with, you’re gonna find yourselves spending some quality time with your kids, in jail, together.

Philly is a place where people love change as long as things stay the same for them.

Whether it’s on the streets of Philadelphia or New York or Chicago or Atlanta or in a classroom in Newtown, Connecticut, people want to be safe.

You get respect when you give respect. That’s how you get respect.

We’re all in this together. I learned that lesson growing up in West Philly. When I shoveled the sidewalk my parents didn’t let me stop with our house. They told me to keep shoveling all the way to the corner. I had a responsibility to my community.

We need sensible gun safety measures. The federal government could do something about this; they could show up.

The federal government… knows how to put a missile in someone’s room half way around the world with technology. Why don’t we use some of that technology to save some lives here in America?

In Philadelphia, our public safety, poverty reduction, health and economic development all start with education. We can’t grow the middle class if we don’t give our kids the tools they need to innovate and invent.

There is no Democratic or Republican way to fill a pothole.

We all pay federal taxes that we send to Washington and it is not unusual that as Americans we would expect some federal investment in the cities and metro areas because we’re the ones that are generating the economic activity.

Mayors could never get away with the kind of nonsense that goes on in Washington. In our world, you either picked up the trash or you didn’t. You either moved an abandoned car or you didn’t. You either filled a pothole or you didn’t. That’s what we do every day. And we know how to get this stuff done.

The computer is your passport, not only to the future but to knowing what’s going around you.

Politics in Philadelphia is a contact sport.

A father is a person who’s around, participating in a child’s life. He’s a teacher who helps to guide and shape and mold that young person, someone for that young person to talk to, to share with, their ups and their downs, their fears and their concerns.

Our economy grows from the middle out, not the top down.