Top 70 John McCain Quotes

I know that victims of torture will offer intentionally misleading information if they think their captors will believe it.

Our national political campaigns never stop. We seem convinced that majorities exist to impose their will with few concessions and that minorities exist to prevent the party in power from doing anything important. That’s not how we were meant to govern.

During one period while I was in solitary, I memorized the names of all 335 of the men who were then prisoners of war in North Vietnam. I can still remember them.

The U.S. never lost a battle against North Vietnam, but it lost the war.

Our political differences, no matter how sharply they are debated, are really quite narrow in comparison to the remarkably durable national consensus on our founding convictions.

A strong E.U., a strong NATO, and a true strategic partnership between them is profoundly in our interest.

I don’t think Roger Ailes is ham-fisted.

I believe in evolution. But I also believe, when I hike the Grand Canyon and see it at sunset, that the hand of God is there also.

We all know spending levels for defense and other urgent priorities have been woefully inadequate for years. But we haven’t found the will to work together to adjust them.

I have certainly seen my share of the world as it really is and not how I wish it would be.

I get along with the Democrats, but please – I’m not their hero.

Some men are much more self-sufficient than others.

Public life has many more privileges than hardships.

I am frustrated and outraged by the slow nature of change at the VA.

We are an important check on the powers of the executive. Our consent is necessary for the president to appoint jurists and powerful government officials and, in many respects, to conduct foreign policy. Whether we are of the same party, we are not the president’s subordinates. We are his equal!

As far as this business of solitary confinement goes, the most important thing for survival is communication with someone, even if it’s only a wave or a wink, a tap on the wall, or to have a guy put his thumb up. It makes all the difference.

As he assumes the awesome responsibilities of the presidency, Donald Trump has inherited a world on fire and a U.S. military weakened by years of senseless budget cuts. I am encouraged that he recognizes these problems and has pledged to rebuild the military.

To argue against the global economy is like stating opposition to the weather – it continues whether you like it or not.

We need a free press. We must have it. It’s vital.

I believe in prayer. I pray every night.

The first pork-barrel bill that crosses my desk, I’m going to veto it and make the authors of those pork-barrel items famous all over America.

We know that Medicare’s going broke in seven years, but we need to start over. That’s what the American people want us to do.

Our shared values define us more than our differences. And acknowledging those shared values can see us through our challenges today if we have the wisdom to trust in them again.

I consider myself a Christian. I attend church. My faith has sustained me in very difficult times.

I think that Fox News is a bit schizophrenic.

I have watched men suffer the anguish of imprisonment, defy appalling human cruelty… break for a moment, then recover inhuman strength to defy their enemies once more.

I believe that the world is better off without Saddam Hussein. I believe it’s clear that he had every intention to acquire and use weapons of mass destruction. I can only imagine what Saddam Hussein would be doing with the wealth he would acquire with oil at $110 and $120 a barrel.

Putin wants to restore the Russian empire. That’s his ambition; he’s stated it many times.

Personally, I liked Admiral Kelso very much. I believe that he served his country with distinction.

On ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ I was always the same. I said we needed a complete review of the impact on morale and battle effectiveness of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ before we repeal it. That’s my position now. Now they’re trying to ram through a repeal without a – any kind of really realistic survey done.

We cannot forever hide the truth about ourselves, from ourselves.

I believe we should always put our country first.

I am fully prepared to be commander in chief… I don’t need on-the-job training.

If you want to preserve – I’m very serious now – if you want to preserve democracy as we know it, you have to have a free and many times adversarial press. And without it, I am afraid that we would lose so much of our individual liberties over time. That’s how dictators get started.

I think ISIS can do terrible things.

When you’re not winning, you’re losing.

For Mr. Putin, vacillation invites aggression. His world is a brutish, cynical place, where power is worshiped, weakness is despised, and all rivalries are zero-sum.

For much of my life, the Navy was the only world I knew. It is still the world I know best and love most.

I understand the sensitivity of issues regarding women in the military.

Americans and Europeans share a common goal – to build an enduring peace based on freedom.

You cannot tell the enemy you’re going to leave and expect the enemy to not – and expect to succeed. I mean, that’s just a fundamental of warfare.

I think it’s important for Donald Trump to express his appreciation for veterans – not John McCain, but veterans who were incarcerated as prisoners of war.

Countries, not just their armies, win wars.

But please know, whether you believe campaign contributions are speech or property, that I learned to love very dearly the right of free expression when I lived without that freedom for a while a long time ago.

America’s greatest strength has always been its hopeful vision of human progress.

Depriving the oppressed of a beacon of hope could lose us the world we have built and thrived in. It could cost our reputation in history as the nation distinct from all others in our achievements, our identity, and our enduring influence on mankind. Our values are central to all three.

We need to listen to the views and respect the collective will of our democratic allies. When we believe that international action is necessary, whether military, economic, or diplomatic, we will try to persuade our friends that we are right. But we, in return, must also be willing to be persuaded by them.

The truth is sometimes a hard pill to swallow. It sometimes causes us difficulties at home and abroad. It is sometimes used by our enemies in attempts to hurt us. But the American people are entitled to it, nonetheless.

Our society demands that women be treated equally and that we not discriminate against them.

I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else’s.

The core political values of our free society are so deeply embedded in our collective consciousness that only a few malcontents, lunatics generally, ever dare to threaten them.

I guess my view is I believe less governance is best governance and that government should not do what the free enterprise and private enterprise and indidividual entrepreneurship and the states can do.

Whenever America sends its citizens into harm’s way, it must do so with eyes wide open.

War is wretched beyond description, and only a fool or a fraud could sentimentalize its cruel reality.

The United States must look beyond Mr. Putin. His regime may appear imposing, but it is rotting inside. His Russia is not a great power on par with America. It is a gas station run by a corrupt, autocratic regime.

We must win in Iraq. If we withdraw, there will be chaos; there will be genocide; and they will follow us home.

When Barack Obama won in 2008, in 2009 I voted for his team because I think that – that the American people wanted him to have his team. But don’t think I wasn’t worried about it. Really worried.

What is most troubling about Mr. Putin’s aggression in Crimea is that it reflects a growing disregard for America’s credibility in the world. That has emboldened other aggressive actors – from Chinese nationalists to Al Qaeda terrorists and Iranian theocrats.

I think that it’s important that we understand the importance of the Hispanic vote in America.

Political leaders are not and cannot reasonably be expected to be indifferent to the cruelest calumnies aimed at their character.

Our great power does not mean we can do whatever we want whenever we want, nor should we assume we have all the wisdom and knowledge necessary to succeed.

Only the most deluded of us could doubt the necessity of this war.

I’ve tried to say that I admire and respect Sen. Obama. He has accomplished great things, and he has motivated people, and so – and he loves his country, just as I do.

We are a country with a conscience.

I thought I’d be president of the United States.

The American people want us to stop spending. And so let’s just give them some certainty. Let’s extend the tax – the existing tax cuts. And then let’s give some more tax breaks to small businesses and large. And then maybe the American people will have some confidence.

China is the one, the only one, that can control Kim Jong Un, this crazy, fat kid that’s running North Korea.