To disagree, one doesn’t have to be disagreeable.
—Barry Goldwater
Topics: Teamwork
A man from the west will fight over three things: water, women and gold, and usually in that order.
—Barry Goldwater
Topics: Water
It’s a great country, where anybody can grow up to be president… except me.
—Barry Goldwater
Topics: Politics, Politicians
A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.
—Barry Goldwater
Topics: Government, Welfare
Equality, rightly understood as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences; wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism.
—Barry Goldwater
Topics: Equality
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. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in A, B, C, and D. Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of ‘conservatism’.
—Barry Goldwater
Topics: Religion
None of us here in Washington knows all or even half of the answers If you love your country, don’t depend on handouts from Washington for your information. If you cherish your freedom, don’t leave it all up to big government.
—Barry Goldwater
Topics: Government
And here we encounter the seeds of government disaster and collapse—the kind that wrecked ancient Rome and every other civilization that allowed a socio political monster called the welfare state to exist.
—Barry Goldwater
Topics: Welfare
I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.
—Barry Goldwater
Topics: Liberty, Defense
Federal aid promotes the idea that federal school money is ‘free’ money, and thus gives the people a distorted picture of the cost of education. I was distressed to find that five out of six high school and junior college students recently interviewed in Phoenix said they favored federal aid because it would mean more money for local schools and ease the financial burden on Arizona taxpayers. The truth, of course, is that the federal government has no funds except those it extracts from the taxpayers who resided in the various States. The money that the federal government pays to State X for education has been taken from the citizens of State X in federal taxes and comes back to them, minus the Washington brokerage fee.
—Barry Goldwater
Topics: Education
The income tax created more criminals than any other single act of government.
—Barry Goldwater
Topics: Taxes
If everybody in this town connected with politics had to leave town because of chasing women and drinking, you would have no government.
—Barry Goldwater
Topics: Politicians, Politics
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- James F. Byrnes American Elected Representative
- William H. Seward American Elected Representative
- Charles Evans Hughes American Elected Rep
- Newt Gingrich American Politician
- Herbert Hoover American Statesman
- Dan Greenberg American Elected Rep
- Horace Greeley American Journalist
- Ronald Reagan American Head of State
- Lyndon B. Johnson American Head of State
- Hubert Humphrey American Head of State
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