Best 110 quotes of Barry Goldwater on MyQuotes

I understand Jacqueline Kennedy has redone the White House in eighteenth-century style. Why, then, I'd fit in perfectly.

I've always said I have nothing against a woman doing anything a man can do as long as she gets home in time to cook dinner.

I've played everything - baseball, football, basketball. I can still swim a mile a day. That's why I can't walk.

I will offer a choice, not an echo.

I won't say that the papers misquote me, but I sometimes wonder where Christianity would be today if some of those reporters had been Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.

Most Americans have no real understanding of the operation of the international money lenders. The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited. It operates outside the control of Congress and manipulates the credit of the United States.

My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them.

My mother took us to services at the Episcopal church. Yet she always said that God was not just inside the four walls of a house of worship, but everywhere - in the rising sun over Camelback Mountain in Phoenix, a splash of water along the nearby Salt or Verde rivers, or clouds driving over the Estrella Mountains, south of downtown. I've always thought of God in those terms.

Nixon was the most dishonest individual I have ever met in my life. He lied to his wife, his family, his friends, his colleagues in the Congress, lifetime members of his own political party, the American people and the world.

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.

Once upon a time our traditional goal in war and can anyone doubt that we are at war? - was victory. Once upon a time we were proud of our strength, our military power. Now we seem ashamed of it. Once upon a time the rest of the world looked to us for leadership. Now they look to us for a quick handout and a fence-straddling international posture.

One way we exercise political freedom is to vote for the candidate of our choice. Another way is to use our money to try to persuade other voters to make a similar choice - that is, to contribute to our candidate's campaign. If either of these freedoms is violated, the consequences are very grave not only for the individual voter and contributor, but for the society whose free political processes depend on a wide distribution of political power.

On Hillary Clinton, who was an ardent Goldwater supporter in 1964: 'If he'd let his wife run business, I think he'd be better off. ... I just like the way she acts. I've never met her, but I sent her a bag of chili, and she invited me to come to the White House some night and said she'd cook chili for me. Someday, maybe.'

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.

Perserverance. . .that's been the story of my family.

Politics [is] the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.

Religious factions will go on imposing their will on others unless the decent people connected to them recognize that religion has no place in public policy. They must learn to make their views known without trying to make their views the only alternatives.

Sex and politics are a lot alike. You don't have to be good at them to enjoy them.

Small men, seeking great wealth or power, have too often and too long turned even the highest levels of public service into mere personal opportunity.

Social and cultural change, however desirable, should not be effected by the engines of national power. Let us, through persuasion and education, seek to improve institutions we deem defective. But let us, in doing so, respect the orderly processes of the law. Any other course enthrones tyrants and dooms freedom.

Some programs have been theatrical masterpieces, but all we're seeing is the negative side of nuclear war.

The best thing Clinton could do — I think I wrote him a letter about this, but I'm not sure — is to shut up. Every time I turn that radio on, there's Clinton, making a speech. And he makes speeches on a subject he doesn't know anything about. He has no discipline.

The big thing is to make this country - quit discriminating against people just because they're gay. You don't have to agree with it, but they have a constitutional right to be gay. They're American citizens.

The Conservative knows that to regard man as part of an undifferentiated mass is to consign him to ultimate slavery.

The conservative movement, to which I subscribe, has as one of its basic tenets the belief that government should stay out of people’s private lives. Government governs best when it governs least – and stays out of the impossible task of legislating morality. But legislating someone’s version of morality is exactly what we do by perpetuating discrimination against gays.

The constitution is an instrument, above all, for LIMITING the functions of government.

The effect of Welfarism on freedom will be felt later on - after its beneficiaries have become its victims, after dependence on government has turned into bondage and it is too late to unlock the jail.

The fellow has absolutely no principles."Money and gall" is all he has.

The great decisions of government cannot be dictated by the concerns of religious factions. We have succeeded for 205 years in keeping the affairs of state separate from the uncompromising idealism of religious groups and we mustn't stop now. To retreat from that separation would violate the principles of conservatism and the values upon which the framers built this democratic republic.

The income tax created more criminals than any other single act of government.

The only summit meeting that can succeed is one that does not take place.

The president, who finds so much to complain about in other areas of the world, apparently saw nothing wrong in recognizing a Communist regime that has killed more people in its short history of control over the teeming millions of that great country than any other collection of dictators or tyrants in the history of the world.

The Republicans have a positive talent for self-destruction.

There's no greater service to this country than the defense of its freedom.

The time has come to recognize the United Nations for the anti-American, anti-freedom organization that it has become. The time has come for us to cut off all financial help, withdraw as a member, and ask the United Nations to find headquarters location outside the United States that is

The Trilateralist Commission is international...(and)...is intended to be the vehicle for multinational consolidation of the commercial and banking interests by seizing control of the political government of the United States. The Trilateralist Commission represents a skillful, coordinated effort to seize control and consolidate the four centers of power - political, monetary, intellectual, and ecclesiastical.

...this bill will require the creation of a Federal police force of mammoth proportions. It also bids fair to result in the development of an 'informer' psychology in great areas of our national life-neighbors spying on neighbors, workers spying on workers, business spying on businessmen-were those who would harass their fellow citizens for selfish and narrow purposes will have ample inducement to do so. These, the Federal police force an 'informer' psychology, are the hallmarks of the police state and landmarks in the destruction of a free society.

Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed.

Throughout history civilian populations and political rulers have talked of peace. We have never been free of war. The soldier, whose profession is war, understands that peace must be enforced by superior military might. The certainty of defeat is the only effective deterrent we can use to maintain peace. Furthermore, we can be strong without being aggressive.

Throughout history, government has proved to be the chief instrument for thwarting man's liberty.

Today neither of our two parties maintains a meaningful commitment to the principle of States' Rights. The 10th Amendment is not a 'general assumption' but a rule of law. States rights mean that states have a right to act or not to act, as they see fit, in areas reserved to them.

To disagree, one doesn't have to be disagreeable.

To insist on strength ... is not war-mongering. It is peace-mongering.

To my mind the single essential element on which all discoveries will be dependent is human freedom.

Unlimited campaign spending eats at the heart of the democratic process.

We are on the Colorado — that means something more to me than electric power or a harnessed river.

We cannot allow the American flag to be shot at anywhere on earth if we are to retain our respect and prestige

We have enough trouble with women without giving them M16 rifles.

Well, once you've been in the Canyon and once you've sort of fallen in love with it, it never ends...it's always been a fascinating place to me, in fact I've often said that if I ever had a mistress it would be the Grand Canyon.